Perpl Trade raises $9M seed

Perpl said on May 13, 2025 that it raised $9.25 million to build a perpetual futures exchange on Monad, adding a new entrant to the crowded market for crypto derivatives venues. The company said Dragonfly Capital led the round and that Ergonia, Mirana, BHD, Hashkey, L1D, CMS and Breed also participated. Perpl described itself as a fully on-chain perpetual futures exchange built natively on Monad, an EVM-compatible blockchain. The company said the new capital will be used to expand its team, build its trading engine, develop its interface and test infrastructure ahead of launch. ### Who put money into the round? Dragonfly Capital was named by Perpl as the lead investor in the $9.25 million round. Perpl’s announcement also listed Ergonia, Mirana, BHD, Hashkey, L1D, CMS and Breed as participants. FinSMEs, citing the company, reported the same investor lineup on May 22, 2025. (blog.perpl.xyz) The figure is slightly above the $9 million shorthand that circulated in social funding posts. Perpl’s own announcement put the amount at $9.25 million. ### What is Perpl building on Monad? Perpl said it is building a fully on-chain perpetual futures exchange with an on-chain central limit order book on Monad. (blog.perpl.xyz) In its announcement, the company said the product is aimed at combining performance, usability and decentralization on a high-performance EVM blockchain. Blockworks reported that Perpl plans to use Monad’s EVM architecture for that order-book design. Perpl said users on Monad would get low gas costs, faster and more deterministic transactions, self-custody of assets and censorship resistance through distributed validators. Those are the product claims the company highlighted in explaining why it chose Monad rather than launching its own chain. (blog.perpl.xyz) ### Why are perpetuals the focus? Perpetual futures are a large share of crypto trading volume, and Perpl’s announcement said decentralized exchanges still trail centralized venues in market share because of infrastructure limits. That framing matches comments attributed by Blockworks to a Perpl co-founder identified as PB, who said perpetuals are simpler for users than options because they do not expire and concentrate liquidity in one market. (blog.perpl.xyz) PB told Blockworks that decentralized venues can also move faster on listings because they need an oracle price and USDC rather than a centralized exchange process. Those comments were presented by Blockworks as part of the company’s pitch for why another perps DEX can still find room in the market. (blog.perpl.xyz) ### Where is the company based? Blockworks reported on May 13, 2025 that Perpl’s co-founders are Americans who left the United States to build the company in London. The report said the team cited a lack of regulatory clarity in the United States as the reason for that decision. PB told Blockworks that the company was not ruling out the U.S. permanently and would consider opening to that market if laws changed. (blockworks.com) That comment was attributed to the co-founder, not stated in Perpl’s own funding announcement. ### What does the funding pay for next? Perpl said the new money will go toward scaling its core team, building the on-chain trading engine, developing the user interface and rigorously testing infrastructure. (blockworks.com) Blockworks reported that the company had planned a testnet by the end of 2025 and said mainnet timing would depend on Monad going live. Monad’s launch timeline therefore remains a gating factor for Perpl’s full rollout. For now, the concrete next steps named by the company are engineering, interface development and infrastructure testing tied to a future mainnet launch. (blog.perpl.xyz)