Strix Leviathan

Strix Leviathan operates as a quantitative investment management firm focused on the digital asset market. It caters to institutional clients such as hedge funds, banks, and other enterprise companies by providing a sophisticated platform for cryptocurrency trading and management. The firm was established in Seattle in 2018 by co-founders Jesse Proudman and Sadie Raney. Proudman, a serial entrepreneur, had previously founded the private cloud company Blue Box, which was acquired by IBM. His subsequent work at IBM in blockchain research sparked the thesis for Strix Leviathan. Raney, now CEO, brought extensive finance and technology experience, including her role as Controller at Blue Box where she managed the company's acquisition by IBM. The founding team also included Nico Cordeiro as CIO, who previously worked as a research analyst at PitchBook Data and served seven years in the US military.

The company's business model is centered on applying systematic, quantitative strategies to navigate the volatile cryptocurrency markets, aiming to mitigate discretionary bias and behavioral pitfalls. Revenue was generated through management and performance fees on assets managed within its funds, such as the Strix Leviathan Nest Fund. This fund employed a model-driven approach to allocate capital across a diversified basket of digital assets, focusing on optimizing risk-adjusted returns. Strix Leviathan's core philosophy posits that cryptocurrency price action is largely defined by the behavioral patterns of market participants, rather than fundamental metrics, due to the market's relative immaturity and fractured data landscape.

The firm developed a proprietary, enterprise-grade technology platform named Octopus. This system features a data ingestion engine that pulls information from numerous exchanges, a trade execution engine with a unified API for accessing liquidity across multiple venues, and proprietary trading algorithms developed using machine learning. The platform was designed to provide institutional-grade portfolio management, real-time risk analytics, and robust backtesting capabilities. Strix Leviathan typically traded the top 20 most liquid cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, as the vast majority of other digital assets lacked the necessary liquidity for its dynamic trading strategies. In March 2018, the company secured $1.62 million in a seed funding round led by Liquid 2 Ventures to fuel the platform's development. In early 2025, Strix Leviathan was acquired by Parataxis, a New York-based crypto hedge fund, in a strategic combination of two actively managed digital asset funds.

Keywords: quantitative investment management, cryptocurrency trading, digital asset fund, algorithmic trading, systematic investing, hedge fund, institutional investors, crypto risk management, portfolio management system, financial technology, Jesse Proudman, Sadie Raney, Nico Cordeiro, crypto quantitative analysis, trade execution engine, machine learning algorithms, digital commodities, asset management, Seattle fintech, Parataxis acquisition, crypto hedge fund, investment strategies, volatile markets, liquidity management, blockchain technology