Ex-Coinbase, Jump, and Citadel Quants Secure $20M to Build Onchain HFT Platform
Former Wall Street talent turns to DeFi with a $30M push into onchain trading
Web3 startup aPriori has secured $20 million in fresh funding, bringing its total to $30 million, as it seeks to bring high-frequency trading (HFT) onchain and build out infrastructure for institutional investors in decentralized finance (DeFi).
The round drew backing from Pantera Capital, HashKey Capital, Primitive Ventures, IMC Trading, Gate Labs, and others, underscoring growing confidence in professional-grade DeFi markets.
A Wall Street–engineered platform for DeFi
Founded in 2023 in San Francisco, aPriori is led by former quant traders and engineers with experience at Coinbase, Jump Trading, and Citadel Securities.
The platform is designed to solve structural inefficiencies in DeFi markets, including:
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Wide spreads that deter institutional traders
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Miner Extractable Value (MEV) leakage
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Toxic order flow, which in traditional finance exposes liquidity providers to unfair risks
Competition heating up in institutional DeFi
APriori joins a rising group of startups building institutional-grade DeFi trading tools. Earlier this year, Theo raised $20 million from backers including Citadel, Jane Street, and JPMorgan to pursue similar strategies. Other platforms include:
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Aevo (formerly Ribbon), focused on derivatives and options infrastructure
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dYdX, a decentralized exchange scaling into new markets
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Cega, developing structured onchain financial products
Why institutions are looking at DeFi
Institutional demand for DeFi continues to accelerate, driven by three main factors:
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Regulatory clarity in key jurisdictions
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Higher potential yields compared to traditional markets
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The efficiency of blockchain settlement
Decentralized markets have outperformed traditional money markets in yield. According to RWA.xyz, tokenized private credit markets currently deliver an average annual percentage rate (APR) of 9.76%. This market segment is worth approximately $15.6 billion, representing more than half of all tokenized activity onchain.
Meanwhile, traditional institutions are experimenting with crypto-aligned models. For instance, JPMorgan Asset Management committed up to $500 million to Numerai, an AI-driven hedge fund that crowdsources trading models. Numerai, launched in 2017, was among the first to issue a native token—signaling the ongoing convergence of quantitative finance and blockchain technology.
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