Startups > Alpaca

Alpaca

Alpaca helps fintechs and traders build investing apps via brokerage APIs.

Series D $344M total Founded 2013 Tokyo, Tokyo 364 employees

Alpaca is a developer-first brokerage infrastructure platform that provides APIs for programmatic access to stocks, options, and cryptocurrencies. It enables fintechs, institutions, and individual traders to build customized investing applications without building brokerage infrastructure from scratch. The platform powers over 9 million brokerage accounts across 40+ countries and differentiates through its full-stack broker-as-a-service model, combining trading APIs with complete regulatory and custody infrastructure.

Problem solved

Fintechs and trading firms cannot easily access regulated brokerage infrastructure and must either build it in-house (expensive, slow, regulatory-heavy) or partner with legacy brokers with poor APIs and high minimums.

Target customer

Fintech companies, prop trading firms, hedge funds, retail brokers, and individual algorithmic traders looking to launch or scale investment platforms without building brokerage infrastructure.

Website LinkedIn Crunchbase Twitter / X

Founders

Yoshi Yokokawa

CEO & Co-Founder

Former VP of Structured Finance at Nomura and securitization trader at Lehman Brothers; founded machine learning/image recognition startup acquired by Kyocera; forex trader and day trader.

Hitoshi Harada

CPO & Co-Founder

Chief Product Officer; brings decades of financial services and technology expertise.

Yuki Hayashi

Co-Founder

Co-founder with background in financial services and technology.

Funding history

Series D $150M 2026-01-14 Led by Drive Capital · Citadel Securities, Kraken, BNP Paribas Venture

Total raised: $344M

Industries

Financial Services Developer APIs Trading Platform FinTech

Pricing

Usage-based model. Basic plan free for individual traders. Enterprise customers pay annual API access fees plus per-transaction costs. Revenue also from payment for order flow, commission fees, and margin interest on brokerage activities.

Notable customers

Sarwa, Thndr, Composer, Pearler, Dime!, Kraken (strategic partnership), 9M+ brokerage accounts across 40+ countries

Integrations

Kraken (tokenized equities custody), various fintech platforms via Broker API, algorithmic trading platforms, wealth management apps

Tech stack

core-js (JavaScript libraries) Glide.js (JavaScript libraries) HubSpot Chat (Live chat) Zendesk (Documentation) Open Graph HTTP/3 HubSpot Analytics (Analytics) Google Ads Conversion Tracking (Analytics) Amplitude (Analytics) Matomo Analytics (Analytics) Linkedin Insight Tag (Analytics) Google Analytics (Analytics) Facebook Pixel (Analytics) HSTS (Security) Google Font API (Font scripts) Google Workspace (Email) Cloudflare (CDN) HubSpot (Marketing automation) Google Ads (Advertising) Linkedin Ads (Advertising) Twitter Ads (Advertising) Amazon SES (Email) Amazon Web Services (PaaS)

Website

alpaca.markets/

Competitors

Interactive Brokers

Legacy, established player; Alpaca CEO explicitly targets them for market share with modern APIs and better developer experience.

DriveWealth

Closest direct competitor with $550M funding; earlier market entry but less comprehensive API-first approach.

Upvest

European-focused broker API provider; narrower geographic reach and customer base.

Atomic

Smaller broker API competitor; less funding and market penetration.

lemon.markets

European broker API platform; regional focus versus Alpaca's global presence.

Why this matters: Alpaca has achieved rare scale (9M+ accounts, $344M funding) in the highly regulated broker API space by combining technical excellence with regulatory infrastructure. The company is directly challenging Interactive Brokers (the dominant player for 25+ years) and expanding into high-growth emerging markets and new asset classes like options and crypto.

Best for: Fintech founders, prop trading firms, and institutional clients who need regulated brokerage infrastructure and APIs to launch or scale multi-asset trading platforms without regulatory and technical burden.

Use cases

Regional Fintech Platform Launch

Thndr used Alpaca's Broker API to launch a commission-free investing platform in Egypt, reaching 3M+ downloads and $1.8B trading volume in 2023. Without Alpaca's infrastructure, building regulated brokerage in emerging markets would require 18+ months and millions in compliance costs.

Options Trading in Restricted Markets

Sarwa became the first fintech to offer options trading in the Middle East by leveraging Alpaca's Broker API, enabling product differentiation in a market where options were previously unavailable to retail investors.

No-Code Algorithmic Trading Platform

Composer built a no-code algorithmic trading interface powered by Alpaca's Trading API, enabling non-technical traders to create and deploy automated strategies across stocks, options, and crypto without coding.

Alternatives

Interactive Brokers Established giant with legacy systems; better for institutional clients with complex needs but slower API development and less developer-friendly.

DriveWealth Earlier market entry with strong institutional relationships; comparable broker API offering but less comprehensive crypto and options support.

Upvest European-focused with strong regional presence; smaller funding and less global reach than Alpaca.

FAQ

What does Alpaca do? +

Alpaca provides developer-first APIs and full-stack brokerage infrastructure enabling fintechs and traders to build investing platforms with access to stocks, options, and cryptocurrencies. It handles regulatory compliance, custody, clearing, and settlement so partners can focus on user experience. The platform powers 9M+ brokerage accounts across 40+ countries.

How much does Alpaca cost? +

Individual traders access a free Basic plan for paper and live trading. Alpaca uses usage-based pricing that scales with customer activity. Enterprise clients pay annual API access fees plus per-transaction costs. Additional revenue comes from payment for order flow, commissions, and margin interest.

What are alternatives to Alpaca? +

Interactive Brokers is the primary competitor (legacy but established); DriveWealth offers comparable broker APIs with earlier market entry; Upvest and lemon.markets focus on European markets; Atomic is a smaller broker API provider.

Who uses Alpaca? +

Fintech platforms (Thndr, Sarwa, Pearler), algorithmic traders and prop firms, hedge funds, individual retail traders, and institutional clients. Notable customers include Thndr (3M+ users in MENA), Sarwa (first to offer options in Middle East), and Kraken (strategic custody partnership).

How does Alpaca compare to Interactive Brokers? +

Alpaca is API-first and cloud-native, purpose-built for fintechs and developers with modern infrastructure and faster integration. Interactive Brokers is the established market leader with deeper institutional relationships but legacy systems and slower API development. CEO Yokokawa explicitly targets Interactive Brokers for market share.