Dave Sutter
Dave Sutter (David Sutter) is the co-founder and chief executive officer of OpenTradeOpenTradeOpenTrade is a London-based stablecoin yield infrastructure company. It provides fintechs, exchanges and digital wallets with asset access, vaults, interfaces and operations for treasury management and embedded yield products.Open the full entry, a London-based stablecoin yield infrastructure company. He was a co-founder of the blockchain trade finance company Fluent, later renamed Hijro, and spent almost six years at TradeIX, later Marco Polo Network, ending as chief product officer.
Contents9 sections
Key facts
Early Venture: Fluent and Hijro
Before joining TradeIX, he was co-founder and chief operating officer of Fluent.[1]
Fluent later rebranded as Hijro and announced a blockchain trade asset marketplace.[2]
2017–2023TradeIX and Marco Polo Network
In 2017 he joined TradeIX, later Marco Polo Network, and most recently served as chief product officer.[3]
He served as TradeIX’s head of platform strategy.[4]
He spent almost six years at Marco Polo, a blockchain trade finance network that shut down earlier in 2023.[5]
February 2023Founding OpenTrade
In February 2023 he left Marco Polo Network to launch OpenTrade as chief executive.[3]
May 2023First Funding Round
In May 2023 OpenTrade announced it had raised just over $1.5 million in a round led by Sino Global Capital, with Circle Ventures, Kronos Research, Kyber Ventures, PolygonPolygonPolygon (formerly Matic Network) is a blockchain network and project founded in 2017, originally to scale Ethereum, and driven by organizations including Polygon Labs and the Polygon Foundation; its native token was upgraded from MATIC to POL, and in recent years it has shifted toward stablecoin payments infrastructure.Open the full entry Ventures and Outlier Ventures participating.[6]
April–November 2024: Seed and Extension Rounds
OpenTrade raised a $3.2 million seed round in April 2024 and in November added a $4 million seed extension led by AlbionVC, with a16z crypto and CMCC Global participating. He said, “This funding allows us to continue on our growth trajectory.”[7]
2025Strategic Funding and Growth
In June 2025 OpenTrade completed a $7 million strategic round led by Mercury Fund and Notion Capital.[8]
In 2025 the company’s total value locked passed $200 million and its transaction volume exceeded $250 million.[9]
May 2026$17 Million Round
On May 6, 2026, OpenTrade announced a $17 million round led by Mercury Fund and Notion Capital, with a16z Crypto, AlbionVC and CMCC Global participating, bringing total funding above $30 million. He said OpenTrade “has made it simple for fintechs and neobanks to plug institutional-grade stablecoin yield into their products.”[10]
Discussing the progress of the CLARITY Act in the United States, he said, “There are strong regulatory tailwinds for the industry at large.” He described the company’s structure as derived from securities lending in traditional finance and adapted to stablecoins.[8]
He also said the infrastructure could serve non-custodial platforms, treasuries and asset issuers. Partners include Littio, Midas Kripto and Glim, and Sierra Protocol is the first live permissionless implementation.[11]
Education: Washington University in St. Louis
He is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis.[4]
Sources
- Dave Sutter (opens in a new window)
- Fluent rebrands as Hijro, announces Blockchain Trade Asset Marketplace (opens in a new window)
- Sutter launches decentralised finance platform OpenTrade (opens in a new window)
- David Sutter (opens in a new window)
- OpenTrade raises $1.5m to tokenize Treasuries, trade finance (opens in a new window)
- OpenTrade Raises Over $1.5M for Building Crypto Structured Financial Products (opens in a new window)
- AlbionVC leads $4 million seed extension round for stablecoin yield products firm OpenTrade (opens in a new window)
- OpenTrade raises $17M as CEO sees stablecoin yield tailwinds (opens in a new window)
- OpenTrade raises $17M to expand stablecoin yield infrastructure after topping $200M TVL (opens in a new window)
- OpenTrade raises $17 million to connect stablecoins to real-world assets (opens in a new window)
- OpenTrade secures $17M in strategic funding to scale its stablecoin yield infrastructure (opens in a new window)