Strike

Regulated futures exchange

tradestrike.app

HQ: San Francisco, CA, USA

1-10

Consumer

Company research

Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals

Updated Jul 30, 2026

Overview

Pluto (tradestrike.app, formerly Strike) is a YC Winter 2025 startup building a CFTC-regulated derivatives exchange for AI infrastructure/compute. Its public pitch is to make compute and memory tradeable like commodities, starting with standardized GPU contracts and a compute price index. Public sources conflict on some basics, but YC’s company page is the strongest source for the current company identity, founder set, and New York base.

Primary product

CFTC-regulated derivatives exchange for AI infrastructure / compute

Founded

2024

Headquarters

New York City, New York, United States

Team size

1-10

Work style

Flexible

Industry

Securities and Commodity Exchanges

Sub-industry

AI infrastructure derivatives exchange

Offices

New York City, New York, United States

Business model

transaction fees

trading commissions

market infrastructure

Funding

Stage

seed

Total raised

$3M

Latest round

Seed · Feb 2026

Latest amount

$3M

Seed

Feb 2026

$3M

People & investors

Leadership

Ronit Jain

Chief Executive Officer

Aarav Patel

Co-Founder

Yusef Shaheen

Chief Operating Officer & Head of Trading

Rich Jaycobs

Public Director

Andrew Ridenour

Public Director

Investors

Goodwater Capital

Pioneer Fund

Transpose Platform Management

Y Combinator

Work & culture

Stealth-mode, high-ownership, technical and compliance-heavy team culture focused on building regulated market infrastructure with direct founder involvement. Hiring language emphasizes speed, product intuition, and the ability to work on core exchange and infrastructure systems.

Work style

Flexible

Visa sponsorship

Limited

Compensation

Public job posts show strong equity packages and high base pay: Senior Software Engineer at $250K-$300K base plus 0.50%-1.00% equity, Head of Strategic Finance at $200K-$250K base plus 0.50%-1.00% equity, and Head of Compute Sales at $150K-$200K base plus 0.10%-0.30% equity plus commission.

Benefits

health insurance

dental coverage

vision coverage

flexible work environment

Product & market

Pricing

Transaction fees / commissions on trades and exchange activity.

Differentiators

—First-mover CFTC-regulated exchange focus for AI compute rather than political or sports prediction markets
—Standardized GPU contracts and a compute benchmark/forward curve
—Integrated exchange and clearinghouse regulatory path (PMEX Markets + PMEX Clearing)
—Proprietary compute price indices
—Explicit institutional hedging use case for AI infrastructure buyers and sellers

Technology

Python

Rust

TypeScript

React Native

Flask

Kubernetes

containers

virtual machines

AWS ECS

AWS Aurora

AWS Cognito

AWS SQS/SNS

Slurm

Ray

Customers

AI companies

AI labs

enterprises with GPU spend

neoclouds

data centers

market makers

lenders

speculators

cloud providers

Competitors

Kalshi

Nadex

Polymarket US

CME Group

ICE

Ornn

OneChronos

Compute Exchange

Silicon Data

Scale & contact

Estimated revenue

$770K ARR (estimated)

Signals & risks

Other

Mar 2026

Pluto said its DCM and DCO applications were deemed materially complete by the CFTC, but the business still depends on final regulatory approval before launch.

Source

Latest news

How Ronit Jain Built Pluto Around the Idea of Compute as a Commodity

OKReporter · Apr 2026

A profile of Pluto’s thesis: treating compute and memory as commodities with clearer benchmarks, tradable contracts, and regulated market structure.

AI-Focused Prediction Market Exchange PMEX Files for CFTC Approval

DeFi Rate · Feb 2026

Explains Pluto’s PMEX Markets / PMEX Clearing CFTC filings and says the company is focused on commoditizing AI infrastructure, starting with GPUs and compute.

VCs Are Throwing Money At Recent College Grads To Build Prediction Markets