The Portfolio Optimizer for Wealth Management
The Portfolio Optimizer for Wealth Management
Iraklis Kourtidis (Co-founder & CEO) has worked in the financial industry for over 20 years. His past positions include hybrid trading / software development roles in various elite trading desks within Getco (now Virtu), Goldman Sachs, and UBS, where he was 1 of 2 developers working on iXt, a system that handled the largest equities trading volume in the US at the time. He jointly headed the team that built from scratch the technology for Cutler Group, one of the most successful trading businesses in the west coast. Most recently, he was inventing and implementing investment logic for Wealthfront, the most sophisticated automated investment advisor. He has passed several regulatory exams (including Series 65 - Registered Investment Adviser).
Iraklis received a MSc in Computer Science from the University of Miami in 2000, and a BA in Computer Science from Harvard University in 1996.
Stephen Anderson, PhD (Co-founder & VP of Research) has over 20 years of experience modeling, simulating, and trading stocks, exchange-traded funds, and futures. He focuses on modeling portfolio risk and optimizing tax-efficient trading strategies. His most recent position was at KCG, where he was a member of a successful market-making team across all major US exchanges, specializing in trading ETFs. He worked in similar roles at JP Morgan and at UBS, where he modeled ETFs and futures for a pioneering automated market-making system. Stephen's data background also includes developing acoustic models for the first commercially successful speech recognition product, Dragon Naturally Speaking.
Stephen completed his BS in Math-Physics at Yale University in 1986 and his PhD in Astrophysics at Princeton University in 1992.
Our list of investors includes senior leaders from the financial industry:
Daniel Coleman is the former Chief Executive Officer of KCG Holdings (formerly NYSE:KCG) and of Getco LLC, two global market making firms. Previously, he served as the Global Head of Equities for UBS Investment Bank where he was a member of the Investment Bank Executive Committee and the Group Managing Board of UBS AG. In addition, he served as a Director of The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC, Boston Options Exchange, and The Options Clearing Corporation. He is an active investor in numerous private companies in the financial technology space. Daniel holds a B.A. in English from Yale University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Nick Ogurtsov is the former Chief Operating Officer and Chief Risk Officer of KCG Holdings, a global market making firm for securities and derivatives (formerly NYSE: KCG; acquired in 2017 by Virtu Financial (NASDAQ: VIRT) for $1.4 billion). He also recently served on the Board of Directors of DTCC, the central repository of securities in the US. Prior to that Nick was the Global Head of UBS's automated market-making group and a member of UBS's management team for the global cash equities business. He was the youngest person to be promoted to Managing Director in the history of UBS. Nick earned his B.S. in Physics and Computer Science from Beloit College and a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Arizona.
Peter Kovac is the former Chief Operating Officer of EWT, LLC, and Madison Tyler, LLC, two leading global market making firms that merged with Virtu Financial (NASDAQ: VIRT) in 2011. At EWT and Madison Tyler he managed regulatory compliance, risk management, finance, trading operations and related technology teams. Prior to that, he was the first employee and Platform Architect at Post Communications, which was acquired by Netcentives in 2000 for $333 million. He is currently CEO of tk2 labs and Managing Member of Ozone Park Partners. Peter graduated with a B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University.
Nikos Nicopoulos, PhD is a Managing Director at Ellington Management Group LLC, a prestigious fixed income investment firm. As the Head of Quantitative Research, he is responsible for the mathematical modeling and computer implementation of Ellington's interest rate and hedging models, and their use in managing risk. Prior to that, he was an Assistant Professor in Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics at Oxford University. He was also a Researcher and Consultant at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Nikos graduated Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Physics from Harvard University in 1983, and also received a PhD in Theoretical Physics in 1990 from Princeton University.
We are located in Menlo Park, California, at the heart of Silicon Valley.
We also have a location in the New York City metro area.