Paul Erlanger is the Co-Founder and CEO of fomo, the social-first trading platform building the future of on-chain investing
Since founding the company in 2025, Paul has raised approximately $94 million, including a $17 million Series A led by Benchmark and a $75 million Series B led by Index Ventures with participation from USV, valuing the company at $550 million
Today, fomo has grown to 600,000 users, processed over $4 billion in trading volume, and is adding thousands of new users every day—all with a team of just 17 people
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:31 What Is fomo
02:37 Why Paul Did an Angel-Only Round With 140 Investors
04:22 How to Scale to Your First 1,000 Users
06:01 Why the Financial Super App Theory Is Wrong
10:06 Are Public Markets Just a Casino Now?
12:06 Ship Fast vs Ship Perfect
14:15 How Chase Supported fomo at the Inflection Point
26:22 Will 20% of Dev Salaries Go to Tokens?
29:07 Why There’s Been No Big Social Company Since Snap
31:05 How to Build Momentum & Viral Loops Into a Product
32:41 Why fomo Is Becoming a Media Company
38:57 How Index & USV Led the Series B
44:50 Why Europe Is Winning in Fintech While the US Falls Behind
46:37 Quick-Fire Round
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