Vest Labs Secures $5 Million Seed Funding to Revolutionize Risk Pricing in DeFi with Universal Risk Engine

Funding Round Led by Jane Street, Amber Group, and Others to Accelerate Development of Real-Time, Verifiable Risk Pricing Infrastructure and Vest Exchange Platform

NEW YORK, NY – March 13, 2025 – Vest Labs, a financial infrastructure company building the next generation of risk pricing for decentralized finance (DeFi), today announced the successful completion of a $5 million seed funding round. The investment, with participation from leading financial and crypto investors including Jane Street, Amber Group, Selini Capital, QCP Capital, Big Brain Holdings, and Mozaik Capital, will fuel the development of Vest's Universal Risk Engine and its decentralized perpetual futures exchange, Vest Exchange.

Addressing Inefficiencies in Traditional Risk Assessment

Traditional financial markets suffer from inefficiencies due to fragmented risk assessment, where each institution, exchange, and counterparty operates in isolation. This siloed approach leads to capital misallocation, solvency risks, and systemic inefficiencies that cost institutions billions annually. Vest's Universal Risk Engine addresses these challenges by dynamically pricing risk across markets and financial products in real-time.

As a neutral and verifiable intermediary, Vest enables participants to share risk data without exposing proprietary information, leading to greater capital efficiency, improved liquidity provisioning, fairer pricing, and more accurate risk assessments across lending, trading, and credit markets.

"Current financial markets rely on opaque, trust-based systems that create large capital inefficiencies, misprice risk, and lead to systemic failures," said Justin Ma, CEO of Vest Labs. "At Vest, we’re building infrastructure that replaces trust with truth – where universal risk is priced in real-time, liquidity is allocated efficiently, and solvency is verifiable. This funding is a testament to the need for a new standard in risk assessment, and we are excited to lead that transformation."

Vest Exchange: A Proof of Concept for Decentralized Risk Pricing

As a first proof of concept, Vest has launched Vest Exchange, a decentralized perpetual futures exchange that demonstrates how universal risk assessment enables a fair, predictable, and liquid trading environment. Unlike traditional exchanges that rely on market makers optimizing for profit, Vest uses blockchain and zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to enforce a neutral pricing mechanism. This ensures that prices are dynamically adjusted to promote stable execution and liquidity, rather than extract value from traders – a constraint that can be transparently verified at all times.

Vest Exchange leverages its proprietary zkRisk engine to provide consistent liquidity and transparent risk pricing, minimizing hidden costs and preventing market manipulation.

Since its inception, Vest Exchange has maintained a median spread and slippage four times lower than other decentralized exchanges, saving early traders hundreds of thousands of dollars. The newly secured funding will be used to refine the exchange’s risk engine and expand its product offerings to institutional players seeking to move beyond legacy risk infrastructure.

Driving Adoption through Community Engagement

To drive further adoption, Vest Exchange is launching a points program to reward active traders and early adopters while reinforcing liquidity growth and market depth. Further details are to be announced on their X account.

About Vest Labs

Vest Labs is a quantitative research firm developing financial infrastructure that enables real-time, universal risk pricing. It is built by a team of experts and advisors from leading firms such as Robinhood, Goldman Sachs, AQR, Point72, Deutsche Bank, and Tower Research. Their investors include Jane Street, Selini Capital, Big Brain Holdings, QCP Capital, Amber Group, Mozaik Capital, and executives from Citadel, UBS, and HRT.

Vest Exchange is a decentralized perpetual futures platform that leverages zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to provide consistent liquidity and transparent risk pricing. By integrating its proprietary zkRisk engine, Vest ensures stable and predictable trading environments, minimizing hidden costs and preventing market manipulation.

Learn more at vest.xyz and vest.exchange and follow Vest Labs on X (formerly Twitter) @VestLabs and Vest Exchange @VestExchange.