Tradeify Co-Founders on Futures Prop Barriers and a Year of 7x Growth

Tradeify, the futures-focused prop firm that took four years to move from concept to launch before going live in 2024, is claiming sevenfold growth in active users over the past twelve months. Co-founders Brett Simberkoff and Vinan Mistry spoke with Finance Magnates about what that trajectory looks like from the inside, and what they think keeps the competitive field smaller than it might appear from the outside.

Why entry is harder than it looks

When asked whether the arrival of larger, established prop trading firms into futures markets concerns him, Simberkoff reached for a familiar phrase: "Rising tides lift all ships." It reads like a deflection, but the fuller context suggests it is also a genuine structural observation. The co-founders argue that futures prop is meaningfully harder to build than forex or equity prop, citing the operational, regulatory, and infrastructure complexity involved. That friction, in their view, limits how quickly even well-resourced entrants can compete effectively. Whether that barrier holds as the segment matures is a separate question, but the argument is not without basis. Futures clearing, risk management at the instrument level, and the specific mechanics of evaluation programs in a leveraged futures environment do create a higher build cost than some adjacent prop categories.

What the subscription removal actually did

One of the more concrete data points in the conversation is the co-founders' characterization of their decision to drop subscription fees: it "barely moved revenue." That is a notable admission, and a useful one. Subscription models in prop have been a recurring topic, with some firms treating monthly fees as a meaningful revenue line and others viewing them as a friction point that suppresses conversion. Tradeify's experience, if taken at face value, suggests the latter. Removing the fee did not crater income, which implies the firm's revenue was already weighted toward evaluation and funding fees rather than recurring subscriptions. For traders evaluating firms, this kind of structural transparency is worth paying attention to. A firm that does not depend on subscription revenue to stay solvent has a different incentive structure than one that does.

Seven times growth in context

Sevenfold growth in active users over a single year is a striking number, and it deserves some framing. The futures prop segment has expanded rapidly across the board since 2023, so individual firm growth figures need to be read against a rising baseline. Tradeify is not alone in reporting strong user growth. What distinguishes their account is the combination of that growth with the subscription revenue data point: they appear to be scaling on the back of evaluation volume rather than fee extraction, which is a more sustainable model if the growth is real and the payout infrastructure holds.

The firm also sits in a specific competitive tier. Simberkoff and Mistry describe Tradeify as part of "a small group of firms now jostling for leadership" in futures prop. That framing is self-serving, but it also reflects a real dynamic. The futures prop leaderboard is less settled than the forex prop equivalent, and there is genuine space for firms that launched in 2023 and 2024 to establish themselves before the category consolidates.

What to watch

The futures prop segment is at an interesting inflection point. Barriers to entry are real but not permanent, and the firms that built early operational infrastructure have a window that will not stay open indefinitely. For traders, the practical questions remain the same regardless of competitive dynamics: payout consistency, rule clarity, and whether a firm's business model aligns with actually funding traders rather than collecting fees. Tradeify's co-founders have put some of their model on record. The next test is whether the operational reality matches the narrative as the user base continues to scale.