Andre Cronje, the blockchain developer behind Yearn.finance, has launched a new project called Flying Tulip. The startup successfully closed a seed funding round, raising $200 million and achieving a valuation of $1 billion, earning it unicorn status.
The fundraising campaign began on August 14, 2025, and concluded within a month, without a single lead investor. Participating firms included Brevan Howard Digital, CoinFund, DWF Labs, FalconX, Hypersphere, Lemniscap, Nascent, Republic Digital, Selini, Sigil Fund, Susquehanna Crypto, Tioga Capital, and Virtuals Protocol.
Flying Tulip is structured as a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT), with the fully diluted token valuation set at $1 billion. The platform aims to create a comprehensive exchange ecosystem covering spot trading, options, speculative assets, lending, and structured yield strategies.
In addition to the private round, the team plans a public token sale of $800 million. Raised funds will be allocated to low-risk yield-generating strategies to finance operations until the platform’s products start generating revenue.
A standout feature of Flying Tulip is its perpetual put option for FT tokens, allowing both private and institutional investors to burn tokens at any time to reclaim their initial investment. At a projected 4% annual yield, the capital pool could generate up to $40 million per year, leveraging protocols like Aave, Ethena, and Spark.
According to Cronje, “Regular yield supports platform growth, incentivization, and downside protection through the perpetual put, while FT tokens retain unlimited upside potential.” Part of the proceeds will also fund token buybacks and burns, and potentially include fees collected from core platform products.
When tokens are sold on secondary markets, the perpetual put expires, and the initial capital moves to the treasury, where it will continue to support FT buybacks. All 100% of the token supply will be distributed among investors.
Flying Tulip marks another major milestone in the Web3 investment space, where projects raised $1.26 billion just last week alone.
