By Ketki Saxena
Investing.com -- Tribe Capital, a venture firm that invested in FTX before it collapsed, is reportedly interested in leading a $250 million fund-raising campaign for a potential plan to reboot the cryptocurrency exchange. According to sources familiar with the matter, Arjun Sethi, co-founder of Tribe met with FTX’s committee of unsecured creditors last January to discuss their informal proposal. T
he San Francisco-based firm is said to be considering anchoring the funding round with $100 million from itself and its limited partners.
Tribe has been an investor in both FTX and its American entity, FTX US since 2018. With over $1.6 billion under management, they invest in various startups including Kraken – another crypto platform, payments company Bolt and e-commerce vendor Shiprocket.
FTX's new CEO John J Ray III aims to decide whether restarting operations is feasible by Q2 this year as per bankruptcy court presentations. However, Andrew G Dietderich - attorney for the company stated during a hearing last week that assessing such an idea was still at an early stage and would require significant cash infusion which might come from third-party investors.
Sources reveal that Tribe's informal proposal included estimated accounts of about 9 million customers across several entities like LedgerX,FXT Australia ,FXT Japan ,FXT EU etc., but excluded assets like venture capital portfolio or other cryptocurrencies among others. If restarted, the new exchange will continue using the name 'FTX'.
It should be noted though that any efforts towards relaunching may face significant regulatory challenges due to compliance issues. Furthermore, Ray who steered Enron Corp through bankruptcy calls FTW "the worst failure of corporate controls" he had ever seen.
Representatives for Tribe Capital, FTX’s current management, and the committee of unsecured creditors all declined to comment on this matter.