River Markets, a prediction market infrastructure startup founded by former professional traders, has raised $8.5 million in a seed round led by Haun Ventures.
The company looks to improve execution and risk management for professional traders.
What River Markets is for Prediction Markets
River Markets is founded by Oscar Levy and his co-founder, who previously built trading infrastructure to participate in prediction markets themselves.
The founders said their experience trading prediction markets exposed a gap in the market. While prediction platforms have attracted growing trading activity, professional traders still lack the execution and risk-management tools available in traditional financial markets.
River Markets is building infrastructure to address that gap.
The company aims to help professional traders manage positions across prediction markets while improving how they execute trades and manage risk.
The startup was created as Y Combinator’s P26 batch, and the new funding will support the development of its platform and expansion of its team.
The funding round was led by Haun Ventures, with participation from other investors.
Building for professional traders
Prediction markets have grown rapidly in recent years, with platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi attracting billions of dollars in trading volume.
The timing of the funding comes as prediction markets enter a period of rapid growth.
Prediction markets are increasingly being used to trade on elections, economic data, financial markets, sports and other real-world events. Trading volumes have also attracted hedge funds, professional traders and other sophisticated market participants.
However, professional traders face a different set of challenges from retail users.
Large traders need to manage positions across multiple markets. They execute trades efficiently and control their exposure as prices move. Prediction-market contracts can also be fragmented across different platforms. That makes portfolio and risk management more difficult.
River Markets aims to serve as the infrastructure layer for these traders.
The company believes professional participation can help prediction markets develop into a deeper and more efficient financial market.
For River Markets, the opportunity is not to compete directly with prediction-market exchanges. Instead, it is to provide the technology and tools that professional participants need to trade across them.
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The $8.5 million funding round gives the startup capital to continue building that infrastructure as prediction markets move closer to mainstream financial markets.
Sneha Agrawal 
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