Build an AI-native hedge fund platform designed to generate entirely new sources of alpha using coordinated swarms of AI agents.
Objective:
Create a system where autonomous AI agents perform the core functions of a hedge fund — from research to thesis formation to trade execution — with humans supervising strategy and risk boundaries.
This is not a research assistant.
It is an AI-driven investment engine.
Core vision:
Replace traditional analyst workflows with agent swarms that:
- Continuously ingest global financial data
- Form and debate investment theses
- Generate and test novel trading strategies
- Adapt models based on market feedback
- Execute trades within defined constraints
The system should be capable of discovering new strategies, not just analyzing existing signals.
Core system architecture:
1. Global Data Ingestion Layer
Continuously ingest:
- 10-Ks, 10-Qs, earnings transcripts
- Global regulatory filings
- News and macroeconomic releases
- Alternative datasets (satellite, shipping, sentiment, web traffic)
- Market microstructure data
- Cross-border and small/mid-cap equities
Normalize into structured knowledge graphs linking entities, events, and financial metrics.
2. Agent Swarm Research Engine
Deploy specialized agents:
- Fundamental analysis agents
- Macro agents
- Event-driven agents
- Statistical arbitrage agents
- Sentiment and narrative agents
- Risk anomaly detection agents
Agents must:
- Generate independent theses
- Debate bull and bear cases
- Challenge each other's assumptions
- Propose trade structures
- Assign confidence levels
- Identify invalidation triggers
All outputs must be explainable and traceable to source data.
3. Strategy Discovery Layer
Instead of ranking stocks only, the system should:
- Discover new strategy archetypes
- Combine signals into novel factor exposures
- Detect emerging structural inefficiencies
- Identify market regime changes
- Adapt weighting dynamically
Track evolution of strategies over time via model-versioning.
4. Simulation and Self-Improvement Loop
For every proposed strategy:
- Run historical and regime-based backtests
- Stress test under volatility shocks
- Simulate liquidity constraints
- Measure drawdown characteristics
- Compare against benchmark strategies
Feed performance outcomes back into agent learning loops.
5. Portfolio Construction Engine
Convert validated strategies into portfolios with:
- Liquidity-aware position sizing
- Sector and geography exposure limits
- Max drawdown guardrails
- Correlation clustering controls
- Risk budgeting allocation
- Capital efficiency optimization
Allow both long/short and multi-strategy configurations.
6. Autonomous Monitoring and Adaptation
Agents continuously:
- Monitor thesis invalidation signals
- Detect structural breaks
- Recommend rebalancing
- Flag regime shifts
- Propose model updates
Generate daily recommendation queues with reasoning.
7. Risk and Compliance Oversight
- Full audit log of every model decision
- Versioned strategy changes
- Human override logging
- Risk dashboard (VaR proxy, concentration, PnL attribution)
- Compliance timeline per recommendation
- Permissioned access controls
Human roles:
- admin
- portfolio-manager
- risk-officer
- compliance-viewer
- research-supervisor
8. Explainability by Design
Every trade recommendation must include:
- Supporting evidence chain
- Contributing signals
- Confidence weighting
- Competing thesis summary
- Explicit invalidation criteria
9. Infrastructure Requirements
- Observable background agent jobs
- Deterministic replay of strategy decisions
- Strict role-based permissions
- Model version control
- Secure multi-tenant architecture
- Latency-aware execution pipelines
Data model:
- securities
- market-feeds
- raw-documents
- knowledge-graph
- agent-theses
- strategy-models
- signals
- portfolios
- positions
- orders
- risk-limits
- model-versions
- audit-events
- performance-metrics
Positioning summary:
This is not a research dashboard.
It is an AI-native hedge fund operating system where swarms of agents:
- Discover novel alpha sources
- Form and test strategies
- Adapt to regime shifts
- Execute within risk constraints
- Continuously improve from feedback
The goal is to build the first hedge fund where AI is not a tool — it is the core investment engine.
Create a modern startup design inspired by Y Combinator (YC) companies.
Choose one bright primary color and build a clean, minimal color scheme around it.
The design should feel bold, simple, and product-focused with strong typography, generous whitespace, and clear hierarchy.
Y Combinator's Requests for Startups · Spring 2026
AI-Native Hedge Funds
Requested by Garry Tan · ycombinator.com/rfs