Crypto Billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried backs London Spreadsheet Start-up Causal in $20m Funding Round
American-born billionaire and founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, has invested $20 million into Causal. The London start-up hopes to rival Microsoft Excel for finance departments and quant traders globally. Causal has created a software product for complex financial models that directly plugs into accounting systems, customer databases and other data stacks. The software allows people to collaborate and write formulas in simple English, as opposed to being based on cell locations. Abdaal, co-founder of Causal, claims that they have “public companies using us, we have startups using us and everything in between.”
Fresh Funds Used to Grow Causal’s Staff from 15 to 50 with an Emphasis on Sales
The funding from Bankman-Fried, made via FTX’s venture capital arm, will be used to grow the staff from 15 to 50, with an emphasis on sales. The fresh funds have been provided in a “Series A” funding round and other backers include Accel, London VC, Coatue Management, the hedge fund run by Philippe Laffont and the founder of business review site Yelp, Jeremy Stoppelman. Upon being asked about their valuation in the round, Abdaal declined to comment.
Founders Met While Studying Maths at Oxford University and Moved Back to London to Set Up Causal
Causal’s founders, Taimur Abdaal and Lukas Köbis, both 26 and 27 respectively, were both working in California before deciding to come back to London to start the business. They both met while studying maths at Oxford University and came together after they realised that they wanted to start a business together. Shipping back to London from California was not a problem as Abdaal claimed that “as VC (venture capital) has become less geographically constrained, you can actually stay where you are and still access the capital.”
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