Vest Labs closed a $13 million seed round in July, the New York-based startup said Wednesday, to scale a proprietary trading model that pays qualifying retail traders up to 95% of profits from real-market perpetual futures positions funded with company capital.

The round was led by Portal Ventures, with personal participation from executives at Citadel Securities, BlackRock, and KRR. The startup previously raised approximately $10 million from Jane Street, Amber Group, and QCP Capital.

Vest Labs was cofounded by Justin Ma, Rikuya Takatsu, and Maximilian Tsiang — three friends who left the University of Pennsylvania. Ma serves as CEO.

How does Vest's payout structure differ?

Most retail prop trading firms monetize fees on simulated trading challenges: traders pay to attempt evaluations, and traders can fail repeatedly without affecting firm revenue. Vest positions itself as the inverse.

Qualifying participants in the Vest Capital program deploy firm capital on perpetual futures tied to equity indices, crypto, and commodities, then keep up to 80% of profits on standard accounts and up to 95% on specific account types. Vest earns only when its traders earn. No simulated trade, no payouts to the firm from failed challenges.

Perpetual futures are derivatives that track an underlying asset's price without an expiry date, allowing positions to remain open indefinitely as long as margin requirements are met.

What traction has the platform reported?

The company reported approximately 27,000 traders on its platform as of late September. Of those, 26% have received cash payouts settled in USDC, the dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Circle.

Vest said both monthly active users and trading volumes grew more than 300% month-over-month over an unspecified recent period. The company currently employs 22 people.

Where does crypto infrastructure fit in?

Vest runs its perpetual futures exchange on a custom risk pricing engine called zkRisk, which continuously evaluates position-level exposure to determine when trader leverage approaches platform-defined thresholds.

Payouts in USDC let the firm settle in a dollar-denominated stablecoin across borders, fitting a platform that operates continuously across crypto and traditional asset markets. The backer mix reinforces that hybrid posture: Jane Street brings traditional quantitative trading depth, while Amber Group and QCP Capital are established crypto trading firms.

What will the new capital fund?

Vest plans to direct the fresh funding toward three priorities:

• Building a mobile application for traders
• Hiring additional staff beyond the current 22-person headcount
• Expanding the range of underlying assets available on the platform

The capital deployment timeline is not yet public. Vest's growth now depends on whether its fee-free, real-capital approach can sustain unit economics that the simulated-account model has historically failed to deliver — and whether the 26% payout rate among 27,000 onboarded traders can hold as the user base expands beyond early adopters.