A new crypto derivatives heavyweight just stepped into the arena. Lighter, a decentralized exchange and blockchain project founded by prodigy Vladimir Novakovski, announced a $68 million raise led by Founders Fund and Ribbit Capital, with Haun Ventures and Robinhood participating. Two people familiar with the deal pegged Lighter’s valuation near $1.5 billion, while the company signaled spot trading for tokens like bitcoin is “coming soon,” positioning the project directly against both centralized exchanges and top on-chain venues. Lighter operates as both a DEX and an Ethereum-anchored chain, specializing in perpetual futures, the derivatives format driving most of crypto’s trading activity. (Fortune.)

Coverage of the round underscores a high-stakes land grab in on-chain perps. Lighter has entered the market as a Hyperliquid rival—backers tout ultra-low latency and zk-proof verification—with a cumulative $90 million raised across rounds since 2024 and an initial private build spanning ~18 months before this year’s public mainnet. A separate roundup cites seven-day perps volume near $73.8 billion and 24-hour volume around $10.1 billion, ahead of Hyperliquid and other rivals on the day sampled, while noting open interest still lags (~$500 million)—a sustainability question once incentive programs cool. 

The founder bet: quant pedigree + ruthless execution

The funding round profile reads like a Silicon Valley pedigree bet. Novakovski graduated Harvard at 18, did quant research at Citadel, and led machine learning at Quora before co-founding Lunchclub in 2017. In 2022, as Lunchclub’s growth plateaued, he pivoted the team to crypto, kept roughly 80% of staff, and raised $21 million in 2024 from Haun Ventures and Craft Ventures, using that capital to build Lighter’s core. The latest $68 million raise brings total funding to ~$90 million and values the protocol near $1.5 billion, making it one of 2025’s largest DeFi up-rounds

Founders Fund says the decision hinged overwhelmingly on the team quality—“85%–90% of why we invested”—and the product’s technical posture: ultra-low latency, a zk-verified security model, and an execution stack designed to feel like a modern exchange rather than an on-chain science project. 

The product thesis: an Ethereum L2 order book built for perps—and soon, spot

Lighter’s proposition breaks from the Uniswap-era AMM template. It runs its own Layer-2 on Ethereum and uses an order-book model rather than constant-product AMMs. That decision aims squarely at pro traders who want tight spreads, predictable slippage, and deterministic fills—in short, a microstructure that looks and feels like centralized venues.

Analyst commentary circulating with the funding news argues Lighter tackles the AMM trade-offs head-on: latency, MEV, and private order flow leakage. The pitch: sub-10ms-class routing, MEV-minimized execution, and 0% trading fees (financed by a different revenue stack), which together could lure HFT-style liquidity that never fully embraced AMMs. These claims deserve continuous verification in production; still, the intent is clear—rebuild DEX mechanics to satisfy professional flow.

The roadmap extends beyond perps. Spot markets are slated to launch “in the coming days,” a move that would push Lighter into Uniswap’s backyard and test whether order books can capture organic retail and long-tail assets on Ethereum the way AMMs did. If Lighter can pair perps depth with credible spot venues, it gains the critical flywheel: listings → volume → liquidity incentives → derivatives hedging → deeper listings.