Exclusive: River Markets announces $8.5 million seed round to build prediction market trading tools for institutions

River Markets, a startup co-founded by Oscar Levy and Antonin Parrot, has raised $8.5 million in seed funding to develop prediction market trading tools for financial institutions. The industry is growing as institutions recognize the value of prediction markets for hedging risks and trading on economic events. However, professional traders currently trade across multiple venues, leading to inefficiencies.

River Markets aims to provide a single platform for institutions to trade across various prediction markets. The platform offers software, data links, risk-management tools, and algorithms to minimize price swings caused by large orders. Levy and Parrot, who met as students at UC Berkeley and later worked in quantitative trading at Wall Street firms, recognized the need for the platform after developing trading software for prediction markets. The new funding will be used to expand the company's engineering, sales, and operations teams.