Alpaca, the self-clearing broker-dealer and brokerage infrastructure API, just announced a $52 million Series C funding round from its new office in Manhattan, New York. The funding round marks a major milestone for Alpaca as it continues its push toward global expansion and product innovation. The new cash injection will help the company build on its momentum, targeting both enterprise institutions and fintechs across the US, the Middle East, and Asia. With over 200 global partners across 40+ countries already relying on its institutional-grade APIs and self-clearing custody, Alpaca now powers more than 5 million brokerage accounts.
Perpetual Innovation
The Series C raise comes on the heels of a landmark year for Alpaca, which saw the launch of several key products including US options trading, instant funding, a FIX API, and High-Yield Cash and IRA accounts. They also rolled out fractional share trading, a Local Currency Trading API, entity account onboarding, and a partnership with Kraken to let the crypto exchange’s users trade U.S. stocks and ETFs in some states. Alpaca is also planning to launch 24/5 trading to meet the growing demand from global investors seeking continuous access to financial markets. According to US Federal Reserve data, overseas investors now own $16.5 trillion or 18% of US equities, the highest share on record. This makes Alpaca’s upcoming Fully Paid Securities Lending product even more exciting.
Exponential Growth and Spreading to New Areas
Since its Series B, in late 2023, Alpaca’s revenue and assets under custody have tripled and its trading volume has quadrupled. The company also became a fully self-clearing broker-dealer with DTCC membership, giving it the ability to handle all trade clearing and settlement processes in-house. The move solidified Alpaca’s position as a key player in the financial infrastructure landscape. With its Series C funding, the company plans to secure additional regulatory licenses beyond its current footprints in the U.S., Japan, and the Bahamas. Alpaca will also use the funds to expand its product lineup to include non-U.S. equities like European and Asian stocks, plus support 24/5 trading of U.S. stocks, demonstrating its commitment to meeting the needs of modern global investors.
More About Alpaca
Alpaca enables businesses to build investing applications and features on top of Alpaca’s technology, as well as supporting programmatic traders who automate their trading strategies. Today, Alpaca’s platform provides global access to U.S. stocks, options, and cryptocurrencies, available in both notional and fractional formats, empowering over 150 businesses from more than 30 countries including Turkey, Indonesia, India, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., Japan, Thailand, and Australia. With a thriving developer community of 25,000 monthly active developers, Alpaca is continually expanding its product offerings to include global stocks and fixed income, positioning itself as a de facto global standard for investing infrastructure.
Exceptional Leadership
Founded by Yoshi Yokokawa and Hitoshi Harada, Alpaca brings together deep financial and technical expertise. Yoshi began his career at Lehman Brothers’ Securitization team in 2004, later transitioning to full-time day trading and co-founding several software development businesses. Hitoshi, a seasoned technologist, was Lead Architect at Greenplum and contributed significantly to PostgreSQL’s Window Functions. He also built large-scale data infrastructures for Japan’s largest online travel agency. Alpaca originally started in 2015 as a machine learning company developed MarketStore, a time-series database for financial data, reflecting its strong technology DNA. Headquartered in California, Alpaca operates as a fully remote, globally distributed team of around 200 employees spanning 25 countries.
Why Zillionize Invested
Alpaca launched in October 2018 and took part in Y Combinator’s W19 batch. The startup billed itself as a commission-free, API-first stock brokerage. With its talented founding team, Yoshi Yokokawa and Hitoshi Harada, combined with a high-demand product, Alpaca quickly demonstrated that it had a winning formula. Not only did they have the right product at the right time, but they also possessed the ambition, skill, and drive to grow it into a market leader.
At Zillionize, our core mission is to back founders who pair visionary leadership with a transformative product, fueled by a proven track record. Alpaca’s offering and founding team could not have been a better match. With the close of this Series C round, Alpaca is well-positioned to accelerate its global expansion, supporting partners and customers with the tools and infrastructure they need to thrive in today’s financial markets.