An increasing number of crypto companies are going public, but FTX's CEO believes it is too soon for the crypto exchange to do so.
Cryptocurrency exchange FTX raised $400 million in Series C funding yesterday. Following this latest development, FTX's valuation jumps from $25 billion to now stand at $32 billion.
The investors in the latest funding round included Temasek, Paradigm, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, NEA, IVP, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Steadview Capital, Tiger Global and Insight Partners.
However, the CEO of the exchange Sam Bankman-Fried has stated that he doesn't plan to take the company public yet. He said;
"We're not racing to go public. But we're looking at the potential, and I want to be moderately prepared for an IPO and when it seems like it would be correct to pull that trigger. But I also think it's possible that it ends up never being correct, too."
Bankman-Fried added that if FTX stays private forever, he will explore ways to repay the company's investors via some type of dividends or by buying back shares.
"We don't feel particularly compelled to race towards that faster than it would make sense. We feel like we don't have to do it, we're not convinced that there are huge reasons to do it right now, and so we want to be ready to do it but not have any mandate or necessity to."
The past few years have seen numerous crypto companies become public entities. Coinbase, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges, went public last year. Coinbase is now valued at around $41 billion, with its stock price trading at $194.
FTX's $400 million funding comes just a week after FTX.US, the United States arm of the crypto exchange, also raised $400 million. The funding saw FTX.US reach a valuation of $8 billion.
