Announcing Proof
The U.S. has the most actively traded and technologically advanced stock market in the world. Our stock market, however, is also overly complicated, opaque, and riddled with conflicts of interest. Though the barriers to entry in the heart of this arena are daunting, we are excited to announce our intention to start a new institutional U.S. equities broker. We will bring a new level of technological excellence, transparency, and accountability to this space.
Why Now
In large part due to the efforts of my former bosses at IEX, along with many other similarly-minded individuals throughout the industry, the regulatory environment has seen a clear shift in recent years toward fostering transparency and fairness, as regulators are coming down harder on industry participants who mislead investors. Recent legislation, such as MIFID II in Europe and the proposed transaction fee pilot here in the states, are creating an opportunity for a nimble new entrant hyper-focused on transparency and execution quality.
Why Us
You can read our bios here, but the short answer is this: Allison is all-around incredible, and I just happen to have super-relevant experience, having helped start IEX. Creating an institutional broker-dealer from scratch is no small feat, but it is certainly more approachable than building a new stock exchange.
Value Proposition
We will launch an institutional broker-dealer that emphasizes execution quality while bringing a new level of transparency to the market. While our specific ideas are evolving and we cannot share technical details at this stage, we are confident that we will attain this goal.
The most notable feature of IEX from the very beginning was the mission. At Proof, we are taking the same approach. Like IEX, we will emphasize honesty, transparency, market microstructure expertise, sophisticated and nimble technology, and avoiding conflicts of interest. These core tenets are the foundation upon which we will build.
Our plan right now is to set up the company, round out the team, kick off the necessary regulatory filings, build a powerful, flexible equity trading platform, and identify a small group of institutional investors who can advise us and brainstorm with us along the away.
How you can help
Tech talent
Allison and I are planning to keep our team extremely lean for the foreseeable future, but one area where we would like additional help is with the tech build. Even though this area is arguably our strongest suit, we see Proof as a technology company first and foremost, and we would like our team to reflect that in spades. Our fallback plan is to build everything ourselves, but ideally we would bring on a CTO within the next year, if we find the right fit.
Buy-side engagement
Every new venture begins with overwhelming optimism, but of course the majority of startups eventually fail. We are very confident that we will be able to bring a unique and highly effective product to market while remaining lean, but that is only half the battle; we want to ensure that we gain rapid traction with customers. To that end, if you or someone you know is in a position to influence buy-side trading decisions, and might have an appetite for working with a nimble, sophisticated startup broker from our design phase up through initial launch, we would love to have a conversation. We are hoping to find 5–10 buy-side partners who can advise us on their particular workflows and needs as we build out, and who can potentially use our product in some capacity at the time we launch.
Conclusion
We know we have a long hard road ahead, but right now we are just beaming with optimism and excitement. I suppose every startup begins that way though. Oh well, wish us luck!
