Flying Tulip Raises $200M, Prepares $800M FT Token Sale

Andre Cronje’s Flying Tulip, a full-stack DeFi exchange, closed a $200 million SAFT-based seed round at a $1 billion fully diluted valuation. The New York–based platform will host an $800 million public sale of its native FT token on-chain, bypassing traditional ICO venues. Flying Tulip integrates spot and derivatives markets, lending, money markets, a native stablecoin (ftUSD) and on-chain insurance under a cross-margin system. Its signature feature is an on-chain Redemption Right: investors can burn FT tokens to reclaim their initial contribution, capping downside. During the public sale, FT tokens are non-transferable to curb arbitrage. No team allocations will be issued at launch; instead, the team will use protocol revenues to buy back tokens via scheduled buybacks. Seed funding remains invested across protocols like Aave and Spark at about 4% yield, generating roughly $40 million annually for development, ecosystem incentives and buybacks. Flying Tulip plans to launch first on the Sonic chain with zero-fee trading, then expand to Ethereum, Avalanche, BNB Chain and Solana.