Lighter Raises $68M at $1.5B Valuation to Build a Fairer Crypto Trading System
Lighter, a decentralized trading platform founded in 2022 by Vladimir NovakovskiDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, has secured $68 million in fresh funding at a $1.5 billion valuation, underscoring investor confidence in the next generation of on-chain trading infrastructure.
Founded in 2022, Lighter combines a decentralized exchange and a blockchain built on Ethereum. It enables users to trade perpetual futures —derivatives that allow ongoing speculation on cryptocurrency prices without expiry dates—and plans to introduce spot trading for major tokens such as Bitcoin. The protocol’s design aims to remove single points of control and provide a transparent, verifiable infrastructure for financial transactions.
Novakovski, who moved from Russia to the U.S. as a child, graduated from Harvard at 18 and began his career at CitadelDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, where he worked as an engineer and trader. Before Lighter, he co-founded the AI networking platform Lunchclub, which gained traction during the pandemic but plateaued in 2022.
He subsequently pivoted the company’s resources to build Lighter, retaining much of the team and raising $21 million in 2024 from Haun VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Craft Ventures.
According to data from L2BEAT, Lighter’s blockchain has quickly risen to become one of Ethereum’s leading layer-2 networks by total value locked. Novakovski says the business is already profitable and is designed to ensure that “everything that happens in finance happens fairly, correctly, and transparently.”
The funding comes as investor attention returns to decentralized trading infrastructure. Competitors such as Hyperliquid have demonstrated the growing potential of “perps,” or perpetual futures, a market that has traditionally been dominated by centralized exchanges like Binance. With its emphasis on transparency and technical rigor, Lighter aims to offer a credible alternative for on-chain derivatives trading.
Sources:
Fortune
Intellectia
Trading View
J.V.
