Freeport Markets
YC F25New York City, US Β· Founded 2025 Β· 3 employees Β· 3 known investors
Freeport is a self-custodial trading platform offering access to stocks, crypto, commodities, FX, and pre-IPO exposure, with market intelligence from social feeds and insider filings. The platform requires no KYC for basic trading and operates 24/7 including weekends, appealing to retail traders seeking low-friction global market access.
Also known as Freeport Β· Freeport Markets (YC F25)
Founders & leadershipΒ· Y Combinator alumni (F25)
Freeport Markets was founded in 2025 by Lihong Wang and Bryan Reed.
Investors Β· 3
The YC applicationΒ· Fall 2025 batch
Alumni Q&A
- What is the core problem you are solving? Why is this a big problem? What made you decide to work on it?
- The founders are building a platform that converts trusted social media sources and attention data into actionable trades, arguing that early market signals now surface first in places like Twitter threads and Reddit before traditional research. It detects breaking signals, cross-checks across media, maps effects to assets, and outputs trade cards with supporting evidence, aimed at retail investors who lack terminals and analyst coverage. One founder traded single-stock equity derivatives at three major market makers, and the technical cofounder previously worked at Capital One and Huawei.
- What is your long-term vision? If you truly succeed, what will be different about the world?
- The founders aim to build on-chain infrastructure that links information to execution, letting people move from an opinion to a market position without the context, instrument selection, sizing, and execution work that currently favors institutions. They contend that opening this signal-to-decision workflow with transparent provenance would make price discovery deeper and more continuous.
Summarized from the founders' answers on their Y Combinator profile.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Freeport Markets operates a consumer trading application that combines market access with an information layer. Users can trade stocks, crypto, and perpetual futures on stocks, indices, commodities, currencies and crypto, plus exposure to private companies, from a single account that is available 24 hours a day including weekends. The platform is self-custodial: assets sit in a wallet controlled by the user rather than on the company's balance sheet, with wallet infrastructure provided by Privy (a Stripe company), and sign-in handled through Apple or Google accounts rather than seed phrases. Basic trading does not require identity verification, though the company notes that some funding methods such as card and bank deposits route through regulated partners that may request verification. Funding options include Apple Pay, Google Pay, debit and credit cards, bank transfer and stablecoin deposits, with no stated minimum, and settlement occurs in stablecoins.
The product's second component is market intelligence. Freeport aggregates feeds from X, Substack and media outlets alongside hedge fund, politician and corporate insider filings, and applies AI to group sources into themes and alert users to upcoming catalysts and notable events. The company describes this as productizing the situational-awareness workflow that professional traders perform manually: detecting breaking signals, measuring attention shifts, cross-checking across media, mapping second-order effects to assets, and producing trade cards with supporting evidence.
On the market-access side, Freeport offers leverage of up to 50x with cross or isolated margin, and states that perpetual trades are routed through a single shared account at the top of the exchange fee tier so that the resulting rate is passed to users; there are no platform fees on basic swaps and no account, deposit or maintenance fees. Pre-IPO exposure is offered in two forms: a token backed one-to-one by real shares held in a vehicle, and a perpetual future tracking a company's implied valuation derived from recent secondary-market transactions, with lower leverage caps than public markets. Named reference companies for pre-IPO exposure include SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic. The company also references access to private credit and catastrophe bonds, and to yield-bearing stablecoins whose returns come from short-term US Treasuries or on-chain lending. Freeport states it is not a bank or a registered broker.
Founding story
Freeport was founded in 2025 by Lihong Wang (Founder/CEO) and Bryan Reed (Founder/CTO). Wang traded single-stock equity derivatives at three major market makers, including Jane Street and IMC, building systematic and discretionary strategies across equities and fixed income; Reed is the technical cofounder with prior experience at Capital One and Huawei. The founders describe the motivating problem as the gap between trading with full institutional coverage and trading a personal account without real-time news, analyst coverage or a shared view of catalysts and positioning.
Business model
Freeport provides a trading and market-intelligence app to retail users. It states there are no platform fees on basic swaps and no account, deposit or maintenance fees; for perpetual futures, orders are aggregated through one shared account that qualifies for the exchange's top fee tier, and that rate is passed through to users. Yield offered on stablecoin holdings is generated by the underlying protocols rather than by Freeport.
Publicly stated pricing is limited to the absence of platform fees on basic swaps and the absence of account, deposit and maintenance fees, with perpetual futures priced at the exchange fee rate obtained through Freeport's shared trading account.
Traction
The company website reports more than $100M traded on Freeport and more than 10,000 accounts created, and states that thousands of people already trade on the platform.
Latest developments
A funding roundup published on 8 January 2026 reported that Freeport Markets raised $500,000, describing the company as a DeFi prime brokerage serving wealth-oriented investors with access to curated onchain enterprises, pre-IPO companies and structured credit, and stating the proceeds are intended for technology infrastructure, hiring and product development. The consumer app is live on the App Store and Google Play, and the website reports over $100M traded and over 10,000 accounts created.
βΈFull profile β market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Freeport is an early-stage, venture-backed entrant in the Y Combinator Fall 2025 batch, positioned across fintech, crypto/web3, investing, consumer finance and AI categories. It positions itself against mainstream retail brokerages and exchanges such as Robinhood and Coinbase, arguing they charge higher trading fees, take a cut of yields and restrict lending and borrowing at market rates. It also positions itself as opening access to formerly institutional markets such as pre-IPO shares, private credit and catastrophe bonds.
Freeport combines self-custody and no-KYC onboarding for core trading with a consumer-grade login flow (Apple or Google, no seed phrase), continuous 24/7 markets across asset classes, leverage up to 50x, aggregated fee-tier pricing on perpetuals, and an AI research layer built on trusted social and financial media plus insider, hedge fund and politician filings. It also offers retail access to pre-IPO exposure through both share-backed tokens and perpetuals on implied private valuations.
Technology
The application abstracts blockchain infrastructure behind a consumer login: users sign in with Apple or Google and Privy, a Stripe company, secures the self-custodial wallet, eliminating seed phrases. Trades settle in stablecoins for instant, round-the-clock settlement, and order execution is routed to the venue offering the best pricing. Tokenized equities are backed one-to-one by shares held with a regulated custodian. An AI layer ingests social and financial media feeds plus regulatory filings, links them into themes, and generates catalyst alerts and inspectable trade ideas.
Go-to-market
Distribution is through consumer mobile apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play, supported by content and social channels including X, an Instagram account, YouTube, TikTok and a Substack publication called The Freeport Logbook, plus a research section on the company website. Y Combinator's launch platform was used for an early product launch, and the company sought distribution via student organizations and similar groups. A partners email address is maintained for business inquiries.
Retail investors and traders who lack professional research terminals, news coverage and the bandwidth to monitor many feeds. At its YC launch the company described its initial customer profile as crypto-adjacent users who hold most of their crypto on Robinhood or Coinbase. Marketing emphasizes accessibility for users with no crypto knowledge, comparing the experience to a banking app.
Geography
Headquartered in New York, United States, with a globally accessible, always-open product offering and a contact form that collects country of residence.
History
The company was founded in 2025 and joined Y Combinator's Fall 2025 batch. Its initial YC launch presented Freeport as an intelligent DeFi investment platform aimed at helping users build diversified crypto portfolios, capture staking and lending yield, and access screened DeFi opportunities through one interface, using a curated universe of the top 250 tokens by market capitalization, a sector taxonomy and seven quantitative factors with a momentum tilt. The product subsequently broadened into a multi-asset trading app spanning stocks, crypto, perpetual futures, FX, commodities, rates and pre-IPO exposure with an AI market-intelligence feed. Reporting in January 2026 described the company as a DeFi prime brokerage and covered a $500,000 raise.
Risks & controversies
Freeport states it is not a bank or a registered broker. Core trading is offered without identity verification, while some funding rails run through regulated partners that may require it. The company discloses that users can lose money, that leverage magnifies gains and losses and can wipe out positions on sharp moves, and that yields on yield-bearing stablecoins carry the risk of the underlying protocol. Pre-IPO perpetuals rely on implied valuations estimated from secondary-market transactions that move in jumps, prompting lower leverage caps. Available public descriptions of the business are inconsistent, ranging from an intelligent DeFi portfolio product to a multi-asset trading app to a DeFi prime brokerage, and third-party directories report divergent headcount, revenue and total-funding figures.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources β 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 β not independently audited.
Competitors Β· 2
by search overlap
Companies competing with Freeport Markets for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline Β· 5
launches, deals, and filingsA funding roundup reported that Freeport Markets, described as a DeFi prime brokerage in the Y Combinator F25 cohort, raised $500,000, to be used for technology infrastructure, team expansion and product development.
$500K source β
Freeport states that user funds are protected by Privy, a Stripe company, which underpins its self-custodial wallet and Apple/Google sign-in transaction approval.
The company lists Freeport Markets applications on the Apple App Store and Google Play alongside its social and Substack channels.
Y Combinator's company directory lists Freeport Markets in its Fall 2025 batch with an 'Active' status; the company also names Y Combinator, Alliance and Informed Ventures as backers.
The founders published a Y Combinator launch post introducing Freeport as a platform for building diversified crypto portfolios and accessing screened DeFi yield opportunities in one interface, using a curated top-250 token universe, a sector taxonomy and seven quantitative factors.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
βΈResearch sources Β· 8
primary sources listed
- Freeport Marketsfreeportmarkets.com Β· web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Freeport Markets do?
- Freeport Markets is a self-custodial app for trading stocks, crypto, perps and pre-IPO exposure with AI-driven market signals.
- Who founded Freeport Markets?
- Freeport Markets was founded by Lihong Wang, Bryan Reed in 2025.
- Who are Freeport Markets's investors?
- Freeport Markets's investors include Y Combinator, Informed Ventures Advisors, Llc, Alliance DAO (ex DeFi Alliance).
- Where is Freeport Markets headquartered?
- Freeport Markets is headquartered in New York City, US.