Akuna Capital is an American

proprietary trading Proprietary trading (also known as prop trading) occurs when a trader trades stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, their derivatives, or other financial instruments with the firm's own money (instead of using customer funds) to make a profit ...

firm headquartered in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. It has additional offices in London, Shanghai, and Sydney.

Background

Akuna Capital was co-founded by Andrew Killion in 2011 in Chicago. Killion was previously a partner at Optiver and had left his hometown of Sydney in 2011 to move to Chicago. Chicago was selected to launch Akuna Capital as it was considered the center of the world for derivatives and options. The word Akuna comes from an

Australian Aboriginal Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia (co ...

word that means flowing water. Akuna Capital has an affiliated

broker-dealer In financial services, a broker-dealer is a natural person, company or other organization that engages in the business of trading securities for its own account or on behalf of its customers. Broker-dealers are at the heart of the securities and ...

named Akuna Securities. According to

Bloomberg News Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg T ...

, Akuna Capital had one of the highest monthly salaries for

internship An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used to practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and g ...

s in the financial sector from 2021 to 2022.

History

In 2015, Akuna Capital signed a deal with the state of Illinois worth $4.5 million in

tax break Tax break also known as tax preferences, tax concession, and tax relief, are a method of reduction to the tax liability of taxpayers. Government usually applies them to stimulate the economy and increase the solvency of the population. By this f ...

s. Under the deal, Akuna Capital would hire ten new employees where five would be in trading and five would be in software. In 2019, Akuna Capital lost $5.4 million on

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...

assets and technology

startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses tha ...

. In January 2023, the firm cut 11% of its entire global workforce with some new hires having their contracts rescinded. In June 2023, Akuna cut 40% of its Asia-pacific workforce.

References

External links

* {{authority control 2011 establishments in Illinois Financial derivative trading companies Financial services companies established in 2011 Privately held companies based in Illinois Financial services companies based in Illinois companies based in Chicago