Hedge-fund legend Steven Cohen invests in Dmitri Galinov’s 24 Exchange
24 Exchange, the OTC platform backed by Fastmatch founder Dmitri Galinov, has completed a fresh fundraising round of $14.25 million at an undisclosed valuation. The recent capital injection was led by Point72 Ventures, the venture capital firm of the hedge fund titan Steven Cohen.
The investment will support the continued expansion of 24 Exchange’s multi-asset trading platform to embrace additional asset classes, including equities and cryptocurrencies, according to a statement from the firm.
Operated by 24 Exchange Bermuda Ltd, Dmitri Galinov’s brainchild is a multi-asset class platform that combines both cryptocurrency and FX trading on a single technology. The three-year-old startup is also planning to launch a 27/7 stock exchange in the US that will enable retail investors to trade with a minimum increment of one one-thousandth of a share.
“Now that traders around the world have become very accustomed to the 24/7 availability of crypto, it is a logical extension for them to also expect to trade U.S. equities whenever they want. This opportunity to enable equity trades after market hours and on weekends is why 24 Exchange is seeking regulatory approval to establish a new equities exchange in the U.S. At the same time, 24 Exchange will continue to add new asset classes to the robust trading platform we launched for institutional traders in 2019,” Dmitri Galinov, CEO and Founder of 24 Exchange, told FinanceFeeds.
Equally notable is that several global banks and hedge funds are now backing the firm, including Standard Chartered, which made a strategic investment in 24 Exchange in 2020.
US equities trades on a 24-hour basis
Pete Casella, Partner at Point72 Ventures, added, “We believe that widespread institutional adoption of crypto will require building bridges that enable traditional financial firms to access crypto in a way that looks and feels like how they operate in other tradable assets, such as FX or derivatives. 24 Exchange is doing just that by introducing innovations like the crypto non-deliverable forward contract, which allows institutions to gain exposure to this new asset class without taking on the risk, capital requirements, and regulatory uncertainty associated with carrying the underlying asset on their balance sheet.”
Dmitri Galinov added: “In the company’s first 24 months, we’ve successfully delivered an over-the-counter FX trading solution to clients that offers significantly reduced costs and improved functionality. We look forward to putting this additional operating capital to work to further expand our offerings beyond FX Non-Deliverable Forward (NDF) trading, FX Swaps, FX Spot, and our most recent addition, cryptocurrency trading.”
24 Exchange has recently filed an application with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for a licence to run a US-regulated securities exchange. Subject to SEC approval, it would become the first national venue where stocks can be traded on a 24-hour basis, 365 days a year.
The move comes as founder Galinov, a veteran of electronic trading in FX and equities, is betting that deep-pocketed investors now want to trade stocks and currencies at the weekend.
24 Exchange claims to offer institutional market participants a more cost-effective way to trade FX NDFs through eliminating market data fees. Ultimately, 24 Exchange plans to provide end-to-end processing, and workflow services across over the counter derivatives asset classes.
The offshore OTC venue has recently onboarded of more liquidity providers streaming NDFs across all supported pairs, regardless of the underlying tenor, including those with non-standard maturities.
