LiquidCompute Raises $15M Seed to Build a CFTC-Regulated AI Compute Exchange
The AMW Read
A seed-stage entrant pursuing CFTC exchange/clearing status for compute derivatives advances the emerging financialization of GPU capacity alongside ICE and CME, but remains early-stage and unregulated pending approval.
LiquidCompute Raises $15M Seed to Build a CFTC-Regulated AI Compute Exchange
LiquidCompute, a New York startup formerly known as Pluto, has raised a $15 million seed round led by FirstMark Capital and Chemistry, with participation from K8 Capital, Night Capital, TrueBridge, Brainchild Holdings, UFO Holdings, Y Combinator, and Balyasny Asset Management founder Dmitry Balyasny as an angel investor. Founded in 2025 by UC Berkeley students Ronit Jain and Aarav Patel, alumni of Y Combinator's Winter 2025 batch, the company has applied to the CFTC for Designated Contract Market and Derivatives Clearing Organization status, which would let it list and clear compute contracts directly. It has also signed trading and data-licensing partnerships with Susquehanna Predictions, BGC Group, and Wintermute.
LiquidCompute's bet is architectural: rather than treating GPU capacity as a fungible commodity like oil, it models compute after the power grid — heterogeneous by location and configuration, and non-storable once idle. The company is building a two-layer market: a physical "compute grid" layer connecting scattered capacity first, with a cash-settled derivatives layer on top, and its dual CFTC registration path mirrors how power markets clear. It enters a field already drawing established exchanges — Intercontinental Exchange has partnered with Ornn on GPU compute futures, and CME Group plans to launch compute futures with Silicon Data in October. Ornn itself raised $33 million in seed funding built around its OCPI spot-price index.
For investors, the signal is that compute-market infrastructure is now attracting exchange-grade regulatory ambition rather than just brokerage or marketplace products — a granted DCM/DCO license would be a structural moat few startups can replicate. For builders, the near-term test is whether LiquidCompute's CFTC applications clear before ICE's and CME's products go live in October, since first-mover regulatory status in a nascent derivatives category is hard to unseat once liquidity concentrates on one venue.