Tradeweb Leads $31M Round in AI Crypto Trading Firm
Crossover Markets, an electronic trading tech firm for digital assets, has secured a $31M Series B at a $200M valuation. The round was led by Tradeweb, a major institutional trading player, signaling Wall Street's deepening commitment to AI-powered crypto trading infrastructure and execution.
The funding round for Crossover Markets wasn't just led by Tradeweb; it included a roster of high-frequency trading firms and crypto-native investors. Participants like DRW Venture Capital, Virtu Financial, Wintermute Ventures, and XTX Markets signal a deep interest from major market makers in building more robust digital asset infrastructure. The inclusion of Ripple further underscores the commitment from established blockchain players. This deal marks Tradeweb's official entry into the institutional crypto market, a strategic move CEO Billy Hult called a "natural next step." Tradeweb, a dominant force in electronic trading for asset classes like rates, credit, and equities, plans to integrate Crossover's CROSSx platform to offer its global clients access to spot crypto liquidity via its own algorithmic order-routing technology. Crossover Markets was established by a team of veterans from the foreign exchange and prime brokerage sectors. Co-founder and CEO Brandon Mulvihill previously headed global FX prime brokerage at Jefferies, while CTO Vladislav Rysin co-founded the FX ECN FastMatch, which was later acquired by Euronext. This background in traditional finance (TradFi) informs their approach to building crypto market structure. The firm's core technology, CROSSx, is an execution-only electronic communication network (ECN) designed for speed, boasting single-digit microsecond matching performance. Unlike many crypto exchanges that bundle services, Crossover focuses solely on execution, aiming to eliminate conflicts of interest and provide a neutral platform for institutional players. Since its launch, the platform has processed over $50 billion in notional trading volume across 12 million trades for nearly 100 participants.
