NEW YORK, June 22, 2026, 08:02 EDT
- Fomo raised $75 million in a Series B led by Index Ventures at a $550 million valuation.
- The deal comes as Bitcoin trades back above $64,000 and search interest in crypto shows signs of recovery.
- Retail FX firms are adding crypto products, but regulation and 24/7 trading demands remain pressure points.
Fomo, a consumer crypto trading app started by former dYdX staff, raised $75 million in new funding led by Index Ventures, a deal that values the startup at $550 million and points to fresh investor appetite for retail trading platforms after a bruising crypto pullback. Union Square Ventures also joined the round, Fortune reported.
The timing matters. Bitcoin was trading near $64,587 on Monday and ether near $1,765, steadier than during the early-June selloff, while market watchers are tracking whether retail traders are returning after months of weaker activity.
Search data is part of that turn. KuCoin’s news feed said global search volume for crypto rose in June, with trading volume also showing signs of recovery, after Bitcoin stabilized around $62,260 earlier this month.
Fomo was founded in 2025 by Paul Erlanger, Se Yong Park and Prashan Dharmasena after they worked at crypto derivatives platform dYdX. The app is trying to strip out some of the frictions of on-chain trading — transactions that happen directly on a blockchain — including multiple wallets, fees and hard-to-follow token listings.
Index partner Julia Andre told Fortune the firm was backing Fomo not simply as “a crypto business,” but because it saw a “market shift.” Erlanger was blunter about the pain point the company wants to solve: “Onchain trading is just impossible,” he told the publication. Fortune
The app has leaned into social trading, with leaderboards, feeds showing user trades and tools for sharing trading history. Fomo also listed perpetuals in June — futures-style contracts with no expiry date — as it tries to move beyond spot token trading.
That puts the startup near bigger names with deeper balance sheets. Coinbase and Robinhood are also trying to make crypto and tokenized finance easier for mainstream users, while decentralized trading venues such as dYdX remain important for more advanced traders. Fomo says it is non-custodial, meaning it does not hold customer funds, a structure its backers see as part of the pitch but one that may not remove all compliance questions.
The broader retail-trading industry is moving the same way. A Gold-i and Finance Magnates survey of 110 respondents across FX and CFD brokers, prop trading firms and liquidity providers found that 91% already offer crypto trading, while 78% reported strong client uptake.
Gold-i Chief Executive Tom Higgins said crypto was “no longer a peripheral opportunity” for retail brokers and prop firms, but he warned that adding the asset class is not just a menu change. Brokers need systems that can run around the clock, manage flow and cope with rapid price updates, he said. Finance Magnates
There is still a weak spot. The same survey found 55% of respondents cited regulatory uncertainty as the biggest barrier to offering or expanding crypto trading, while 25% pointed to the need for 24/7 support. Nearly half were not fully confident their current infrastructure could support crypto trading at scale.
Search interest also cuts both ways. Crypto.News, citing Alphractal data, said June searches showed renewed attention, but not proof of new buying; the report noted that search spikes can appear during fear as well as rallies. That is the main risk in reading too much into the rebound. Attention is not yet capital.
For Fomo, the bet is that the next wave of retail crypto trading looks less like a specialist exchange and more like a fast mobile brokerage with social cues built in. The $75 million round gives it room to hire engineers and chase that market, but the test will be whether users who search, watch and open accounts keep trading when volatility returns.
