CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – FIA today announced the winners of its annual pitch competition for startups at the FIA Expo, the derivatives industry's largest conference and trade show. The pitch competition is part of FIA’s Innovators Pavilion, a platform for introducing startups to trading firms, clearing brokers, exchanges and other firms active in the global derivatives markets.
The winners were selected by a panel of six judges with expertise in trading, technology, operations, and risk management. The judges based their decisions on presentations given by each startup during the pitch competition, which took place in two stages on 3-4 November.
This year’s winner was BridgePort. BridgePort provides institutional middleware that connects crypto exchanges, custodians and trading firms through a single coordination layer for off-exchange settlement. The platform handles real-time messaging for pre-trade credit allocation, collateral management and post-trade settlement. Trading firms can then trade across multiple venues while their assets stay with a regulated custodian, without pre-funding exchange accounts. This reduces counterparty and settlement risk and makes better use of capital.
Compute Desk won runner-up. It builds financial infrastructure for the pricing, trading and hedging of GPU rentals, a core component for the cost of providing AI compute. Its products cover the full life of a compute deal. Its customers include hyperscalers, neoclouds, AI model developers, data-center operators and lenders that finance GPU infrastructure. Compute Desk’s indexes are the reference prices for planned GPU compute futures on Nodal Exchange and Architect’s American Innovation Exchange.
Caffrey AI took home the People's Choice award. Caffrey is an AI-native platform for firms subject to regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Regulators, financial institutions and the law firms that advise them use it to research rules, maintain policies, track regulatory change and work through enforcement matters in one secure system. The platform draws on a curated library of hundreds of thousands of rules, guidance, letters and enforcement actions.
“Congratulations to these three companies," said Will Acworth, Global Head of Market Intelligence and the coordinator of the Innovator's Pavilion. "This industry was built by innovation, and the 10 startups in this year’s Pavilion carry that tradition forward. I thank our judges and selection committee for their time and expertise, and every Expo attendee who cast a vote. We look forward to watching these companies grow and bring new ideas to our markets.”
This year's judges were:
- David Allocco, Global Head of FCM, Wells Fargo Securities LLC
- Alex Gheorghe, Investor, Illuminate Financial Management LLP
- George Kalant, Head of Venture Capital, CTC, LLC
- Jennifer McKellar, Senior Director, CME Ventures, CME Group
- Scotte Moegling, Head of Business Development for Digital Asset, Virtu Financial
Keith Todd, Chairman, Sapphire Technology Group
-END-
For media inquiries, please contact FIA’s communications team – fiapr@fia.org
