Clear Street, a New York-based independent prime broker, today announced that it intends to enter the futures clearing market with the acquisition of React Consulting Services, LLC and its proprietary, cloud-native futures clearing platform, BASIS.
BASIS will be integrated into Clear Street’s existing cloud-native clearing, settlement, execution, and custody platform. Clear Street’s prime brokerage platform currently processes more than 2.5% of the gross notional U.S. equities volume.
“Integrating BASIS will give our customers seamless access to futures alongside our equity, options, and fixed income offering in one platform,” said Sachin Kumar, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer. “This acquisition accelerates our product development timeline and brings us closer to a single platform for every asset class, in every country, and in any currency.”
Clear Street will welcome 10 new employees from React, including co-founders Pat Mayo and Dave Evans, who will both join Clear Street as Managing Director, Clear Street Technology. The 10 team members bring decades of experience in futures and will report directly to Kumar.
“The React team shares Clear Street’s vision for a unified prime brokerage platform and believes deeply in the Company’s mission to build modern financial infrastructure for today’s institutions,” said Mayo.
Upon the integration of BASIS, Clear Street will offer clients everything they need to clear, custody, and finance U.S. equities, options, fixed income, and futures. Full integration of BASIS will be phased, as the company plans to connect the platform to futures exchanges starting in early 2024. Clear Street’s expansion into futures clearing is subject to regulatory approval.
“We are thrilled to join Clear Street and accelerate the company’s launch into futures on the firm’s proprietary, cloud-native platform,” added Evans.
Clear Street recently announced the completion of the second tranche of its $435 million Series B capital raise, which values the company at $2.0 billion. The expansion into futures and fixed income supports Clear Street’s plans to expand its reach across new markets and asset classes, accelerate future product offerings, increase availability to all market participants, and offer solutions for clients looking to migrate to a single-source platform.
