The 22-year-old son of a crypto-friendly senator plans to launch his own exchange for a type of derivative popularized by digital asset traders. Theodore Gillibrand, whose mother is Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), has drummed up $30 million in a fundraise led by the venture firm Lux Capital, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The deal valued Theodore’s startup at $300 million, said the sources, who asked for anonymity to discuss private business dealings.
Dubbed American Perpetuals Exchange Corp., or APEC, the trading platform aims to list perpetual futures, or “perps,” a form of futures contracts that allow traders to bet on the price of assets without holding the assets themselves. As opposed to standard futures, these derivatives don’t have a set expiration date.
Theodore’s startup plans to apply for a license from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to list perpetuals for equities and stock indices, not cryptocurrencies, according to a presentation filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A spokesperson for Lux Capital confirmed that it led the fundraise.
“It is clear that the future of these markets is not in offshore and unregulated foreign entities but rather in a regulated and institutional American company,” said Theodore in a statement, confirming details of the round.
Rise of ‘perps’
Perpetual futures have long been popular on digital asset exchanges. But over the past year, the derivatives have become one of the buzziest assets in the broader world of finance. The decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, which initially specialized in perpetuals, is one of the most profitable protocols in crypto, and other startups focused on the derivatives have raised significant chunks of change from top-flight venture capitalists.
More recently, perpetual futures, which trade 24/7 on Hyperliquid and similar venues, became popular among traders during the U.S.’s war with Iran, as speculators traded oil index perps on the protocol while traditional exchanges weren’t open for business.
The financial instruments have also won favor from U.S. regulators. In May, the prediction market Kalshi became the first U.S. company to add perpetual futures for its traders after it received approval from the CFTC to list contracts for Bitcoin.
“The @CFTC took historic action to permit the listing of a true bitcoin perpetual contract by a CFTC-registered exchange, charting a path for one of the most liquid segments of the crypto asset markets to exist within the U.S. regulatory framework,” Mike Selig, chairman of the CFTC, posted on X in May.
For her part, Senator Gillibrand has been a key Democratic ally for the crypto industry, which itself is an advocate for perpetuals. The New York senator was part of a group of lawmakers who first introduced the Genius Act, or legislation that regulates stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency pegged to real-world assets like the U.S. dollar. President Donald Trump signed the bill into law in July.
Gillibrand’s son, Theodore, graduated from Stanford University on Sunday. He previously was a fellow at the venture capital firm Paradigm and an intern at Andreessen Horowitz, according to his LinkedIn profile.