Crypto Market Maker by Former Citadel Execs Raises $50M
Two former executives of the leading investor in the world’s financial markets, Citadel Securities, Leonard Lancia and Alex Casimo, have raised $50 million for their own crypto market maker. The company also plans to invest in crypto assets via web 3 projects.
Ex-Citadel Security executives originally launched their own market maker in April 2021 and called it Portofino Technology. The platform aims to enable high-frequency trading (HFT) and provide advanced features to users of digital assets to web 3 and other institutions. It provides liquidity services to web 3 crypto users and relies on highly efficient and fast algorithms to open and close a trade seamlessly.
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Moreover, it offers strategic partnership to web 3 startups that want to list tokens. The company claims to have already traded billions of funds on centralized and decentralized exchanges.
Venture capitalists who backed the funding round include Global Founders Capital, Valar Ventures and Coatue.
Lancia, Co-Founder and CEO of Portfolio Technology, added in the statement;
Having worked at the forefront of the modernization of traditional markets, we believe our liquidity provision infrastructure can provide enormous benefits to digital asset participants globally and drive the next stage of adoption. This is just the beginning for Portofino. In web3, every action is a transaction, and we are building the underlying technology that will enable completely new services and industries in the future.
Having enabled investors to access liquidity at highly competitive rates, the company intends to expand its reach throughout the crypto space, including non-fungible tokens (NFT), Decentralized Finance (DeFi), ecosystem tokens based on games, etc.
Crypto Market Maker plans to expand globally
Switzerland-based startup Portfino Technology described in the press release that the platform employs 35 technology experts working in Portfonio’s offices in New York, London and Singapore, and it plans to further increase the number of employees by 50 in 2022. The company has not expressed its valuation yet.
Portofino’s funds have been accumulated amid the prolonged bloodbaths and inflation that wiped out billions of dollars from the crypto market. That fueled further selling pressure, and lawmakers added fuel to the fire with their aggressive approach to digital assets.
Correspondingly, this climate led the market towards lower trading volume and fewer arbitrage opportunities. And that also increased borrowing costs. But Portofino Technology can compete with major market makers on utilization using its car inventory management and unique algorithms.
Commenting on the launch of Portofino Technology, Oliver Samwer, Global Founders Capital investor and CEO of Rocket Internet, added;
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We are very excited about the potential of Portofino. It’s rare to find a founding team with such amazing expertise to solve the problems that digital asset players are facing today. We are convinced that this is the right team to help facilitate the next phase of institutional and retail in this market.
Featured image from Pixabay and chart from TradingView.com
