Fintech Spotlight: Axis-Z Brings Virtual Reality To Trading

Key Takeaway: For a few hundred dollars, traders can pick up Oculus VR headsets and trade from anywhere. The VR workspaces can be personalized and offer traders a unique way to cut equipment costs.

Benzinga, a leading news and data provider, will be holding its annual Benzinga Global Fintech Awards, a day of dealmaking, networking, and recognition in the financial technology space, on Nov. 11, 2021.

The event will award Benzinga Listmakers — the top companies on  Benzinga’s Global Fintech Index — for innovation, as well as merging the best of finance and technology.

In recognition of those disruptive innovators creating positive and diverse change within the financial services space, Benzinga spoke with Axis-Z CEO Rasim Muradov, CTO Dmitri Lapchinski, COO Gary Carter and CGO Jakub Makowski.

Axis-Z's Virtual Reality Play: Virtual reality, commonly referred to as VR, is taking the world by storm.

That’s according to the founders at Axis-Z who are looking to be first movers in the space of VR trading.

Muradov, whose background is in trading, said that for years he sought better, more efficient ways to view the markets at work and on the go.

“I found myself adding more and more screens because of the need for information,” the CEO said in a discussion surrounding his remote trading struggles. “I was on vacation, with my laptop, and I wasn’t able to trade.”

After the trip gave him the idea to bring VR to trading, and create portable, unlimited workspaces, Muradov founded Axis-Z with partners Lapchinski, Carter and Makowski.

“Professional day traders need to have a lot of screens,” Lapchinski added in reference to Axis-Z coming to market at a good time. “The average number is six and such setups are obviously expensive and not portable.”

VR is gaining popularity. In fact, Facebook Inc’s FB strongest hardware business is its lineup of Oculus VR headsets, which are compatible with Axis-Z technology.

“Axis-Z is absolutely compatible without any problems,” the CTO noted. “The resolution is good enough to display a lot of the information — charts and useful market data — traders need.”

Recent Developments For Axis-Z: In improving how traders work, Axis-Z is capitalizing on recent VR trends and providing three-dimensional ways to analyze and trade global marketplaces.

“In virtual reality, you’ve got three dimensions, whereas any other trading platform that has existed, to date, is two dimensional,” Carter said.

“We’ve also got the dimension of depth — the third dimension — which we’re going to leverage with some neat tools and functionality traders just wouldn’t have seen before.”

Presently, Axis-Z is looking to pilot its offer with a select group of traders. Those traders will be able to pull up their charts and newsfeeds, for instance, as well as connect to existing brokerage accounts in a workspace that is portable and limitless, as well as distraction- and destruction-free.

“Traders can, for example, execute orders by hand movements and data visualization,” Muradov said. “Instead of choosing the order type, we will have a shortcut and the hotkeys will be built onto the joystick. If you swipe, for example, it is either an instant buy or sell.”

Roadmap, Innovation Outlook: Axis-Z is dead set on moving first in the space.

“We work a lot on researching completely new user experiences,” Lapchinski, a video producer and VR technology veteran, told Benzinga.

Makowski, who has experience in growing companies, added: “What Axis-Z is about is rebuilding that trading experience from the ground up, but ensuring we keep all the good and familiar bits.”

Presently, Axis-Z is about a year out from having a marketable product. To bolster growth and develop an ecosystem, the company is looking to raise funds via a strategic partner as soon as possible to capitalize on the industry’s over 30% compound annual growth rate, the founders said.

“We believe institutions will be able to replace the whole trading floor because they will still be able to, even when working remotely, use voice communication and actual workspace sharing,” Lapchinski ended. “These key features will help us go viral.”

To learn more about product trials with Axis-Z, click here.