Exclusive: Index Ventures, Union Square Ventures back trading app Fomo at $550 million valuation
Two established investors are feeling crypto FOMO. Index and Union Square Ventures have backed the crypto startup Fomo, named after the acronym for “fear of missing out,” the company announced on Monday. Index Ventures led the $75 million Series B fundraise, which valued Fomo at $550 million. Other participants include Zygna cofounder Mark Pincus, Discord CEO Humam Sakhnini, and Eventbrite cofounder Kevin Hartz.
In the doldrums of a crypto down market, it’s rare to see established venture firms that don’t exclusively focus on digital assets lead a fundraise for a crypto startup. Still, Index, which has made its name for bets on non-crypto companies like Figma and Scale AI, isn’t a stranger to the world of blockchain. The Geneva-born firm has backed the stablecoin startup Bridge, which Stripe acquired for $1.1 billion in 2025. Similarly, Union Square Ventures has invested in the blockchain Polygon and crypto developer Matter Labs.
“We’re not doing Fomo because it’s a crypto business,” Julia Andre, a partner at Index Ventures, told me. “We’re doing Fomo because we think there is a market shift there, and they have what it takes to capture this next wave of consumer blockchain trading.”
Not a crypto app
The fear of missing out often pushes traders to pile into buzzy memecoins or the newest, hottest token. And it’s a phenomenon Fomo cofounders Paul Erlanger, Se Yong Park, and Prashan Dharmasena saw firsthand while working at the crypto trading platform dYdX.
The trio also witnessed how difficult trading digital assets can be. There are thousands of cryptocurrencies, countless blockchains, arcane fees to pay for swapping tokens, and complicated onboarding processes. “Onchain trading is just impossible,” Erlanger told me.
So, in 2025, they set out to create an online and mobile app that simplified the experience. “Someone should be able to onboard into Fomo, fund their account, and buy a token within like 30 seconds, regardless of if they’re familiar with crypto or not,” Dharmasena said.
Their startup’s name is short for “fearless,” not fear, of missing out, said Erlanger. “The goal on Fomo is that you never miss out again,” he added. To that end, Fomo has a leaderboard that shows the top traders, a feed that shows users’ latest trades, and the ability to share your trading history on social media.
That push for simplicity and the tie-in to socially-motivated trading resonated with the startup’s backers. A collection of 140 angel investors—including Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron, onetime Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, and Solana cofounder Raj Gokal—contributed to their seed round. And the crypto-shy Benchmark led the startup’s $17 million Series A.
But Fomo isn’t meant to be a platform for only cryptocurrencies, said Erlanger. He believes the app can be a broader gateway to finance as companies put stocks, derivatives, and a whole host of assets on the blockchain. In June, Fomo listed perpetuals, a type of futures contract with no expiration date. “The goal is for it not to be seen as a crypto app,” Erlanger said.
That’s the same strategy that financial giants like Coinbase and Robinhood are pursuing. But Fomo’s cofounders believe they can be competitive, even with the trading giants. Their app is non-custodial, meaning they don’t handle customers’ money, which arguably exempts the platform from money-handling laws. (“We do everything we can to remain compliant,” said Fomo cofounder Park.)
Fomo lists more assets than Coinbase, is available globally, and is onboarding around 3,500 new users per day, said Park. While the startup only has 17 employees, it plans to use its new injection of capital to hire more engineers—and maybe even acquire smaller companies. “The goal is,” proclaimed Erlanger, “to be the largest trading app in the world.”
See you tomorrow,
Ben Weiss
X: @bdanweiss
Email: benjamin.weiss@fortune.com
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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