# Aya Kantorovich

> Aya Kantorovich is the co-founder and co-CEO of August Digital and Upshift. A former Pantera Capital associate and founding-team member at FalconX, she helped build a trading desk supporting more than 700 clients before starting Fractal, later renamed August, with Alexandre Elkrief. Her work focuses on on-chain financial infrastructure, transparency, collateral management and making DeFi products easier to access.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & Co-CEO at August Digital and Upshift
- **Organizations:** August Digital, Upshift, FalconX, Pantera Capital, Tegus, Navigant, Jewdash, Afropolitan
- **Education:** Bachelor’s studies in finance and international affairs; double major, The George Washington University, Little Rock Central High School
- **Known for:** Selected for Forbes 30 Under 30 Finance 2024., Helped build a FalconX trading desk supporting more than 700 clients., Co-founded Fractal, later August, which secured $6 million in seed funding.

## Career timeline

- **2016** — Graduated from George Washington University; began a banking and capital markets consulting role at Navigant.
- **2017** — Joined Tegus; described herself as its first hire.
- **2018** — Joined Pantera Capital as an associate.
- **2019-2022** — Founding-team member at FalconX; became Head of Institutional Coverage and helped build its sales and trading business.
- **2022-10** — Announced her departure from FalconX.
- **2022-11** — Co-founded Fractal with Alexandre Elkrief; their seed fundraising closed during the week of the FTX collapse, according to her later account.
- **2023** — Fractal publicly emerged with $6 million in seed funding.
- **2024** — Recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Finance list.
- **2025-03** — August, formerly Fractal, announced a $10 million Series A led by Dragonfly.
- **2025-04** — Upshift publicly exited stealth as a DeFi yield platform built on August.
- **2026-01** — Announced Upshift infrastructure powering Tria’s DeFi Earn products, with strategies curated by Sentora.

## Achievements

- Selected for Forbes 30 Under 30 Finance 2024.
- Helped build a FalconX trading desk supporting more than 700 clients.
- Co-founded Fractal, later August, which secured $6 million in seed funding.
- Co-led August when it announced a $10 million Series A in March 2025.
- Co-founded Upshift; its current website reports more than $500 million in total deposits and 66,000 depositors.

## Latest updates

- **2026-10** — Research snapshot: August’s live website displays $45 billion cumulative volume and 150+ institutional clients. Upshift’s live website reports $500M+ total deposits and 66k+ depositors; these are company-reported figures, not independently audited totals.
- **2026-04** — Discussed embedded distribution through wallets and neobanks, and cooperation among crypto prime brokers, in Stabledash interview excerpts.
- **2026-01** — Posted that Upshift powers Tria DeFi Earn, with Sentora-curated strategies and a partner serving 150+ countries.
- **2025-08** — Signed the Financial Technology Association open-banking CEO letter.
- **2025-04** — Upshift exited stealth; Blockworks reported approximately $250 million in deposits at the time.

## Links

- Website: https://augustdigital.io/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayakantorovich
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/aya_kantor

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/aya-kantorovich
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-16