Alpaca, a technology firm providing infrastructure to brokerage companies, announced a $150 million Series D funding round, valuing the company at $1.15 billion. The round was led by Drive Capital, whose co-founder Chris Olsen will join Alpaca’s Board of Directors. The company also secured an additional $40 million line of credit, strengthening its financial position.
This capital injection and credit line are intended to bolster Alpaca's global investment infrastructure, particularly for sophisticated financial institutions and institutional trading clients. The firm plans to enhance and expand its existing asset offerings, secure regulatory licenses in key jurisdictions, advance institutional-grade trading capabilities, and integrate traditional and blockchain-based financial ecosystems. Alpaca's CEO, Yoshi Yokokawa, stated the mission is to "open financial services to everyone on the planet" and highlighted the company's role in enabling Shariah-compliant investing.
Alpaca, headquartered in the US, is a self-clearing broker-dealer offering access to stocks, ETFs, options, fixed income, and crypto through its APIs. It supports over 300 organizations in more than 40 countries, powering millions of brokerage accounts. In the past year, Alpaca significantly expanded its product suite to include multi-leg options, fully paid securities lending, fixed-income products, and 24/5 U.S. stock trading, and also became a Nasdaq Exchange Member. The company reported a significant increase in year-over-year revenue, exceeding $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
Notable participants in the funding round included Citadel Securities, Opera Tech Ventures (BNP Paribas), MUFG Innovation Partners, Flat Capital, DRW Venture Capital, and Kraken. Returning investors such as Portage and Horizons Ventures also participated. Alpaca aims to compete directly with established brokerage giants like Interactive Brokers, with Yokokawa stating they are "taking market share away from them."
Chris Olsen of Drive Capital likened Alpaca's role to that of Stripe and Plaid, which redefined payments and financial data, calling Alpaca the "foundational layer that modern financial institutions will depend on for the next decade." Alpaca's services are crucial as the lines between traditional and crypto trading blur, with platforms like Coinbase and Robinhood expanding their offerings to cover a wider range of financial instruments.
