Abu Dhabi-backed VC firm invests $5 million in ZKsync-based crypto exchange GRVT

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. GRVT's earlier pre-seed and seed rounds included token warrants. Yea said that with Further Ventures, the equity structure was chosen to reserve the GRVT token for the community while enabling the holding company to expand into multiple business lines in the future.

The strategic funding round brings GRVT's total capital to $14.3 million, including $7.1 million from pre-seed and seed rounds and a $2.2 million private token sale in March 2024, Yea said.

GRVT's mainnet alpha launched last month, powered by 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. Yea said over 32,000 users have completed the platform's know-your-customer (KYC) verification.

With fresh funding in place, GRVT plans to expand into crypto spot and options trading this year. It also plans to upgrade its "modified" Class M Bermuda crypto business license to a full Class F license and pursue regulatory approvals in other jurisdictions, including the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) license in the European Union, a Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority license in Dubai and a capital markets license in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), Yea said.

GRVT's team has grown from 19 members last year to 52, with selective hiring planned for product and engineering roles, according to Yea. GRVT also aims to launch its token in the second half of this year.

Further Ventures' investment in GRVT follows shortly after it led a $16 million funding round for crypto wallet technology firm Dfns, whose tools GRVT uses. Other crypto investments by Further Ventures include staking services provider Twinstake, crypto custodian Tungsten, crypto derivatives platform Kemet Trading and blockchain infrastructure platform Fuze, according to its website.

Mohamed Hamdy, managing partner at Further Ventures, told The Block that the firm manages $200 million in assets. On the GRVT investment, Hamdy said the platform's compliance-first, self-custody approach aims to converge decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional finance (TradFi) and could help improve crypto adoption.

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