Krux
February 16, 2026
Ex-Amber Group Founder Raises $20M for AI Trading Startup
Published: February 16, 2026 at 3:09 AM
Updated: February 16, 2026 at 3:09 AM
100-word summary
Inference Research, founded by Luke Li—former Co-founder and Head of Trading at Amber Group—is closing a $20 million Seed round led by Avenir Group, Asia's prominent institutional investor. The startup is building an AI-native quantitative trading franchise designed to bridge digital assets and traditional finance. The capital will scale Inference's sovereign AI infrastructure and recruit quants, engineers, and researchers. The firm plans a diversified, multi-strategy approach across crypto, traditional markets, and emerging Real-World Assets, deploying AI across research, execution, and risk management. This positions Inference to capitalize on the blurring lines between TradFi and DeFi as institutional capital flows into tokenized assets.
What happened
Inference Research, founded by Luke Li—former Co-founder and Head of Trading at Amber Group—is closing a $20 million Seed round led by Avenir Group, Asia's prominent institutional investor. The startup is building an AI-native quantitative trading franchise designed to bridge digital assets and traditional finance. The capital will scale Inference's sovereign AI infrastructure and recruit quants, engineers, and researchers. The firm plans a diversified, multi-strategy approach across crypto, traditional markets, and emerging Real-World Assets, deploying AI across research, execution, and risk management.
Why it matters
This positions Inference to capitalize on the blurring lines between TradFi and DeFi as institutional capital flows into tokenized assets.