Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

VCs live by FOMO. Smart founders use that against them

fastcompany.com · 1d · first reportShare

In June 2026, a social crypto startup called Fomo raised $75 million in a round led by Index Ventures. The company’s name is apt: It builds virality (and FOMO) by allowing users to follow and copy top traders’ moves on the platform. The FOMO doesn’t stop there. The press release announcing the deal is a master class in FOMO generation. It mentions the “strong participation” of the blue-chip venture capitalist firms Union Square Ventures and Benchmark. It discloses staggering user, trading, and engagement metrics. It ties itself to the mainstreaming of on-chain markets, citing NYSE and Nasdaq’s own moves into tokenization as proof it’s capturing the zeitgeist. It quotes a top trader’s belief that the platform could become “the largest trading app in the world.” If you think about it, that press release is doing a lot . From top to bottom it feels designed to manufacture the one thing that keeps VCs up at night (besides planning their camp at Burning Man): the vivid, specific anxiety tha