BMLL Opens Its Options Archive to Vola Dynamics' Pricing Models

BMLL will let clients run Vola Dynamics' options pricing software inside its cloud research platform, the London-based market data provider said today (Thursday). Quant teams can fit volatility surfaces, price options and test risk scenarios on its historical data in one place.

The offer targets hedge funds, market makers and prop trading firms such as Five Rings, which joined BMLL's client product advisory board in May. Vola said its own clients include hedge funds managing more than $1 trillion in combined assets.

Access comes with one condition. Clients run the library under their own Vola license, according to the release, so firms need a Vola contract before they can use it.

London's trading industry is coming home!

Two Years of Building on One Options Archive

BMLL has built its options business in layers since late 2024, with each partner adding a step between raw prices and a trading model.

The archive came first. In November 2024, BMLL added six years of nanosecond-level OPRA data covering all 16 US options exchanges, about 4 terabytes a day.

Four months later, it matched that history to the format of Exegy's real-time feed, so strategies tested on past data could move into live trading with fewer changes.

In April, BMLL brought in SpiderRock's Options Print Set, which arrives with implied volatility and Greeks already calculated for each trade. Vola's library lets clients fit arbitrage-free surfaces and run scenarios themselves, the companies said.

Two years after the OPRA launch, the same archive carries one live-feed link and two analytics add-ons.

A Model BMLL Already Used

BMLL had tried the pairing in its own research. A July note on SpaceX's options market fitted the full listed chain with Vola's model, using 15-minute snapshots from the stock's first trading day on June 16.

Paul Humphrey, chief executive of BMLL, said the deal was about "removing the heavy plumbing work" of cleaning data and maintaining options models.

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Nordic Capital acquired BMLL in October 2025 and has since backed a hiring round that included a US hedge fund sales director. Before the sale, BMLL raised $83 million from investors including market maker Optiver, according to the release.

"Over 50 of the most sophisticated options desks in the world run Vola on-prem," said Timothy Klassen, chief executive of Vola Dynamics.

The companies listed backtesting, volatility analysis and risk model validation as the main uses, with bank quant desks and asset managers also among the intended users.