In the rapidly moving financial markets where institutional investors manage trillions in assets, traditional investment research is becoming commoditized while the real competitive advantage lies in converting raw market intelligence into profitable trades. Professional traders face the challenge of processing vast amounts of real-time data across macro trends, sentiment analysis, quantitative metrics, options activity, and earnings reports to make split-second decisions that can impact billions in assets. AgentSmyth addresses this challenge with an autonomous agent platform that delivers institutional-grade market intelligence through five specialized AI agents, enabling traders to identify opportunities that competitors miss. The platform has already been deployed by 48 institutional customers including banks, hedge funds, and asset-management firms managing $2B to $50B in client assets, providing speed, accuracy and insights that are particularly valuable in today’s volatile markets. With their recent launch of AgentSmyth 2.0, the platform now offers enhanced processing speed and information quality while moving toward conversational, dynamically-generated interfaces tailored to each user’s role.
AlleyWatch sat down with AgentSmyth CEO and Cofounder Pulkit Jaiswal to learn more about the business, its future plans, and recent $8.7M Seed round that brings total funding to $11.2M.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
This was an $8.7M Seed round, co-led by FinTech Collective and Thomson Reuters, with BNY joining through its Ascent fintech-innovation program.
The new capital brings our total funding to $11.2M including a $2.5M pre-seed led by Michael Rafferty, president and CEO of Rafferty Holdings, who also participated in the current round.
Other investors include Binnacle Financial Group; Systemic Ventures; Scott Friedman, former President, Chief Compliance Officer and founding team member at Robinhood; Jason Halbert, a doctoral-level behavioral scientist and former U.S. Army special-operations officer who helped scale Snapchat from 40 employees to 10,000 and through its IPO; and Will Mayer and Alyssa Bonanno of Better Half, who also serve as AgentSmyth’s brand partners, bringing experience from category-defining brands such as Bilt Rewards and Equinox.
Tell us about the product or service that AgentSmyth offers.
AgentSmyth is an autonomous agent platform that has been deployed by institutional customers including banks, hedge funds, and asset-management firms with client assets of $2B – $50B.
The platform leverages AI-generated equities market intelligence, research and insights – all delivered by a team of five autonomous agents capturing real-time macro data, investor sentiment, quantitative analysis, options activity, and corporate earnings.
Speed, accuracy and insights are particularly valuable in today’s diverse and volatile markets, making this technology one of the most powerful tools available to institutional investors.
What inspired the start of AgentSmyth?
I’ve been a derivatives trader for years who, pre-AgentSmyth, has tried to navigate untamed, volatile markets and like most of us, I was limited by the tools that are traditionally available. I’m also an entrepreneur and I’ve launched leading intelligence and alternative data products. When my co-founders, Wall Street veterans Daniel McCooey and Robert DiFazio, and I saw a gap in the market we developed AgentSmyth, a fully autonomous agent platform, to fill that gap.
How is AgentSmyth different?
Investment research is becoming a commodity; the real edge is turning that raw insight into basis-point-generating trades. Competitors might find the paragraph—AgentSmyth tells you how to trade it. The platform has already been rolled out on the trading floors of some of Wall Street’s largest institutions. This round lets us accelerate adoption and ship the next wave of fully autonomous, trade-ready agents.
What market does AgentSmyth target and how big is it?
Institutional investors deal with large asset pools. Our current client roster manages upwards of $50B or more.
What’s your business model?
AgentSmyth is subscription and usage-based.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
As a growing business, external factors are of course something we consider as part of our plans, but we’re in rapid expansion mode and optimistic about our prospects for scaling near-term, and certainly long-term. We’re humbled by the recent support of our tech, but also invigorated by it.
As a service provider, we equip our users with a tool that’s essential for navigating these uncertain times in the markets. Asset managers are far more confident behind the wheel with AgentSmyth because it reduces that uncertainty on the road ahead to a speed bump, rather than a thick fog.
What was the funding process like?
We have an established, proven product that many within the industry were already familiar with, but our story is evolving and raising capital for a fintech is all about storytelling.
When we sat with potential investors, we got their interests aligned with ours by having a shared vision, showing traction in the market, and presenting an outstanding team.
It helped that we had sharp metrics and a clear growth path, but look, the process is relentless and you have to believe in the mission. That’s how we knew the right capital would find us.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Fundraising is always a highly nuanced process, but this environment is like nothing many of us have seen and I don’t think those challenges are unique to our sector.
Investors are cautious, but when potential partners meet us, they immediately identify that we strive for the optimal balance of potential and profitability. We’re deeply pragmatic, but hugely ambitious.
Nevertheless, diligence remains intense and we still have to prove every metric. Vision’s great, but it’s not the only ingredient to be awesome. Conviction alone doesn’t close rounds anymore. We’ve shown that we’re efficient with a clear path to growth.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Well, it’s as I said and I think it bears repeating: It helped that we had sharp metrics and a clear growth path, but look, the process is relentless and you have to believe in the mission.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
This week we launched AgentSmyth 2.0, which increases the platform’s output in speed and quality of information on a compound basis and we’re already enmeshed in the fabric of some of the most elite trading desks on Wall Street.
In the near-term, we’re focused on the institutional wealth in this country and that’s an asset pool that’s tens of trillions dollars deep, so we’re pretty busy focusing on how we the best autonomous agent trading tech to them.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
You’ve heard me say this before and it’s worth emphasizing that you just have to focus on what truly matters to customers and stay that course. You can optimize your business in so many ways, but remaining committed to why you exist in the market and the need you fulfill will be the difference maker.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
AgentSmyth is only going to get smarter, faster, and more accurate in how it functions.
The look and feel will evolve too—especially when it comes to dashboards. The days of toggling between 20 tabs on a platform are coming to an end. Soon, you’ll log in and interact with a system that’s conversational by design. Version 2.0 gets us closer to that already.
We’re also quickly entering a world where pre-defined UI/UX isn’t necessary. For instance, AgentSmyth recognizes whether someone is a portfolio manager or a sales trader and dynamically generates the most relevant visuals and content in real time.
We don’t want to provide a one-size-fits-all experience—we want AgentSmyth’s autonomous agents tailored to the person asking the questions. We’re making real progress toward eliminating static, text-heavy dashboards. Instead, intelligent agents will assemble the right visuals and modules on the fly.
What’s your favorite spring destination in and around the city?
La Grande Boucherie – great food, comfortable atmosphere and interesting crowd.
