BetOpenly founder Gino Donati has raised outside funding to launch Open Markets, an institutional liquidity layer and universal execution platform for prediction markets, he told BettingStartups exclusively on this week's podcast.
Donati will serve as president of the new company, which is building two products. The first is a consumer product developed in partnership with EdgeBoost, giving bettors a single wallet across multiple operators and trading venues, which Donati likens to Expedia. Pick the Yankees, and the platform shows which venue has the best price, with one balance for money in and out. "If you think you should always get the best lines and odds with one click, you are gonna love Open Markets," he said.
Open Markets acts as an introducing broker, EdgeBoost holds the deposits, and Donati says partners' lines won't be marked up. Most of the company's value, in Donati's view, lies in the second product: a B2B service meant to let institutions into prediction markets, with credit lines and other services he says the industry doesn't offer today.
The idea grew out of BetOpenly's Instant Fill integrations with other exchanges. Those integrations surfaced problems a small operator couldn't legally solve: counterparty risk, liquidity gaps, and hedges that span multiple venues. Sophisticated traders often want to place related bets on two exchanges at the same moment, like a moneyline on BetOpenly paired with a spread on Kalshi, or a team's playoff odds against its season win total. Right now, that takes what Donati calls "a self-made trade desk."
"I don't wanna help Citadel eat your lunch," Donati said. He argues those trades don't hurt retail bettors, because the other side of a retail bet isn't an inverse arbitrage.
Open Markets won't host trades itself. Donati is pitching it as neutral ground for the exchanges it routes to, naming Kalshi, Polymarket, ProphetX, Novig, and BettorEdge. "We think being Switzerland gives us an advantage," he said.
The new funding goes toward product and licensing, including an FCM license Donati expects by year-end. A former CFTC chair is serving as head legal advisor. If licensing lands, a go-to-market round comes next. Selling data is "the leader right now in the horse race" for revenue, Donati said, and a subscription of roughly $10K per month is also on the table.
That data is also how Open Markets plans to reach founders. The company intends to give startups free access to its data, run hackathons, and invest in some of the companies building on top of it. "You will get the business, but we will get the data," Donati said.
BetOpenly itself stays a peer-to-peer exchange Donati owns outright, with no market makers on the platform. Donati plans to decide around the Super Bowl whether to step back from BetOpenly or from Open Markets. He has also floated handing BetOpenly's ownership to its users one day, in proportion to their share of volume.
Taking outside money marks a change for a founder who once turned down investment in BetOpenly rather than accept changes investors wanted. This time, his backers include a billionaire co-founder. "I already made the wrong decision once so I couldn't make it a second time," Donati said.
We first sat down with Donati last year to dig into BetOpenly's reduced-juice model. Catch our latest conversation on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
