Vest Labs
A cross-asset trading platform and proprietary-trading business sharing profits with traders.
Website: https://www.vest.xyz/
Cover Block
Open sources
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Vest Labs |
| Tagline | A cross-asset trading platform and proprietary-trading business sharing profits with traders. [Fortune, October 2026] |
| Headquarters | New York |
| Founded | 2022 |
| Stage | Seed |
| Industry | Fintech |
| Funding label | Seed |
| Total disclosed funding | ~$13,000,000 [Fortune, October 2026] |
| Founding team | Justin Ma, Rikuya Takatsu, Maximilian Tsiang [Fortune, October 2026] |
Links
Open sources
- Website: https://www.vest.xyz/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vestlabs
- X / Twitter: https://x.com/VestLabs
What an Investor Needs First
PUBLIC Vest Labs is building Vest Markets, a cross-asset trading platform paired with a proprietary-trading business, and it merits investor attention now because it has surfaced with a newly announced $13 million seed round led by Portal Ventures and a thesis that tries to realign the economics of prop trading with trader outcomes [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026]. The company was founded in 2022 and is based in New York, with Justin Ma, Rikuya Takatsu, and Maximilian Tsiang identified in public reporting as co-founders and described as friends who left the University of Pennsylvania before graduating [Crunchbase, retrieved 2026] [Fortune, October 2026].
The product claim is straightforward, even if the operating details are still thin in public view: Vest says qualifying traders can use company capital to trade perpetual futures in live markets around the clock, and that traders may keep up to 80% of profits, with Vest taking the remainder [Fortune, October 2026] [KuCoin]. That positioning matters because the company is explicitly arguing against the standard prop-firm model, which it says often benefits when traders lose, while Vest intends to share in upside instead [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026].
On team quality, the public record is clearest on Ma, who is identified as co-founder and CEO across multiple sources, while corroboration on Takatsu and Tsiang is lighter but directionally consistent across funding coverage and profile databases [Fortune, October 2026] [BlockTelegraph] [ZoomInfo]. The financing base is notable for a seed-stage company: beyond Portal Ventures, reporting names backers and participating investors tied to Citadel Securities, BlackRock, KKR, Coinbase Ventures, Amber Group, Selini Capital, Auros, Flowdesk, and QCP Capital, although public disclosures do not establish check sizes or ownership stakes [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026].
The business model, based on available reporting, appears to combine platform economics with a profit-share from trader performance rather than fees linked to trader failure, which is a differentiated framing but still leaves key diligence questions around acquisition, risk controls, and sustainability of returns unanswered in public materials [Fortune, October 2026] [Crypto Briefing]. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the important markers are less about headline funding and more about whether Vest can show live-market adoption, evidence that its trader-aligned structure attracts durable order flow, and clearer proof that its risk and margining architecture can support continuous trading without forcing the company back toward the incentives it says it wants to avoid [Fortune, October 2026] [Signalbase].
Partially corroborated -- Core facts are supported by Fortune and corroborated in part by Invezz, Crunchbase, and founder profile databases, but several product and architecture details remain company-adjacent or single-source.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Seed |
| Industry / Vertical | Fintech |
| Founding Team | Justin Ma, Rikuya Takatsu, Maximilian Tsiang |
| Funding | Approximately $13,000,000 disclosed seed funding [Fortune, October 2026] |
Inside the Company
PUBLIC
Vest Labs appears in the public record as a New York based fintech startup founded in 2022, with a company profile centered on digital-asset trading infrastructure rather than a consumer brokerage product [Crunchbase]. The company website presents the business simply as Vest Labs, while Crunchbase describes it as offering an advanced financial exchange for digital assets [Vest Labs, retrieved 2026] [Crunchbase].
The chronology that can be established from company-controlled and directory-style sources is still short. Crunchbase lists the company as founded in 2022 and headquartered in New York [Crunchbase]. The company website confirms the Vest Labs name and public web presence, and Crunchbase records seed financing in the company profile, though the cleaner public milestone is the later disclosed seed round rather than the earlier undetailed entries carried by startup databases [Vest Labs, retrieved 2026] [Crunchbase].
Partially corroborated -- Grounded in Crunchbase and the company website, with limited detail on legal entity and early milestones from those public sources alone.
Under the Hood
Under the Hood
MIXED Vest Labs is still best understood through its market structure rather than a feature checklist. Public reporting describes the company as building Vest Markets, a cross-asset trading platform paired with a proprietary-trading business, with the core claim that it shares in trader profits instead of benefiting when traders lose [Fortune, October 2026]. Fortune and KuCoin both report that qualifying traders can use company capital to trade perpetual futures in live markets around the clock, and can retain up to 80% of profits under Vest's model [Fortune, October 2026] [KuCoin].
The more technical description is thinner and should be read with caution. Crunchbase characterizes Vest Labs as a digital-asset exchange, while Signalbase says the company is integrating matching, clearing, settlement, risk management, and margining into a single vertically integrated platform [Crunchbase] [Signalbase]. Those statements are directionally useful, but they do not amount to a verified product demo, nor do they establish which components are already live versus still under construction.
What is visible in public sources, then, is a product thesis centered on trader alignment and market infrastructure control. If Vest can pair proprietary capital access with its own execution and risk stack, the company may be aiming to capture both trader demand and liquidity economics, but that remains an analytical inference from the public descriptions rather than an observed operating result [Fortune, October 2026] [Signalbase].
Partially corroborated -- Core product claims are corroborated by Fortune and KuCoin, while the deeper infrastructure description relies on database and profile sources such as Crunchbase and Signalbase.
Market Research
PUBLIC
The market matters now because Vest is trying to sit at the intersection of two active pools of demand, retail and semi-professional appetite for leveraged crypto trading, and renewed investor interest in exchange infrastructure that can align trading incentives more cleanly than legacy prop models [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026].
The difficulty is that the available public record does not provide a direct TAM, SAM, or SOM for Vest Labs itself from a named third-party market report. What the record does support is the shape of the category. Fortune and Invezz both describe Vest Markets as a cross-asset trading platform and proprietary-trading business, with a model built around giving qualifying traders access to company capital and letting them keep up to 80% of profits from perpetual futures trading [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026]. That places Vest in an adjacent market spanning crypto derivatives venues, prop-trading programs, and trading infrastructure for continuous markets, rather than in a conventional retail brokerage category.
A narrower way to frame demand is by product behavior rather than headline market size. Vest's wedge, according to Fortune, is that traditional prop firms often profit when traders fail, while Vest intends to share the upside when traders succeed [Fortune, October 2026]. If that framing resonates, the addressable demand is likely tied to traders who want capital access, round-the-clock execution, and economics that feel less adversarial than evaluation-fee driven prop firms. That is an investable thesis, but public evidence at this stage supports the existence of the thesis more clearly than the size of the opportunity.
The nearest substitute and adjacent markets are easier to identify than to quantify from the present source set. Vest's own positioning touches crypto perpetuals trading, exchange and matching infrastructure, and digital-asset risk and margin systems, with Crunchbase and Signalbase describing the company as an advanced exchange for digital assets and, more speculatively, a vertically integrated stack spanning matching, clearing, settlement, risk management, and margining [Crunchbase] [Signalbase]. Those descriptions suggest Vest is not only competing for trader attention, but also for order flow and liquidity that might otherwise sit with centralized exchanges, external prop firms, or other derivative trading venues.
A small set of public market claims captures that positioning more honestly than a forced sizing exercise.
| Market angle | Public evidence | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Crypto derivatives / perpetual futures | Vest lets qualifying traders use company money to trade perpetual futures in live markets around the clock [Fortune, October 2026] [KuCoin] | Core demand likely rises with sustained interest in always-on leveraged trading. |
| Proprietary trading programs | Vest says it will share traders' profits rather than profit when traders lose [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026] | The bet is that trader-aligned economics can pull users from incumbent prop models. |
| Exchange infrastructure | Vest is building Vest Markets as a cross-asset platform; third-party databases also describe exchange-like functionality for digital assets [Fortune, October 2026] [Crunchbase] | The company may be competing partly on venue design, not only on trader acquisition. |
| Digital-asset risk systems | Signalbase describes a stack integrating matching, clearing, settlement, risk management, and margining [Signalbase] | If accurate, the product ambition reaches beyond front-end trading access into core market plumbing. |
from the table is straightforward: the public case for Vest is strongest as a category-convergence bet, not yet as a neatly bounded market-sizing story. Investors can see the demand vector, but the available evidence does not yet support precise share assumptions.
Macro and regulatory conditions cut both ways. The positive case is that crypto trading remains a 24/7 global activity, which makes continuous execution, margining, and capital access structurally relevant to active traders [Fortune, October 2026] [KuCoin]. The constraint is that any business tied to perpetual futures, trader funding, and exchange-style market structure is exposed to shifting oversight around derivatives access, capital treatment, and market conduct, especially if the company expands across jurisdictions. Public materials here do not establish Vest's regulatory footprint, so the cleaner read is that regulation is a gating variable for market expansion rather than a solved advantage.
A final nuance is timing. Vest raised a $13 million seed led by Portal Ventures in October 2026, with participation reported from investors and senior executives tied to major financial institutions and crypto firms [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026] [TechFlow, October 2026]. That does not prove product-market fit, but it does indicate there is investor appetite for new market-structure companies that promise better alignment between traders and venue economics. In a market where trust in incentives often matters as much as raw execution quality, that may be the most relevant tailwind in the near term.
Partially corroborated -- Market framing is supported by Fortune and Invezz, but no independent third-party market sizing report or verified numeric segmentation was available in the cited public sources.
Competition and Substitutes
Landscape
MIXED Vest Labs is positioning itself less as a conventional software venue and more as a trader-aligned market operator, which puts it in competition with both market intelligence platforms and proprietary-trading models rather than with a single clean peer set [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026].
| Company | Positioning | Stage / Funding | Notable Differentiator | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vest Labs | Building Vest Markets, a cross-asset trading platform and proprietary-trading business that shares profits with qualifying traders using company capital for perpetual futures trading | Seed, $13 million disclosed in July 2026 round led by Portal Ventures | Trader-aligned payout model, with traders able to keep up to 80% of profits according to coverage | [Fortune, October 2026]; [Invezz, October 2026] |
| Messari | Crypto market intelligence and research platform | Stage and funding not established in the provided source set | Competes more as an information and analytics layer than as a trading-capital venue | [Tracxn, retrieved 2026] |
The competitive map is narrower than it first appears. In the direct lane, Vest is trying to win traders who want capital access and continuous exposure to perpetual futures, with an economic structure that, according to Fortune and Invezz, is designed to profit when traders do rather than when they fail [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026]. In the adjacent lane sit information and workflow products such as Messari, which can influence trader behavior and research workflow but do not appear, from the provided source set, to offer the same principal-capital-and-profit-share construct [Tracxn, retrieved 2026].
Vest's clearest edge today is conceptual alignment, backed by capital. The July 2026 seed round brought in $13 million and a syndicate that includes Portal Ventures as lead, with reported participation from Coinbase Ventures, Amber Group, Selini Capital, Auros, Flowdesk, and QCP Capital, while additional reporting tied individual participation to executives associated with Citadel Securities, BlackRock, and KKR [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026] [TechFlow, October 2026]. That matters because a prop-style model needs both balance-sheet credibility and market-structure fluency, but the durability of this edge is still unproven: payout generosity is perishable if competitors can match economics, and the current public record does not yet show customer lock-in, liquidity depth, or proprietary data advantages.
The main exposure is that Vest is early, while adjacent players can own trader attention without taking the same operating risk. Messari's advantage, to the extent supported here, is category clarity: it is recognized as a crypto intelligence product rather than a new market venue, which can make adoption lighter-weight for users who only need research and analytics rather than capital access and execution infrastructure [Tracxn, retrieved 2026]. Vest is also making a broader systems claim, with secondary databases describing a vertically integrated stack across matching, clearing, settlement, risk management, and margining, but those descriptions rely on lower-confidence sources and are not yet corroborated by disclosed production metrics or customer references [Signalbase, retrieved 2026] [Crunchbase, retrieved 2026].
The most plausible 18-month scenario is a split market in which Vest wins if trader acquisition responds to its payout structure and if its backers help it translate funding credibility into live market participation [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026]. In that case, Vest would be the winner if aligned economics convert into sustained trader activity. Messari would be the loser if more active traders shift budget and attention from research tools toward venues that combine capital, execution, and upside participation, though that outcome remains conditional because the two products still occupy only partially overlapping jobs-to-be-done [Tracxn, retrieved 2026].
Opportunity
PUBLIC
The prize here is not a niche prop shop, but a trader-facing market venue that could capture economics from execution, liquidity, and capital provision if Vest can turn its aligned payout model into a durable trading destination [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026].
The headline opportunity rests on a simple point: Vest is trying to change where trader loyalty sits. Public reporting describes Vest Markets as a cross-asset trading platform and proprietary-trading business that lets qualified traders use company capital to trade perpetual futures in live markets around the clock, while keeping up to 80% of profits [Fortune, October 2026] [KuCoin]. That matters because the company is not positioning itself only as a software interface or only as a capital provider. Signalbase describes a broader ambition to integrate matching, clearing, settlement, risk management, and margining into a single platform, which, if achieved, would move Vest closer to market infrastructure than to a conventional prop firm [Signalbase]. The path is still early, but the combination of a $13 million seed round led by Portal Ventures and participation from backers tied to trading and crypto market structure suggests the concept has attracted informed capital rather than only retail-facing enthusiasm [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026].
The upside branches into a small number of concrete paths rather than one monolithic bet.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trader-aligned prop venue | Vest becomes a scaled destination for independent traders seeking capital and better payout alignment, earning a share of profitable activity across a growing trader base | A live market launch that proves traders can keep up to 80% of profits under real conditions [Fortune, October 2026] [KuCoin] | The company is already explicitly built around profit-sharing rather than trader loss economics, which is the clearest public product differentiator today [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026] |
| Verticalized crypto market stack | Vest expands from a prop model into an integrated exchange and risk stack, capturing more of the trade lifecycle from execution through margin and settlement | Delivery of the vertically integrated platform described in public profiles, especially matching plus risk management in one system [Signalbase] [Crunchbase] | Public descriptions consistently frame the company as more than a payout program, with references to an exchange for digital assets and an integrated market structure layer [Crunchbase] [Signalbase] |
| Institutional liquidity bridge | Vest uses its backer network and product design to attract liquidity providers and more professional trading flows, improving market quality and broadening monetization | Conversion of investor and ecosystem relationships into trading counterparties, liquidity support, or distribution [Invezz, October 2026] [Fortune, October 2026] | The cap table includes investors and participants associated with crypto trading, market making, and financial institutions, which does not guarantee commercial traction but does make that route credible [Invezz, October 2026] [Fortune, October 2026] |
The compounding logic is straightforward if the product works in production. Better trader economics can attract stronger traders, stronger traders can support deeper and more continuous activity, and deeper activity can make the venue more attractive to additional traders and liquidity providers. If Vest also controls more of the stack, as public profiles suggest it intends to, then each incremental user could improve not only volume but also internal risk pricing, margin efficiency, and retention [Signalbase] [Fortune, October 2026]. There is not yet public evidence that this flywheel is operating at scale, and that distinction matters. What is visible today is the design intent: round-the-clock perpetual futures trading with company capital, an explicit share-of-profits model, and a product framing that extends beyond a standalone prop challenge business [Fortune, October 2026] [KuCoin] [Crunchbase].
The size of the win is easiest to frame directionally because public market, revenue, and customer data are still thin. If Vest were to become a meaningful crypto trading venue with a differentiated capital-and-risk model, the outcome would likely be benchmarked against exchange and market infrastructure businesses rather than against software-only fintechs. No public valuation was disclosed for the 2026 seed round [Fortune, October 2026] [Invezz, October 2026]. On the evidence available, the defensible statement is narrower: a company that successfully combines trader acquisition, exchange mechanics, and embedded risk management could support venture-scale outcomes well beyond a standard seed-fintech profile (scenario, not a forecast), particularly because the business could monetize several layers of the transaction stack instead of relying on subscription revenue alone [Signalbase] [Crunchbase] [Fortune, October 2026].
Partially corroborated -- Section relies primarily on Fortune and Invezz reporting, with supplemental company profile descriptions from Crunchbase and Signalbase that are only partially corroborated.
Sources
Open sources
[Fortune, October 2026] Exclusive: Portal Ventures-backed Vest raises $13 million to build a proprietary trading firm that shares traders’ profits. | https://fortune.com/2026/10/07/exclusive-portal-ventures-vest-13-million-proprietary-trading-firm-traders-profits/
[Invezz, October 2026] Vest raises $13M to build a prop trading firm that doesn’t bet against its traders. | https://invezz.com/news/2026/10/07/vest-raises-13m-to-build-a-prop-trading-firm-that-doesnt-bet-against-its-traders/
[Crunchbase, retrieved 2026] Vest Labs | Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/vest-2462
[KuCoin] Vest Completes $13M Seed Round Led by Portal Ventures | KuCoin | https://www.kucoin.com/news/flash/vest-completes-13m-seed-round-led-by-portal-ventures
[BlockTelegraph] Vest Raises $13M To Build A Prop Trading Firm That Doesn’t Bet Against Its Traders | https://blocktelegraph.io/vest-raises-13m-to-build-a-prop-trading-firm-that-doesnt-bet-against-its-traders/
[ZoomInfo] Maximilian Tsiang | ZoomInfo | https://www.zoominfo.com/
[Crypto Briefing] Vest raises $13M to build a prop trading firm that profits when its traders do | https://cryptobriefing.com/vest-raises-13m-prop-trading-firm/
[Signalbase] Vest Labs company profile | https://signalbase.com/
[Vest Labs, retrieved 2026] Vest Labs | https://www.vest.xyz/
[TechFlow, October 2026] Vest completes $13 million seed round, led by Portal Ventures. | https://www.techflowpost.com/en-US/newsletter/139094
[Tracxn, retrieved 2026] Vest Labs | 2026 Company Profile, Funding & Competitors | Tracxn | https://tracxn.com/d/companies/vestlabs/__58ozQw_mRclnRV7UBWY4GkRVHw5-7nLpwuqONuu6H6c
Articles about Vest Labs
- Vest Labs' $13 Million Seed Backs a Prop Firm That Profits With Its Traders — Portal Ventures leads a round with Citadel, BlackRock, and KKR executives betting on a profit-sharing model for perpetual futures trading.