Andre Cronje's new crypto project Flying Tulip completes a $200 million seed round financing with a $1 billion token valuation

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the new crypto project Flying Tulip, founded by DeFi veteran Andre Cronje, has completed a $200 million private seed round financing, aiming to create an on-chain exchange that spans the "entire DeFi space"—the system will cover spot trading, derivatives trading, lending, stablecoins, and insurance services.

This $200 million financing was conducted in the form of a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT), valuing the Flying Tulip token at a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $1 billion. The financing started on August 14 and was completed within a month, without a single leading investor. Participants include Brevan Howard Digital, CoinFund, DWF Labs, FalconX, Hypersphere, Lemniscap, Nascent, Republic Digital, Selini, Sigil Fund, Susquehanna Crypto, Tioga Capital, and Virtuals Protocol.

Flying Tulip now plans to raise up to $800 million through a public sale of its FT tokens at the same $1 billion valuation. Cronje stated that this sale will take place on the Flying Tulip's own platform, rather than using existing ICO platforms.

A notable feature of this financing is the "on-chain redemption right," allowing investors to destroy FT tokens at any time to redeem the principal portion of their initial investment. Redemptions will be managed by an audited smart contract, with protective measures such as queues and rate limits to ensure solvency. If reserves are temporarily insufficient, requests will enter a transparent queue and be processed once funds are replenished. FT tokens cannot be transferred until the public sale is completed. Team members do not have initial allocations; their compensation will come from planned public market buybacks funded by free protocol revenue, thereby directly linking their upside potential to performance.