What Is Novig?

Origins

Novig was founded in 2021 by Jacob Fortinsky and Kelechi Ukah while they were students at Harvard, and went through Y Combinator's Summer 2022 batch. The pitch from the start was a sportsbook without the vig: instead of taking the other side of a bet and pricing in a margin, Novig matches traders against each other and takes a fee.

The company reached a public launch in September 2024, and by its Series A announcement in August 2025 reported that more than 90% of trades were fully peer-to-peer — the order book, rather than a market maker, was clearing most of the volume.

Novig vs. Ludlow Exchange

⚠️ Novig is the consumer brand; the CFTC-designated contract market is a separate legal entity, Ludlow Exchange, LLC. Regulatory filings, the rulebook and every contract certification publish under the Ludlow name. Searching only for "Novig" in CFTC materials will miss the entity that actually holds the designation.

This split is the single most common source of confusion about the platform, and it is why our own data pipeline had to look under both namespaces before it found anything.

What TickerTracker tracks

Novig publishes a daily public trade file, and TickerTracker ingests every row of it. Two things make this venue unusually rich compared with the other CFTC exchanges we cover:

• Parlays are separable. Multi-leg contracts are reported as their own product rather than blended into the straight markets, so the parlay share of volume is directly measurable instead of estimated.
• Order-book depth. Novig is the only venue in our coverage for which we hold historical book snapshots, not just executed trades.

The figures on this page are computed from that feed, not from company disclosures.

Company & funding

Private, VC-backed and founder-led (CEO Jacob Fortinsky). The exchange itself operates as Ludlow Exchange, LLC — the CFTC-designated contract market — while "Novig" is the holding company and consumer brand. No public financials.

• Employees: 55 (2026-08)
• Y Combinator Summer 2022 batch; YC remained an investor through the Series A.
• ⚠️ The CFTC-designated contract market is Ludlow Exchange, LLC, not "Novig" — filings and contract certifications publish under the Ludlow name.
• Reported surpassing $5 billion in cumulative trading volume at its June 2026 CFTC designation, and $6 billion at its August 2026 nationwide launch.
• Reported that more than 90% of trades were fully peer-to-peer as of its August 2025 Series A.
• Maintains a 21+ age requirement, which its launch release describes as unique among prediction markets.

Funding

Total raised more than $105M (2026-02)Figure from Novig's own Series B release ("more than $105 million"). Forbes puts total funding at $108M in the same week; the company figure is used here. An early seed round is referenced in secondary coverage without a disclosed amount and is not itemised.

Timeline

Regulatory status

Novig trades through Ludlow Exchange, LLC, which the CFTC designated a Designated Contract Market (DCM) in June 2026 — the same federal category as Kalshi, Rothera, ProphetX, DKeX and UDX, and a different legal regime from a state-licensed sportsbook. Its contracts are self-certified with the CFTC under the standard Commodity Exchange Act process: the agency does not pre-approve each product, it can only object after the fact. Contract certifications and the rulebook publish under the Ludlow name at ludlowexchange.com.

Novig's own designation announcement said the company would be able to operate across all 50 states, and the platform maintains a 21+ age requirement. Coverage of the August relaunch has cited a smaller live state count than 50; treat the 50-state figure as the company's stated regulatory reach rather than a confirmed count of where the app is live today.

Frequently asked questions