A new Chicago-based blockchain data startup has raised a seed round of funding to get its platform into more hands of professional cryptocurrency traders.
FRST, founded in 2017 by Patrick Gorrell and Jonas Frost, raised $3.4 million in a seed funding round, led by Vestigo Ventures and CMT Digital, the startup announced Tuesday. Other participants in the round include Akuna Capital and principals from Premier Asset Management and Oak Ridge Investments.
FRST’s platform allows traders to test strategies, get estimates on returns and set alerts for changes in crypto values, said Karl Muth, who joined the startup as CEO in April. The platform is currently in beta mode and is being tested at two of the largest trading floors in Chicago, Muth said. Additionally, FRST has given the platform to researchers at Northwestern University, University of California-Berkeley, Stanford University and government agencies that are already doing deep research on blockchain currencies.
But once FRST officially launches its platform in the first quarter of 2019, it will sell it on an enterprise SaaS model to trading floors and hedge funds that need a tool to monitor blockchain data, Muth said.
“We allow them to really understand what’s going on from a research perspective,” Muth said. “We [provide] a platform that gives real-time queries of large portions of the blockchain or even the entire blockchain.”
FRST will use the seed funding to finish building the platform, test the product and hire three more software engineers by the end of this year. The startup currently employs 11 people in its Loop offices, Muth said.
“Cryptocurrencies are here to stay but—similar to other less mature markets—the infrastructure necessary to ensure access to trusted, transparent and actionable information to date has been lacking,” said Ian Sheridan, the managing director at Vestigo, in a statement. “[But] FRST has successfully filled this void.”
