GRVT’s Strategic Funding Round

GRVT (pronounced “gravity”), a ZKsync-based hybrid crypto exchange, has raised $5 million in a strategic funding round led by Further Ventures, a venture capital firm backed by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, ADQ.

The funding round, which started last October and closed in December, was structured as equity. GRVT co-founder and CEO Hong Yea told The Block that this decision was made to reserve the GRVT token for the community while enabling the holding company to expand into multiple business lines in the future.

This funding round brings GRVT’s total capital to $14.3 million, which includes $7.1 million from pre-seed and seed rounds and a $2.2 million private token sale in March 2024.

Platform Details

GRVT’s mainnet alpha launched last month and is powered by the Ethereum Layer 2 network ZKsync, initially focusing on crypto perpetual trading. The platform reports an average of $50 million in daily trading volume, with 800 active traders and 55 institutional clients. Over 32,000 users have completed the platform’s know-your-customer (KYC) verification.

Future Plans

With fresh funding, GRVT aims to expand into crypto spot and options trading this year. They plan to upgrade from a “modified” Class M Bermuda crypto business license to a full Class F license and pursue regulatory approvals in jurisdictions like the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) license in the EU, a Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority license in Dubai, and a capital markets license in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM).

GRVT’s team has grown from 19 members last year to 52, with selective hiring for product and engineering roles planned. They also aim to launch their token in the second half of this year.

Further Ventures’ Investments

Further Ventures’ investment in GRVT follows closely after it led a $16 million funding round for crypto wallet technology firm Dfns, which GRVT utilizes. Other investments by Further Ventures include staking services provider Twinstake, crypto custodian Tungsten, crypto derivatives platform Kemet Trading, and blockchain infrastructure platform Fuze.

Mohamed Hamdy, managing partner at Further Ventures, mentioned that the firm manages $200 million in assets. He noted that the platform’s compliance-first, self-custody approach aims to merge decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional finance (TradFi), potentially enhancing crypto adoption.

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