By The 22-year-old son of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has raised $30 million for a financial technology startup seeking to bring perpetual futures trading into regulated U.S. markets, a development that is already drawing scrutiny over whether access to Washington’s political class gives connected players an advantage ordinary entrepreneurs could never obtain.
Theodore Gillibrand, a recent Stanford University graduate, is the founder of American Perpetuals Exchange Corp., or APEC. The funding round, led by Lux Capital, values the company at $300 million, according to Fortune.
APEC is working to build a trading platform for perpetual futures, a type of derivative contract with no expiration date that allows traders to bet on the price of an asset without owning it. The products have become popular in cryptocurrency markets but have increasingly drawn the attention of traditional finance firms.
Gillibrand’s company plans to focus first on perpetual futures tied to equities and stock indexes, rather than cryptocurrencies. The firm intends to seek a Designated Contract Market license from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and pursue an exemption that would allow it to list single-name equity perpetual futures under joint CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission oversight.
“It is clear that the future of these markets is not in offshore and unregulated foreign entities but rather in a regulated and institutional American company,” Theodore Gillibrand said in a statement.
The raise has attracted scrutiny because of Gillibrand’s family ties. His mother, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has been one of the more prominent Democratic voices in Congress on cryptocurrency regulation. She co-introduced legislation to regulate stablecoins and has been involved in broader discussions over digital asset market structure, including issues touching the CFTC.
For many critics, the issue is not whether Theodore Gillibrand has broken any rule. No evidence of illegal activity or direct impropriety has been reported. The issue is appearance. A recent college graduate raising $30 million for a company that depends on federal regulators to approve a novel trading product is exactly the kind of story that reinforces the public’s belief that the system works differently for people with the right last name.
Theodore Gillibrand’s background includes work connected to the venture capital and crypto sectors. According to public reports and his LinkedIn profile, he previously served as a fellow at Paradigm and interned at Andreessen Horowitz. Some accounts have also linked him to work in his mother’s Senate office.
A June 4 memo filed with the SEC indicates Gillibrand met with officials from both the SEC and CFTC to discuss regulatory harmonization for perpetual futures.
The announcement prompted immediate discussion online, where critics questioned how a recent college graduate could raise such a large funding round for a company seeking approval in a heavily regulated market. Some users pointed to the timing of the raise shortly after his graduation and argued that the family connection raised concerns about political access and privilege.
That perception matters. In Washington, formal conflicts of interest are often only part of the story. The deeper public concern is that the children, relatives, and associates of powerful officials can move through elite schools, venture firms, regulatory meetings, and capital markets with a kind of built-in credibility unavailable to outsiders. Even when everything is technically legal, the result can look like a system arranged to reward the already connected.
Supporters of the deal have pointed to Gillibrand’s experience in crypto-adjacent venture capital and the company’s stated goal of moving a high-volume trading product away from offshore markets and into a regulated U.S. framework.
Perpetual futures have become a growing area of interest for exchanges and trading firms. The CFTC has recently allowed regulated platforms to expand their offerings of crypto-linked perpetual contracts, including Bitcoin products, while market participants have sought ways to bring similar structures into traditional asset classes.
APEC has not yet launched trading. The company must still secure regulatory approvals before it can operate in U.S. markets. But the company’s early success has already become a case study in a familiar Washington problem: even when the rules are followed, the game can still appear rigged for those born close to power.
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