Press Release

Vanquish Brings the $1 Trillion Shopify Playbook to Wall Street

fintech platforms reducing barriers to entry for hedge funds and investment managers

Douglas, Isle of Man, 20th February 2026, FinanceWire

Today, Vanquish announced the launch of its US operations — a platform that reduces the cost of launching an investment fund from over $500,000 to less than $10,000 by providing pre-vetted quantitative strategies, legal structure, and compliance infrastructure under one platform.

Shopify proved that inventory isn’t required to run a store. Vanquish proves in-house quants aren’t required to run a fund.

Foster believes finance is next.

“The playbooks are already written,” says Alexander Foster, 26, co-founder of Vanquish and Vertus — a quantitative AI firm that returned 51% in 2025. “Shopify, Uber, Stripe — they didn’t invent new business models. They took friction out of existing markets. The winners in the next decade will do the same thing in industries that haven’t been touched yet.”

The Shopify Playbook

In 2006, launching an online store required $50,000+ in development, complex merchant approvals, and warehouses full of inventory. Fewer than 100,000 e-commerce stores existed globally. Then Shopify reduced the cost to $29 per month. Today, over 30 million stores operate worldwide. Shopify has facilitated over $1 trillion in cumulative sales.

“When you drop costs by 98 percent, you don’t capture existing demand — you create demand that couldn’t exist before,” Foster says. “That’s a 300x market expansion. We’re betting the same thing happens in finance.”

The numbers suggest room for expansion. Fewer than 30,000 hedge funds operate globally, despite 24 million accredited investors in the United States alone.

Powered by 51% Returns

The primary source of strategies comes from Vertus, a quantitative AI firm that serves as the verification layer and main source of alpha for Vanquish. Foster co-founded Vertus with Michal Prywata — serial founder and visionary whose ventures include NASA-contracted space infrastructure, MIT-incubated medical robotics, and pioneering agricultural AI — and Julius Franck, mathematical genius and serial entrepreneur who graduated valedictorian in Germany and South Korea before designing the quantitative engine that powers Vertus.

Within 10 months, Vertus scaled to multiple eight-figure revenue, with trading systems managing over $1 billion in daily volume. In 2025, those systems delivered 51% returns — beating Citadel, Millennium, Bridgewater, and D.E. Shaw. All performance data is independently audited by Alpha Performance Verification Services.

“In finance, you can’t hide behind branding,” says co-founder Antonio Guidi. “The numbers are the numbers. That’s exactly the environment we’ve built.”

Three-Sided Marketplace

“We’re not a marketplace where anyone can list anything,” says co-founder Ryan Kelly. “We’re building an ecosystem of verified partners — quants, fund managers, service providers — all connected through a layer of trust.”

Traders can verify their track record through Vertus, enter the platform, and have their strategies offered by multiple funds simultaneously. For fund managers, the value proposition is equally compelling: a constantly expanding library of pre-vetted strategies.

“A fund manager who joins today will have access to strategies that don’t even exist yet,” Guidi says.

“The incentives are completely aligned,” Kelly says. “Better performance, larger funds, larger platform. Everyone wins.”

Platforms

Vanquish US provides fund formation infrastructure for RIAs, family offices, and emerging managers launching Delaware Series LLC structures under Reg D.

Vanquish Global offers white-label investment company infrastructure across 190+ countries through FCA, CySEC, and FSC-regulated partner entities.

Both platforms are now live.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements regarding anticipated platform developments and market expansion. Actual results may differ materially. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Trading involves substantial risk of loss.

About Vanquish

Vanquish is a technology and infrastructure provider. Vanquish does not provide investment advice, manage funds, handle client capital, or act as a broker-dealer or investment adviser. Regulated services are provided by third-party licensed entities.

Website: vanquish.so

Contact

Operations Director
Sen Jeyaprakash
Vanquish
sen@vanquishholdings.co.uk

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