Blockchain startup aPriori raises $20M to expand institutional-grade trading infrastructure

Blockchain startup aPriori Network Inc. today announced that it has raised $20 million in recent funding to speed up product rollouts, expand research and engineering teams and grow partnerships across the trading and staking ecosystem.

Founded in 2023, aPriori is constructing the execution layer for next-generation on-chain markets with a deal with institutional-grade performance. The corporate was established by former quants and engineers from Jump Trading Group LLC, Coinbase Global Inc. and Citadel Securities LLC, bringing deep expertise from the worlds of high-frequency and quantitative trading.

The corporate has as its mission to shut the gap between traditional finance and decentralized markets by delivering infrastructure that makes trading more efficient, reliable and accessible.

APriori is developing systems that improve order execution on high-performance Ethereum Virtual Machine networks, the computation engine that executes smart contracts on Ethereum and other compatible blockchains.

The corporate argues that traditional on-chain markets are suffering from issues corresponding to wide spreads, Maximal Extractable Value leakage and an inability to separate toxic order flow from high-quality trades. APriori’s technology differs by applying mechanisms already proven in traditional markets, corresponding to order flow segmentation and advanced routing engines, to make decentralized exchanges fairer and more efficient. Doing so allows liquidity providers and energetic traders to operate with tighter spreads and more predictable returns.

Core to aPriori’s platform is a synthetic intelligence-driven decentralized exchange aggregator called “Swapr,” which intelligently routes trades to make sure users achieve optimal pricing and execution. Swapr can distinguish between harmful and useful activity, very like payment-for-order-flow models utilized in traditional brokerage systems, by analyzing order flow in real time.

Together with its trading infrastructure, aPriori also operates an MEV-powered liquid staking platform that channels extracted MEV into higher yields for stakers. The platform ensures validators and liquidity providers remain incentivized while also stabilizing network performance.

“We built aPriori on the insight that the identical mechanisms that protected liquidity providers and improved efficiency, combined with the energetic engines used at leading high-frequency trading firms to combat opposed selection, could possibly be brought on-chain to rework how liquidity and order flow are managed,” said founder Ray Song. “The result’s tighter spreads, fairer execution and more sustainable yields for everybody available in the market.”

The strategic funding round included participation from HashKey Capital, Pantera Capital Management LP Primitive Ventures, IMC Trading B.V., GEM Labs, Gate Labs, Ambush Capital and Big Brain Collective.

“With talent from the highest trading firms and exchanges, aPriori is one in every of the few teams able to bringing institutional-grade execution to on-chain markets,” said Nihal Maunder from Pantera Capital. “We backed them early and are doubling down because their technology and timing position them to define the longer term of high-performance EVM infrastructure.”

Image: aPriori