TradeInformer understands that London-listed brokerage group Plus500 has been in talks to acquire prop firm Topstep.
A spokesperson for Plus500 said “we do not comment on market speculation” in response to questioning about the deal.
Based in Chicago, Topstep was the first company to run large scale funded trader accounts model. The company was set up by ex-futures trader Michael Patak in 2009 and offers traders access to funded futures accounts.
As reported by TradeInformer earlier this year, the only public data about the firm shows it made over $25m in revenue in 2020 and 2021. The company had also sought – and failed – to raise funds from outside investors in the years prior to that.
Although there is no way of confirming it, the explosion in the popularity of prop firms in the years after 2021 means it would be very surprising if Topstep has not seen revenue growth since then.
Plus500 has already been working with Topstep as a technology and brokerage provider since at least the start of this year.
Topstep is regulated in the US as an introducing broker, meaning it could, in theory, introduce clients who reach the funded stage of its model to Plus500, where they would trade with the broker’s US-regulated entity on live accounts.
Plus500 announced that it had formed an ‘exclusive partnership’ with Topstep last month, although it was not entirely clear how that changed the existing relationship between the two firms.
