Original Title: 《The Gold Rush Manual: Why Benchmark and Other Top VCs Have Their Eyes on FOMO?》
Originally Published on November 14, 2025
Author: KarenZ, Foresight News
Updated on June 23, 2026:
The capital narrative for fomo has taken another step forward. On June 22, 2026, fomo announced the completion of a $75 million Series B funding round. The round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from Union Square Ventures (USV). Benchmark doubled down on its investment. Other investors include Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus, Discord CEO Humam Sakhnini, and Eventbrite co-founder Kevin Hartz. According to a report by Fortune, fomo's post-money valuation reached $550 million.
Index Ventures has previously bet on high-growth tech companies like Figma and Scale AI, and also invested in the stablecoin infrastructure Bridge, which was acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion in 2025. USV is a long-term capital partner behind crypto and internet network projects like Coinbase, Polygon, and Matter Labs. The entry of these two traditional top-tier VCs places fomo, from a crypto-native trading application, under scrutiny within the broader narrative of consumer finance and on-chain asset gateways.
Data is rising in tandem. According to official disclosures from fomo, over 625,000 users have joined the platform since its launch one year ago. Cumulative trading volume has exceeded $4 billion, generating over 110 million unique social interactions. Additionally, more than 68,000 users purchased cryptocurrency for the first time on fomo via Apple Pay (totaling $25 million).
On the product front, fomo launched perpetual contract functionality in June, powered by Hyperliquid and TradeXYZ, covering perpetual contracts for stocks, Pre-IPO assets, crypto assets, indices, and commodities. In other words, fomo is expanding from an ultra-simple on-chain trading app into a broader global trading network.
Original Article:
In recent years, the crypto industry has made rapid strides at the infrastructure level. However, truly consumer-grade crypto applications for the masses have consistently failed to break through. Issues at the user experience layer—such as fragmented blockchain ecosystems, complex wallet operations, and gas fees—remain significant hurdles for ordinary users, acting as the final barrier to mass adoption.
Fomo, a social crypto trading app that emerged in 2025, is attempting to rewrite the rules of the game by "demolishing the technical barriers to crypto trading" with an extremely simple experience. It has not only attracted over 140 top industry angel investors but also secured a $17 million Series A lead investment from Benchmark, a top-tier VC historically cautious about the crypto space, making it one of the most talked-about dark horse applications in the crypto sector this year.
Team Background: Crypto Veterans 'Attacking from a Higher Dimension'
Fomo's core positioning is "the social crypto trading mobile app for everyone." Its product design revolves around two key pillars: "eliminating technical friction" and "enhancing user connections," aiming to break the status quo of poor user experience in the crypto industry.
Fomo co-founders Paul Erlanger and Se Yong Park previously worked together at the crypto derivatives trading platform dYdX. The team includes members from companies like dYdX, Uniswap, OpenSea, Square, and Two Sigma, covering fields such as DeFi, NFT ecosystems, and traditional fintech. This "cross-domain + strong collaboration" team DNA has been key to fomo's rapid breakthrough.
Funding Path
Fomo's funding path is unconventional yet precisely targets the core of capital and resources. Instead of following the traditional "seed round → Series A" sequence, fomo first built the most豪华 early supporter network in the crypto industry through an "Angel Investor List" strategy, which then attracted the "rare bet" from top-tier firm Benchmark.
In February 2025, fomo completed a $2 million angel Pre-Seed round with support from over 140 angel investors, covering three core groups within the crypto ecosystem: builders, operators, and traders. This list includes Solana co-founder Raj Gokal, Polygon CEO Marc Boiron, Balaji Srinivasan, LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino, Berachain CEO Smokey Bera, Sei co-founder Jeffrey Feng, Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy, Privy CEO Henri Stern, Kaito CEO Yu Hu, Pantera managing partner Paul Veradittakit, Dragonfly general partner Rob Hadick, and others.
Among these angel investors are key forces from multi-chain ecosystems, providing crucial support for fomo's cross-chain technical integrations, as well as top traders who are not only early product users but also help fomo optimize trading experience and social feature design.
Fomo's founders previously revealed to TechCrunch that the team initially compiled a "dream investor list" of 200 people. Through referrals and direct communication, very few ultimately declined—a high conversion rate indicating investor recognition of the "simplifying crypto trading" vision.
In November 2025, fomo secured a $17 million Series A round led by Benchmark. Benchmark is a legendary venture capital firm whose portfolio includes world-changing consumer products like Uber, Snapchat, Instagram, and X. Benchmark has been extremely cautious about investing in consumer crypto applications—since 2018, the firm has made only a handful of investments in crypto startups, deploying capital in just a few projects in the Web3 space like Chainalysis, Toncoin, and the Web3 social protocol Towns.
Benchmark general partner Chetan Puttagunta told TechCrunch he was drawn by fomo's "clear vision" and "truly exceptional growth." He noted that three separate people proactively introduced him to fomo. After learning about fomo's growth and clear vision, Chetan Puttagunta also joined fomo's board of directors.
Other participants in this Series A round included angel investors such as Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz, Moonpay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright, and Zora CEO Jacob Horne.
Product Highlights: The Crypto Super-App of "Cross-Chain + Social"
Fomo's operation process is designed to be extremely simple. Features include using a single balance across chains, one-click purchases of any asset, no need for new wallets, no need for cross-chain bridging, and no gas fees. Even users with zero crypto experience can complete trades quickly.
- Multi-Chain Asset Coverage: Currently supports mainstream blockchains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Base, and BNB Chain, offering trading for millions of assets from major coins (like BTC, ETH) to meme coins and altcoins. The founders promise to achieve "coverage of almost all blockchain assets" within the next 6 months, eliminating the need for users to switch between multiple wallets and exchanges.
- Support for Buying Crypto Directly with Apple Pay: Users can register after downloading the app using their Google or Apple ID, without creating complex seed phrases. Top-up methods include direct crypto transfers, Apple Pay, or debit cards.
- No Gas: Zero gas fees on the user side.
- Fee Structure: A unified trading fee of 0.50%. A minimum fee of $0.95 is set only for the Solana network, with no minimum fee on lower-cost chains like Base and BNB Chain.
- Social Discovery: Fomo also features built-in social functions. Users can follow KOLs, traders, or friends to view their real-time trading records (such as buying/selling assets, portfolio changes). They can also explore "Popular Assets," "Trending Trades," and "Top Trader Rankings" to quickly capture market opportunities.
Fomo's ultimate goal is not limited to cryptocurrencies. Fomo founder Paul Erlanger told TechCrunch that the platform will gradually expand asset classes to cover traditional securities like prediction markets and bonds.
How Has Fomo Performed Data-Wise?
Since the beta version launched in May 2025, fomo's user and trading data have shown "exponential growth," validating its product model:
Source: Dune
Trading Volume: According to Dune data, as of the time of writing, fomo's cumulative trading volume is close to $850 million, generating $2.47 million in fees.
User Scale: When announcing its Series A funding, fomo stated its user base continued to grow nearly 10% week-over-week. Fomo has attracted over 120,000 users and 35,000 traders. Among them, nearly 15,000 users were first-time crypto buyers (topping up via Apple Pay). Dune data shows over 30,000 users on the fomo platform have executed more than one trade.
From an industry comparison perspective, within the Solana Bot赛道 over the past two months, fomo's transaction volume market share reached 5.5%, ranking sixth.
Source: Dune
What Are the Engagement Methods?
The core of fomo's interaction strategy is trading. It's unclear whether referrals count towards rankings, but inviting others grants a 25% fee reward from the referred user's fees.
Currently, fomo has launched a leaderboard feature within its mobile app. After attempting two small asset trades, the author's ranking entered the top 12,000.
Summary
When crypto infrastructure matures sufficiently, whoever can lower the user threshold will capture the next wave of growth.
Fomo's core value lies precisely in solving crypto's "last mile" problem—focusing on user experience optimization—which aligns perfectly with the core need for mass adoption of consumer-grade crypto applications.
Simultaneously, the angel investor lineup of over a hundred individuals and Benchmark's involvement signal that industry consensus and institutional capital are beginning to re-evaluate the long-term value of consumer crypto applications.
From a product perspective, fomo is redefining the standards for a "good trading app": not by piling on features, but by achieving extreme simplicity; not as an isolated trading tool, but as a socialized financial network.
According to official plans, fomo aims to support all assets on almost all mainstream blockchains within six months and eventually expand into prediction markets and traditional securities. Whether fomo has the potential to become a bridge connecting the crypto world with traditional finance is worth ongoing observation.
