MochaTrade, a global trading platform focused on offering perpetual futures linked to U.S. stocks, commodities, and indices, has raised an undisclosed pre-seed funding round from Y Combinator and Pioneer Fund as part of Y Combinator’s Spring 2026 batch.
The company plans to use the raised funds to build its perpetual trading engine and risk infrastructure, while also supporting the regulatory and compliance groundwork required for launch across target jurisdictions, with a portion of the funding also being allocated toward go-to-market efforts focused on active retail traders in regions where the platform will be legally available.
Founded by IITians Utkarsh Sinha, Chetan Manda, and Parth Maheshwari, MochaTrade aims to provide eligible non-U.S. traders access to global markets without relying heavily on traditional brokerage accounts, cross-border transfers, or fragmented domestic investment products that often limit market participation.
MochaTrade stated that its markets are designed to operate continuously, with trades settling in real-time instead of the traditional one-to-two business day cycle, allowing traders to immediately redeploy capital after closing positions.
Speaking about the fundraise, Utkarsh Sinha, Co-founder and CEO of MochaTrade, said, “Non-US traders make up the largest retail derivatives market in the world, and yet they have limited access through domestic channels to the most liquid, most valuable equities on the planet. After scaling Martian Wallet to two million users, we saw the same pattern again and again, sophisticated traders with capital, conviction, and no clean way to express a view on United States assets through compliant pathways.”
“Perpetual futures are the right financial primitive, but every product built on them so far has been designed for crypto natives, not traders. We are rebuilding the experience so that trading Apple feels like trading Apple. We are grateful to Harj, Nemil, the Y Combinator team, and Pioneer Fund for backing the mission this early,” he added.
Commenting on the investment in the platform, Harj Taggar, Managing Partner at Y Combinator, said, “The MochaTrade team has done this before. They have built consumer financial products at scale, they understand derivatives at a deep level, and they are tackling a global market that has been structurally underserved for decades. This is exactly the kind of ambitious, infrastructure-heavy bet we love backing at YC.”
“Utkarsh, Chetan, and Parth are exactly the kind of founders we back at YC, obsessed with their users and clear-eyed about the infrastructure they need to build. What sets MochaTrade apart is their commitment to the most regulated pathways for offering United States stock perpetuals, in full compliance with local law, to give eligible users a safe and compliant way to access this product,” added Nemil Dalal, Visiting Partner at Y Combinator.
Further commenting on the funding, David Gobaud of Pioneer Fund, said, “MochaTrade is the kind of bet we love at Pioneer Fund, a repeat technical founding team taking on entrenched financial infrastructure with a genuinely better product. Continuous markets and real-time settlement are not incremental improvements over the status quo; they represent a step change. We are excited to back this team.”
MochaTrade further said its long-term goal is to broaden access to global financial markets for eligible users across emerging markets, subject to applicable local laws and regulatory approvals in each jurisdiction.
