Cega
8 known investors
Building the next evolution in DeFi derivatives focused on exotic options.
Also known as Cega Finance
Investors · 8
Also in the syndicate · 2
Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements$4M disclosed across 1 of 4 rounds · 2022–2023
- $4MSeedMar 2022 · 3 sourcesSource ↗
Source: company announcements and press reports — follow each round's link for the claim.
Valuation · disclosed
Disclosed eventsSource: SEC prospectus filings, and round valuations the company or its investors disclosed — follow each entry's link for the claim.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Cega (also referred to as Cega Finance) is a decentralized finance protocol focused on exotic derivatives — a class of options products that combine basic call/put options with advanced option characteristics to create packaged offerings. According to the company's description, these products are designed to generate higher yield, provide downside protection, and allow investors to express a broad range of market views. Cega describes itself as the first protocol focused purely on exotic derivatives.
The company builds a decentralized application through which retail users can stake into structured products; it also creates consumer-facing staking products. Its first product was a fixed-coupon note. Cega's founder has characterized the technical challenge as pricing: unlike vanilla options that can be valued with a Black-Scholes formula, exotic options require stochastic simulations across 10,000 to 20,000 scenarios, requiring more mathematical and engineering work.
Cega is listed with the industry tags blockchain, cryptocurrency, decentralized finance, finance, financial services, fintech and software, and is associated with the domain cega.fi.
Founding story
Cega was founded in 2020 by Arisa Toyosaki, a former UBS derivatives trader who also headed marketing at Bitcoin.com. Toyosaki began following the crypto market in 2016 while working at UBS in Hong Kong and considered launching a crypto derivatives platform then, but was advised by other founders and finance professionals that it was too early. She revisited the idea in 2020 during the "DeFi summer," initially considering a vanilla crypto derivatives platform offering simple calls and puts before deciding to focus on structuring more complex exotic products. She has said the motivation was that many existing crypto derivatives strategies were risky enough that users staking into them could lose principal on a 10% market move, and she wanted products with high yield but greater safety.
Business model
Cega operates a decentralized finance protocol that creates exotic derivative contracts and consumer-facing staking products aimed at a retail audience. The sources do not describe how the protocol monetizes.
Not described in the available sources.
Traction
Reported traction is limited to fundraising: $4.3 million seed at a $60 million valuation in March 2022 and a further $5 million in March 2023 for $9.3 million total. The team consisted of four full-time employees (all co-founders) plus three part-timers in March 2022; a later job-board listing places the company in the 11-50 employee range. No user, volume or TVL figures for Cega are given in the sources.
Latest developments
The most recent company-specific development in the sources is the March 2023 $5 million raise led by Dragonfly Capital with Pantera Capital and Robot Ventures, intended to fund product catalog expansion, new DeFi primitives, and an in-house exotic derivatives trading team.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Cega entered a rapidly evolving DeFi market that, at the time of its 2022 seed round, held over $100 billion in total value locked with an estimated 4 million-plus DeFi investors worldwide, and it sought to create a new exotic derivatives category alongside earlier category-defining protocols such as Uniswap in automated market making and Compound in money markets.
Cega positions itself as the first DeFi protocol focused purely on exotic derivatives, contrasting its packaged products — offering yield with built-in downside protection — with riskier existing crypto derivative strategies. Its team includes former derivatives traders, including a quant trader with a PhD in stochastic volatility and traders experienced in pricing exotic options.
Technology
Cega's application was first built to launch on Solana, with stated plans to expand to other blockchains and become compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine ecosystem. Pricing exotic options requires stochastic simulations over 10,000-20,000 market scenarios rather than a closed-form Black-Scholes calculation, and the company hired engineers familiar with Rust, the language used for Solana development.
Go-to-market
Cega has emphasized community building and education around exotic derivatives, with most community engagement taking place on the project's Discord, where the company says participants can influence which products it launches and its overall direction, and growth is pursued largely by word of mouth.
Retail and beginner-to-intermediate DeFi users seeking yield with downside protection, as well as a community of derivatives experts engaged with the protocol.
Geography
Listed as based in Singapore; the founder previously worked at UBS in Hong Kong.
History
Founded in 2020, Cega began its first fundraising process in January 2022 with a lower target amount, which it secured in two days before taking in more capital than initially expected; the $4.3 million seed round at a $60 million valuation was announced in March 2022. Its decentralized application was slated to launch in beta on the Solana devnet later that month. In March 2023 the company announced an additional $5 million, bringing total funding to $9.3 million, and stated plans to expand its product catalog, develop new DeFi primitives, and assemble a trading team of exotic derivative specialists.
Risks & controversies
The sources note no controversies specific to Cega. Investors in the 2022 seed round included Alameda Research. The cega.xyz domain resolves to a registrar's for-sale listing page rather than a company website, while a job board lists the company's site as cega.fi.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 3
launches, deals, and filingsCega Finance raised $5 million led by Dragonfly Capital with participation from Pantera Capital and Robot Ventures, bringing total funding to $9.3 million. The company said it would use the funds to expand its product catalog, develop new DeFi primitives, and build a trading team of exotic derivatives specialists.
$5M source ↗
Cega announced a $4.3 million seed round led by Dragonfly Capital Partners with participation from Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, Solana Ventures and others, valuing the company at $60 million. Proceeds were earmarked for scaling the team, particularly hiring Rust engineers for Solana development.
$4.3M source ↗
Cega said its decentralized application was set to launch in beta later in March 2022 on the Solana devnet, with a first product consisting of a fixed-coupon note; the company said it aimed to expand to other blockchains and become EVM-compatible.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Cegacega.xyz · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Cega do?
- Singapore-based DeFi protocol building exotic options and structured derivative products for crypto investors.
- Who are Cega's investors?
- Cega's investors include Hack VC, Pantera Capital, Alameda Research, Coinbase Ventures, Dragonfly, Robot Ventures.
- How much funding has Cega raised?
- Cega has disclosed $4M raised across 1 of its 4 known rounds.