Vest Closes $13 Million Seed Funding Round, Building a Profit-Sharing Crypto Proprietary Trading Platform

On October 8, as reported by Fortune, New York-based startup Vest Labs announced the completion of a $13 million seed round, which closed in July this year. The round was led by Portal Ventures, with participation from individual investors including executives from Citadel Securities, BlackRock, and KKR.

Co-founded by University of Pennsylvania dropouts Justin Ma, Rikuya Takatsu, and Maximilian Tsiang, the platform allows qualified traders to use the company's capital around the clock to trade perpetual futures contracts. Traders can earn profit shares of up to 80%, differentiating it from the traditional proprietary trading firm model that charges users fees for demo accounts. The company plans to use the funding to develop a mobile application, expand its 22-person team, and broaden its range of tradable assets.