Akuna Capital

The name is an Australian Aboriginal word for flowing water, and that is the whole thesis: Akuna Capital exists to provide liquidity as an options market maker. Its Australian founding partners sketched the firm in Sydney, then planted the first office in Chicago, the derivatives capital, rather than build at home.

Founded in 2011, Akuna trades only its own capital and has spread ownership widely among employees. It builds its low-latency stack in-house across four pillars: technology, trading, quant, and operations. One quirk gives away the culture, a full 360-degree virtual tour of the office, unusual marketing for a prop shop that answers to no outside investor and recruits engineers and mathematicians as readily as traders.