User:JPclear/sandbox
American financial technology company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Clear Street is an American financial infrastructure technology company. Founded in 2018, it is based in New York City. Its services include trading, securities financing and lending, clearing, investment banking, and custody.
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | financial infrastructure technology |
| Founded | 2018 |
| Headquarters | New York City, United States |
Key people | Ed Tilly (CEO) |
Number of employees | 700+ |
| Website | www |
History
Clear Street was founded in 2018 as a clearing broker.[1] Its co-founders were Uriel Cohen, Chris Pento, and Sachin Kumar.[2] It initially operated by invitation only.[3] In 2020, Clear Street acquired CenterPoint Securities (which it rebranded to Clear Street Active Trading in 2024).[4]
Clear Street received Series B venture capital financing of $165 million in its first round in 2022 and $270 in the second in 2023. Its financing came primarily from Prysm Capital; secondary investors included NextGen Venture Partners, Walleye Capital, McLaren Strategic Ventures, Belvedere, and the NEAR Foundation.[5][6][7]
In 2022, the company launched a new transaction processing system and its Automated Trading Locates Allocation System (ATLAS).[8][9] These were incorporated into Olympus, Clear Street's finance stack.[8] In an interview with Traders Magazine, then-Chief Operating Officer Andy Volz described Clear Street's mission as "to replace the outdated infrastructure being used across capital markets. We've gone down to the bare metal to build a completely cloud-native system".[9] In 2023, it introduced Clear Street Studio, "an all-in-one portfolio management platform".[3]
Between 2021 and 2023, the company expanded significantly, hiring nearly 200 staff, adding over 200 clients, and broadening its services to include corporate bonds, fixed income, and derivatives.[10][11][12] It announced plans to offer full-service investment banking.[13]
A 2023 profile in American Banker described its development of a "cloud-native clearing and custody" platform, which was more technologically advanced than the systems used by competing prime brokers and allowed real-time data access for hedge fund clients.[10] At the time it cleared around 3% of the total US equity market.[10] It announced a partnership with IMC Financial Markets to diversify its client acquisition.[10] In October 2023, Fortune reported that "over the past year, the number of institutional clients on the platform increased by 500%, daily transactional volume increased by more than 300%, and financing balances increased by nearly 150%".[14]
Also in 2023, Clear Street developed its Canadian operation, Clear Street Canada, and a planned futures clearing service.[15][16] It acquired React and its futures clearing service BASIS in July 2023[17][12] and received approval from the National Futures Association in December, announcing plans to "be a clearing member of all major global exchanges".[18]
Clear Street announced an American options and equities clearing service in April 2024.[19] It bought the algorithmic trader Fox River from Instinet in July 2024, with the aim of expanding computer modeling for trading.[20] In the same year, it also announced the introduction of equity research and corporate access services.[21][22]
Clear Street was approved by the UK Financial Conduct Authority to open a British branch, Clear Street UK, announced in December 2024.[1] It joined the London Metal Exchange (LME) "as part of a broader expansion drive across Europe, the Middle East and Asia".[23] It was one of eight companies allowed to trade in the LME's open outcry area.[24] Some of the staff from the British office were cut in July 2025,[1] but the company announced plans to expand its UK services to include prime brokerage and outsourced trading.[24]
In early 2025, Clear Street developed an after-hours trading service through partnerships with Blue Ocean Technologies and OTC Markets Group.[25][26] Clear Street launched an outsourced trading service in May 2025, hiring staff from UBS Group AG, which was at the time decommissioning its similar service.[27] The Financial News reported in July that it was planning to expand into the European Union market via the Netherlands.[24] In December 2025, the Financial Times reported that Clear Street plans to go public in 2026, with a potential list value of $10 to $12 billion.[28] In January 2026, Clear Street filed its initial public offering at a valuation of $12 billion, indicating "a 160% revenue jump in the first nine months of 2025", with a revenue of $783.7 million and net income of $157.2 million.[29][30][31] Clear Street postponed its initial public offering in February 2026 citing market conditions.[32]
Operations
The company has over 700 employees.[33] Steve Bisgay, formerly of Cantor Fitzgerald, joined as chief financial officer in 2023, while Jon Daplyn of Morgan Stanley joined as chief information officer.[14][34] In July 2024, Atul Pawar was appointed Chief Risk Officer[35] and Ed Tilly, a previous head of Cboe Global Markets, was appointed president.[34] He was appointed CEO in January 2025 after co-founder Pento announced his resignation.[2] Also in 2025, John Levene was hired as head of institutional.[36]
As of 2025, Clear Street has a bond credit rating of BBB− with a Positive outlook.[37] It was valued at $2 billion in 2023,[14] making it a unicorn.[38][7] Clear Street used Amazon Web Services for its platform as of 2023.[10] The platform comprises an API library with a shared language and data source.[14]
Since 2021, it is headquartered at 4 World Trade Center in New York City, expanding to 88,000 square feet (8,200 m2) of office space there in 2025.[39] It has additional US offices in Dallas, Texas; San Diego, California; Chicago, Illinois; Stamford, Connecticut; Geneva, Illinois; Tampa, Florida; West Palm Beach, Florida; Boston, Massachusetts; and Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. International offices include Tel Aviv, Umeå, Toronto, London, Mumbai, and Bangalore.[40]
Services
Clear Street's services include: clearing equities, options, and futures;[41][42] trading;[34] investment banking;[43][34] securities financing and lending;[34] custody;[34] and, capital introduction.[37] It provides brokerage infrastructure via a cloud-based suite of applications.[37]