Ostium, a decentralized exchange built to offer perpetual futures on real-world assets, has closed a fresh $24 million funding round as interest in onchain access to traditional markets accelerates. The raise includes a $20 million Series A co-led by General Catalyst and Jump Crypto, along with an earlier unannounced $4 million strategic round. With this latest investment, the company’s total funding now stands at $27.8 million and the platform’s valuation is reported to be about $250 million.
According to details shared on Dec. 3, Ostium has processed $25 billion in cumulative trading volume since launch. Metals alone account for $5 billion of that activity. The platform was founded by Harvard classmates Kaledora Kiernan-Linn and Marco Antonio Ribeiro, who set out to build a self-custodial gateway to perpetual exposure on assets such as stocks, commodities, indices, and forex.
Ostium runs on Arbitrum and uses a quote-based pricing model that pulls from offchain liquidity rather than replicating fragmented markets on Ethereum. The team says this approach brings faster execution, clearer spreads, and reliable holding costs.
Kiernan-Linn noted that the project began with a belief that retail investors needed an alternative to broker-controlled systems that still dominate global trading. She said the goal is to replace those bottlenecks with transparent execution and self-custody.
General Catalyst managing director Marc Bhargava said Ostium is positioned to reshape the global CFD market, which sees roughly $10 trillion in monthly volume. Jump Crypto CIO Saurabh Sharma added that while many platforms attempt to recreate exchange infrastructure onchain, Ostium differentiates itself by quoting directly from established offchain liquidity in equities, FX, and commodities.
Ostium first drew attention in 2023 with a $3.5 million seed round for its early focus on real-world asset perpetuals. Today, more than 95 percent of its open interest is tied to traditional markets. During the recent surge in gold prices, the company says it accounted for more than half of all onchain gold perpetual open interest.
The latest round includes backing from Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute, GSR, Balaji Srinivasan, SIG, LocalGlobe, Crucible Capital, Nick Van Eck, Shiliang Tang, and several angels from Bridgewater, Two Sigma, and Brevan Howard. Ostium plans to expand its asset offerings and strengthen its technical infrastructure with the new capital.
The team also plans to target non-U.S. traders who want access to U.S. markets. Many of these investors currently rely on offshore brokers that vary widely in reliability. Kiernan-Linn called this segment an ideal match for blockchain-based trading, where users maintain control of funds in segregated smart contracts and all activity remains verifiable onchain.
Alex Thorn
Ostium’s raise lands during an active year for crypto venture capital. Galaxy Research data shows that blockchain companies secured more than $11.4 billion in funding through the first three quarters of 2025. Trading and exchange platforms took a substantial share of that amount, helped by major late-stage deals from firms such as Revolut and Kraken. Full-year estimates from Galaxy and PitchBook project that total crypto VC investment could reach between $18 billion and $25 billion by year-end.
