Investment platform Alpaca has hired Juha Ristolainen as its new chief technology officer, the company announced today (Wednesday). The appointment comes as the startup looks to expand internationally following its recent $52 million Series C funding round.

Alpaca Hires Former Upvest CTO Ristolainen as Tech Chief

Ristolainen joins Alpaca from Berlin-based investment infrastructure company Upvest, where he spent five years as Co-Founder and CTO. During his tenure there, he helped scale the engineering team from a handful of employees to nearly 100 people while building an API platform that serves major fintech clients, including Revolut, N26, and Bunq.

Before Upvest, Ristolainen held the CTO role for TransferWise's business division (now known as Wise), where he led API strategy and platform development for two years. His career spans more than two decades in digital finance, including leadership positions at automotive giant Daimler's innovation hub and venture capital firm InMotion Ventures.

"As CTO, Ristolainen will lead Alpaca's technical architecture and engineering teams at scale to support the company's mission: opening financial services to everyone on the planet," the company said in a statement.

The startup recently partnered with Kraken, allowing the crypto exchange to offer access to 11,000 stocks and ETFs.

$52M Series C Round

Alpaca operates as a self-clearing broker-dealer that provides brokerage infrastructure to other financial services companies. The platform currently powers more than 5 million brokerage accounts across 40+ countries, according to the company.

At Upvest, Ristolainen helped raise approximately $180 million in funding through the company's Series C round in 2024. The platform he helped develop allows companies to integrate various asset classes, including ETFs, stocks, mutual funds, and cryptocurrencies into their own products.

Alpaca's recent funding round positions the company to compete more directly with established players in the brokerage infrastructure space. The startup has been expanding its international presence as demand grows for API-based financial services among fintech companies and traditional financial institutions.