Browser-based algorithmic trading platform Quantopian today received a boost from Point72, Steve Cohen’s asset management company. The company’s venture arm invested an undisclosed amount in the Boston-based company, adding to Quantopian’s $23.8 million in funding and marking one of the first investments for Point72 Ventures.
This news comes after last month’s announcement that Quantopian’s hedge fund is open to outside investors. Cohen, traditionally a fundamentals-based trader (not a quant), is leveraging this newly launched capability by investing up to $250 million in a portfolio of Quantopian-managed algorithms.
This is good news for Quantopian’s users who build and license their algorithms through the company’s website. Its 85,000 users in 180 countries have created 400,000+ algorithms, 10 of which the company has selected to use for trading purposes.
As Quantopian reports in a blog post, “With these new funds to manage we will be able to make larger allocations to more algorithms selected from our community. Licensed algorithm authors earn a royalty of 10% of the net profits generated by their algorithm.” Therefore, the larger the allocation, the larger the royalty payment.
Founded in 2011, Quantopian CEO John Fawcett and CTO Jean Bredeche debuted Quantopian Live Trading at FinovateSpring 2013. Last month the company added new chief investment and compliance officers before opening its hedge fund to outside investors.
Quantopian 
Larkin comes to Quantopian after serving at Hudson Bay Capital Management as a portfolio manager, and at BlueCrest Capital Management as global co-head of equities. He also has a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. In an interview with Financial Times, Larkin compared startups like Quantopian to hedge funds in their early days and said he plans to bring growth-accelerating “institutional experience” to the company.
