Seed CX is currently raising capital to fund the development of its cannabis derivatives trading platform. It applied to the CFTC this summer and intends to trade hemp futures initially. The company’s business model includes membership fees as well as transaction-based fees.
The company was founded by Brian Liston and Ed Woodford, both of whom recently earned the Master of Finance degree at MIT’s Sloan School of Business. Liston, who is CEO, was a venture Analyst at Red Sea Ventures and co-founded Helpers. Woodford, who is CFO, worked at Lansdowne Partners and Muddy Waters Research and is a co-founder of My Money Guru.
Seed CX has added a significant number of notable advisors, including Gary Johnson, the former Governor of New Mexico, General Counsel Dennis Brovarone, who has public-company experience and is also a member of the Colorado Hemp Association, Tony Davidson, who headed up the European Derivatives Group of Deutsche Bank, Stephanie Feldt, who serves as CCO and COO and has experience at two CFTC regulated SEFs and served as VP at first Deutsche Bank and then Barclays Capital, Francesco Matteini, who has served as the CCO of Zecco which is the sixth largest online brokerage in the US, as a Public Director, Peter Malyschev, who assisted in the drafting of Dodd Frank and is a professor at Georgetown University, as specialist CFTC counsel, Wayne Marr, who founded both the Financial Economics Association and Social Science Research Network and serves as a Public Director, and Marc Vial, who served as the Chief Risk Officer of CME in Europe and prior was the Executive Director Head of Global Risk Strategy and Market Analytics at J.P. Morgan, as a Public Director. In late August, the company also named Chris Emerson as Chief Scientific Officer, working with the executive team to refine the grading system and products. Chris was a post doctoral fellow at Stanford until 2012, when he became Chief Scientist at Emerald Therapeutics, a bio-tech start up backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.
The company named Charlie O’Donnell, the founder of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, as its lead investor in September. On October 18th, the company informed via its newsletter that it has added three new investors:
- Eduardo Marques has made an Angel Investment in Seed. Eduardo is a Senior Investment Committee Member at Valiant Capital Management, a hedge fund with a Venture Capital arm ($2.7 billion under management). Prior investments include Pininterest, Uber and Dropbox.
- Mazy Dar has made a personal Angel Investment in Seed. Mazy is currently the CEO of Open Fin, former VP of ICE and former Chief Strategy Officer of Creditex (CDS broker dealer which exited for $0.6 billion in 2008).
- Edward Feldman (Managing Member) has led an investment from Remsen Holdings, a New York VC. Remain has made a number of undisclosed investments in early stage start-ups.
The company recently pitched at the New York Angels event earlier this month. Seed CX’s website allows one to sign up for more information about the company.
