Coinbase and others back ex-FTX US president’s crypto trading infra startup Architect

February 2, 2023

Chris Farley

Coinbase is backing Ftx us crypto cool...

Crypto

Crypto is tranding again.

“It’s a software company aiming to build institutional-grade infrastructure to connect various crypto venues across decentralized and centralized exchanges,” Harrison told TechCrunch. “We’re trying to make it easy to interface with either qualified custodians or self-custody. We’re building this single interoperability platform across crypto services with a focus on trading.”

The startup has raised capital in a pre-product financing round from Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, SV Angel, SALT Fund, P2P, Third King Venture Capital and Motivate Venture Capital. Angel investors Shari Glazer, the CEO of Kalos Labs, and Anthony Scaramucci, former White House communications director and founder of Skybridge, are also among its investors.

Prior to FTX, Harrison worked at traditional financial institutions like Citadel Securities and Jane Street. He also spent about 11 years developing algorithmic trading software for global equities and derivatives markets.

“Talking with many past clients of FTX and thinking about my own background, one of the biggest barriers of entry to people for trading is building the infrastructure to access all these different venues,” Harrison said. “There’s a huge technological learning curve to doing so.”

Architect aims to appeal to anyone from large traders and hedge funds to trading firms, asset managers, VCs or “anyone who has to build infrastructure for crypto on more than one exchange,” Harrison said.