Lisbon-based startup Ekiden has raised €1.7 million in a seed round to advance its blockchain-based trading platform, primarily targeting professional and institutional users, as reported by EU-Startups.
The company plans to use the capital for product development, security audits, team growth, and building strategic partnerships to scale liquidity.
The round brought together investors including GSR, Flowdesk, Pyth, Aptos, Monolith, Hardcore Labs, Moonhill Capital, and Curiosity Capital. Keyrock joined the round as a strategic partner.
The funding also included angel investors who are founders and CEOs of companies such as Avail, Aptos Labs, Cube, Chorus One, Trading Strategy AI, and Node Guardians.
Founded in 2025, Ekiden is developing a decentralized derivatives trading platform to support high-frequency and algorithmic trading.
The company focuses on blockchain-based derivatives infrastructure tailored for more advanced users, including trading firms and market makers, while remaining open to all participants.
Founder and CEO Vitali Dervoed argues that, despite rising demand, current infrastructure still falls short of professional trading requirements.
“I’ve seen how professional traders think about execution, reliability, and risk, and too much on-chain trading still doesn’t meet those standards,” said Dervoed, whose background includes roles at Neon Labs and RockawayX.
Ekiden’s platform brings together faster trade execution and on-chain settlement, with the goal of improving performance while preserving transparency and user control.
Rather than building a general-purpose crypto exchange, the startup is targeting infrastructure that supports more complex and automated trading strategies.
Featured image: Vitali Dervoed, founder and CEO of Ekiden (Photo courtesy of Ekiden/Via EU-Startups)
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