It does appear that Ladybird has a grant from FUTO. (At least if their website can be trusted. They have a history of boosting their own image by implying relationships with projects/organizations/etc without the other organization knowing anything about it. But I think (probably?) the “Grants” section is more reliable than the “Microgrants” section on that score.)

But Tor and Signal and MicroG and Creative Commons have similarly received grants from FUTO and I wouldn’t think of them as projects that FUTO has undue influence on. (I’m pretty certain most of them preexisted FUTO, for one thing. Could be wrong on some of them. But I’m pretty certain none of those were “built by” FUTO the way, say, Grayjay was.)

But I’m still nervous about it. This might just be FUTO trying to bolster its own image by making it seem like they’re more responsible for Ladybird than they really are. (Mind you, I haven’t even watched the video because, like you, I think FUTO’s all absolute shitbags that I don’t want anything to do with.) But this post seem to be implying FUTO is more involved with Ladybird than I’d hope, if of course it can be trusted.