QFEX Raises $9.5M Seed Round Led by General Catalyst

Key Takeaways

1. QFEX, a Y Combinator (Batch X25) startup founded by Cambridge mathematicians, raised $9.5 million in seed funding at a $95 million valuation, led by General Catalyst partner Yuri Sagalov.
2. The round includes Y Combinator, Paul Graham (YC co-founder), Nexus Venture Partners, Moonfire VC, Goodwater Capital, Liquid 2 Ventures, 468 Capital, and Ritual VC.
3. QFEX is positioning itself as the first “TradFi-native” perpetual futures platform, offering 24/7 trading of U.S. stocks, indices, commodities, and forex with up to 50x leverage and no broker intermediaries.
4. The founding team includes professionals from Citadel, Tower Research Capital, Jump Trading, Optiver, Jane Street, and Flow Traders.

Quick Recap

QFEX, an on-chain contract trading platform, has officially announced the completion of a $9.5 million seed funding round that values the company at $95 million. The round was led by Yuri Sagalov, a partner at General Catalyst, and drew participation from a heavyweight roster including Y Combinator, Paul Graham, Nexus Venture Partners, and several other institutional and angel investors. The announcement, made on March 5, 2026, marks the public launch of a platform that has been in private development since its entry into Y Combinator’s X25 batch.

Cambridge Team Eyes $100B Exchange Industry

QFEX was co-founded by Annanay Kapila (CEO) and Joshua Wharton (CTO), both Cambridge University mathematics graduates who met in 2016. Kapila previously served as one of the first members of Flow Traders’ crypto team and later worked as a quant at Tower Research Capital, where he held double-digit market share across major crypto venues. Wharton was an engineer at Citadel. The rest of the team comes from Jump Trading, HRT, Jane Street, and Optiver.

The platform is designed to function as a “TradFi-native” perpetual futures exchange, meaning it applies the always-on, no-expiry perpetual contract model popularized in crypto markets to traditional financial assets like U.S. equities, commodities, and FX pairs. QFEX offers up to 50x leverage, operates 24/7 with no trading shutdowns, and removes the need for a broker by providing direct-to-market access with volume-based fees.

On the technical side, QFEX uses a centralized limit order book (CLOB) rather than an automated market maker (AMM), which allows for microsecond-level latency, anti-HFT arbitrage protections, and circuit breakers. The platform also eliminates any need to tokenize the underlying assets. Instead, perpetual futures function as synthetic derivatives that track spot prices using data sourced directly from primary exchanges like the NYSE and CME.

QFEX supports both fiat and crypto deposits, bridging the gap between DeFi and traditional finance infrastructure. The $9.5 million in new capital will be deployed toward platform development, technological infrastructure upgrades, and expansion of market offerings as QFEX targets the $100 billion exchange and clearing industry.​

QFEX Moves Into RWA Perpetuals

The timing of this raise is significant. On-chain perpetual futures volumes surpassed $1 trillion in a single month in late 2025, and the broader perpetual DEX sector is growing rapidly with players like Hyperliquid, Lighter, and Aster pushing boundaries. However, most of this volume is concentrated in crypto-native assets. The opportunity to bring real-world assets (RWA) like stocks, commodities, and forex into perpetual markets remains largely untapped.

QFEX enters alongside Ostium Protocol as one of only a handful of platforms focused specifically on RWA perpetuals. Ostium, which raised a $20 million Series A in December 2025 led by General Catalyst and Jump Crypto, has processed $25 billion in cumulative volume but focuses primarily on commodities and metals. QFEX, by contrast, is targeting a broader basket of assets including U.S. equities with a specific focus on giving retail traders institutional-grade access.

The regulatory backdrop is also evolving. As DeFi derivatives volumes grow and traditional exchanges face increasing calls for extended trading hours, hybrid platforms like QFEX sit at a strategic intersection. CEO Annanay Kapila has stated: “For decades, retail investors have been told to accept limited hours, limited leverage and opaque intermediaries as the cost of participation. That model made sense when markets were physical and local. It makes far less sense in a digital, global economy”.

​Competitive Landscape

The perpetual futures DEX market is crowded, but QFEX occupies a distinct niche at the intersection of TradFi assets and on-chain infrastructure. Below is a comparison with two relevant competitors of similar stage or focus rather than large established platforms.

TechnoTrenz’s Takeaway

I think this is a genuinely interesting raise, and not just because of the dollar amount. A $9.5 million seed round is solid, but it is the $95 million valuation and the investor roster that grab my attention. General Catalyst leading, Y Combinator backing, and Paul Graham personally participating in a seed round for a trading platform signals real conviction from people who do not throw money around casually.

In my experience covering DeFi funding rounds, the teams that come from traditional finance quant desks tend to build products that actually work at scale, because they understand what institutional-grade execution demands. The fact that QFEX founders cut their teeth at Citadel, Tower Research, and Flow Traders gives me more confidence than the average crypto startup pitch deck.