The LSE Directory / Prop firms
DRW is a proprietary trading firm headquartered in Chicago that trades its own capital across fixed income, equities, commodities, foreign exchange and cryptoassets. The firm builds its trading technology and quantitative models in house and applies both systematic and discretionary strategies to provide liquidity and price risk across futures, options, swaps and cash markets on exchanges worldwide. Unlike asset managers or hedge funds, DRW takes no outside investor capital; every position is funded and risked with the firm's own money. Its crypto division, Cumberland, launched in 2014 and provides liquidity in digital assets to large institutional counterparties; DRW describes it as one of the world's leading crypto liquidity providers. The firm has also diversified into adjacent, technology driven businesses under separate divisions: DRW NX designs and runs its own low latency trading network, Convexity is its real estate investment arm, DRW VC invests in financial and enterprise technology startups, and Artemeter offers carbon financing and decarbonization advisory services. Don Wilson founded DRW in 1992 while trading Eurodollar options on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange; the firm's name comes from his initials, and it started with fewer than ten traders and clerks. It has since grown to roughly 2,000 employees across thirteen offices, including Chicago, New York, London, Amsterdam, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and Tel Aviv. DRW became carbon neutral in 2020, funding its offset through Climate Vault, a nonprofit Wilson co-founded with University of Chicago economist Michael Greenstone. In October 2024 the SEC sued Cumberland DRW, alleging it acted as an unregistered securities dealer in more than 2 billion dollars of crypto asset trades; the SEC agreed to drop the case in March 2025 and the action was formally dismissed with prejudice that same month. In 2025 DRW expanded its London office, hiring more than 20 traders from banks and hedge funds including UBS, Millennium Management and BNP Paribas, part of a continued push to grow its footprint outside the US.
