Furnace, Prediction Market Infrastructure Firm, Raises $3.5M

Furnace, a provider of reference infrastructure for institutional prediction markets, is, in the words of co-founder and COO Andrew Siff, “out of stealth” following a $3.5 million capital raise.

The privately held company’s target audience is institutional investors engaging with prediction markets, including hedge funds, prime brokers and proprietary trading desks as well as companies that are “building on top of prediction markets.”

“Furnace is the reference layer for prediction markets,” according to the company. “We give economic exposures persistent canonical identities and map venue-specific contracts to them, providing the common reference infrastructure institutions and builders need to integrate prediction markets into their systems and products.”

Furnace notes that its covered venues include the U.S. and international versions of Polymarket as well as another major prediction market operator. The company is in the process of adding more venues.

Furnace at the Right Place at the Right Time

Furnace’s emergence from stealth could prove well-timed because prediction markets are increasingly courting institutional market participants, largely in an effort to expand use cases beyond sports derivatives – a segment beloved by smaller retailer traders.

Furnace is supported by some well-known investors. Its website lists North Island Ventures, Reciprocal Ventures, Reverie and VanEck as financial backers while noting its angel investors are Commonweal, DTCC and Public.com.

Furnace Solves Specific Prediction Market Problems

Some upstart fintech and technology companies are solutions searching for problems to solve. The opposite is true of Furnace as it provides credible solutions to a legitimate prediction market quagmire. Put simply, Furnace applies canonical identities across prediction markets, smoothing out bumps associated with contract and settlement language.

“Each economic exposure receives a persistent canonical identity, with venue-specific instruments and identifiers mapped underneath,” according to the company.

For example, Prediction Market A may offer an event contract on the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates before the end of 2026 while Venue B has a market on the Fed lowering rates by the end of a given month and Prediction Market C has an event contract on rates being lowered but not within a given timeframe.

Furnace technology determines which contracts are essentially the same and which ones are markedly different, with “each venue instrument stays distinct, with its own terms and resolution details.” The technology is deliverable through integration or APIs.