Behind every modern financial platform, trading system, and digital investment service lies a vast ecosystem of open source software. These technologies power everything from real time market data processing and transaction execution to application development and cybersecurity. Yet despite their importance, many of the developers and maintainers responsible for these projects receive little financial support, even as businesses and institutions increasingly depend on their work. Recognising the growing risks associated with underfunded software infrastructure, global prime broker EXANTE has launched a new initiative aimed at strengthening the foundations of the financial technology ecosystem.
The company has introduced Gecko Fund, a €1 million grant programme dedicated to supporting open source software projects that play an essential role in financial services, trading infrastructure, and developer ecosystems.
The initiative is designed to provide direct financial support to maintainers of widely used technologies whose contributions often remain underfunded despite their significance to modern financial operations.
Addressing a Growing Sustainability Challenge
Open source software has become a cornerstone of the global technology industry.
Financial institutions, fintech companies, trading platforms, and investment firms rely heavily on open source tools, frameworks, and infrastructure to build and operate their services.
However, while organisations benefit from these technologies, many of the projects themselves struggle to secure sustainable funding.
In many cases, small groups of maintainers or individual developers are responsible for supporting software used by millions of people and countless businesses around the world.
This imbalance has created growing concerns around software sustainability, operational resilience, and long term maintenance.
Industry observers have also warned that underfunded projects can create cybersecurity vulnerabilities and infrastructure risks if critical updates and maintenance work are delayed.
Strengthening the Foundations of Financial Technology
Through Gecko Fund, EXANTE aims to help address these challenges by supporting projects that form the backbone of financial systems.
The programme focuses on established open source technologies that have achieved widespread adoption but receive limited funding relative to their importance.
Rather than funding experimental projects, the initiative is designed to support software already delivering significant value across the financial ecosystem.
Areas of particular interest include APIs, developer tools, infrastructure libraries, and technologies that enable modern financial services to operate efficiently and securely.
By supporting these projects, the fund seeks to strengthen the broader technology foundations on which financial markets increasingly depend.
Key Areas of Focus
The programme has identified several technology domains as priority areas for funding.
These include Erlang and OTP technologies, Scala, Java and JVM based software, JavaScript ecosystems, developer productivity tools, and core infrastructure projects.
At the same time, Gecko Fund remains open to applications from other open source initiatives that contribute meaningfully to the financial technology sector.
The objective is to support software that delivers measurable impact while helping maintainers continue improving and securing critical systems.
Funding decisions will consider factors such as adoption levels, ecosystem importance, project sustainability needs, and relevance to financial services.
First Grant Awarded
Gecko Fund has already begun distributing capital.
Its first grant has been awarded to Kryo, an open source Java serialisation framework that is widely used in high performance data processing environments and trading systems.
The project received €10,000 in funding through the programme.
The award highlights the type of infrastructure software the initiative intends to support: technologies that may not be visible to end users but play a crucial role in enabling modern financial applications.
Supporting Open Source Communities
According to EXANTE and Gecko Fund founder Anatoly Knyazev, the initiative is focused not only on software itself but also on the people and communities responsible for maintaining it.
The programme seeks to ensure that developers working on critical infrastructure have access to resources that help sustain and improve their projects over the long term.
Applications will be reviewed quarterly, with grants ranging from €10,000 to €150,000.
Individuals, project teams, communities, and organisations are all eligible to apply.
As financial systems become increasingly digital and interconnected, the importance of reliable open source infrastructure continues to grow. Through Gecko Fund, EXANTE is seeking to help strengthen that foundation by providing meaningful financial support to the developers whose work powers much of the modern financial technology ecosystem.