Capital markets were designed around opening bells and closing bells. The assets traders now care about do not have either.
London-based LO:TECH raised $12M in Series A funding led by MMC, with Faction, 13 Books Capital and Atka participating. Founders Tim Meggs and Marcus Horsley built the firm’s infrastructure from scratch rather than extending systems designed for a 9am to 4:30pm world.
The company provides liquidity and execution services across traditional markets, digital assets and prediction markets, and has just launched execution services for institutional clients.
The timing tracks a structural shift. Tokenised real-world assets kept growing through the first half of 2026 even as the broader crypto market fell, and as more instruments migrate onchain, trading firms need plumbing that works on both sides of the divide.
Meggs argues the incumbents are technologically strong but grew up on top of infrastructure built for a different era, and that a firm born in digital assets can compete with the largest names in traditional finance.
The capital funds expansion into the United States and Asia-Pacific, with offices planned in New York and Singapore, plus regulatory authorisations in the markets it enters, including exploring US licensing.
The hard part is not technology but permissions. Trading infrastructure is a regulated activity, and every new jurisdiction adds capital requirements, compliance staff and supervisory relationships.
For fintech founders, LO:TECH illustrates a durable pattern. When two market structures collide, the company that builds native to both, instead of bolting one onto the other, can take share faster than the incumbents can retrofit.
