KO/EN

κρατερός — strong, resilient

A steadfast partnerat the frontier ofAI, finance,and technology

We build software for capable people at critical thresholds. Strategy before technology. Clarity is the deliverable.

2025
Founded
Finance · AI · Trading
Domains
Seoul · New York
Based
001Philosophy

Three words. Everything Karteros Labs is must be traceable back to these

01

Steadfast

We are the constant in someone else's change. We hold the ground so others can move. Steadfastness does not end when the project does.

02

Clear

The first thing we give every client. Intent and the real problem first, requirements second. Clarity is not a communication style — it is the deliverable.

03

Disciplined

The sequence is non-negotiable. The real problem before the feature, always. We hold the process when pressure mounts.

002Services

What we build

We engage where the stakes are real and the problem is technical. Three practice areas, one operating model.

AI

AI · Algorithmic Trading

We combine market-specialised sLLMs and ML signals with classical quant models to build production-ready automated trading systems. Coverage spans Korean and US equities and crypto markets. We implement the algorithms our clients define, with backtesting, benchmarks, and live monitoring built in.

  • Market-specialised sLLMs · signal models
  • Algo trading engines · KR/US equities · crypto
  • Backtesting · benchmarks · live monitoring
FIN

Institutional Finance Software

Designed by domain experts with experience across Wall Street and Korean fintech. From regulatory-grade infrastructure and core backends to web and mobile clients — shipped end-to-end by a single team that has worked with banks and brokers.

  • Reg-grade infra & cloud
  • Core backend, APIs, data pipelines
  • Web and mobile clients
EXC

Exchange & Derivatives Platforms

Hands-on experience building derivatives exchanges including perpetual futures. We deliver matching engines and gRPC-based low-latency gateways, web trading systems with charting, leverage / long-short / liquidation logic, and the operational tooling exchanges actually need.

  • Matching engine · gRPC low-latency gateway
  • Web trading system · charts · order/fill UI
  • Leverage · liquidation · risk · admin tools
003How we operate

Intent before requirements

Clients always know what they want to build. Turning that intent into precise, complete requirements is genuinely hard — for anyone. No SRS fully captures intent. In finance especially, where domain depth decides outcomes, it is common to finish every task and still miss the intent. So we discern the intent together, before we write code.

  1. 01

    Honest conversation

    Before any engagement we talk. Not budget or timeline first, but what you are trying to solve and why. The first question is whether we can share the same intent.

  2. 02

    Deep understanding

    This is our sharpest differentiator. You don't need a clean picture going in. We ask precise questions, refine your answers and reflect them back, until both sides see the same picture. A list of tasks written without domain knowledge can't carry intent — so the people asking are people who have actually worked the financial domain. Only after intent is clear do requirements get written. This phase ends when you can explain — in your own words — what we are building, and why.

  3. 03

    Build

    Requirements are now a faithful translation of intent. We work test-first, at the level of precision financial systems demand — where a single won of difference is not acceptable. Every trade-off we hit during implementation is decided by going back to the intent.

  4. 04

    Hand-off & stay

    Code, documents and IP — all yours. But we don't stop at delivery. We stay alongside operations, tuning and expansion so that the intent keeps living long after the build.

004Selected work

Three product demos you can open now

A trading terminal, an automated strategy builder, and a market-specialized sLLM. Each demo shows the product workflow directly instead of describing it from a distance.

sLLM Demo
2026

Karteros sLLM · PULSE

A market-context sLLM for information charts cannot see. It interprets news, policy language, narrative shifts, and unstructured events.

  • Market context
  • Unstructured data
  • Evidence and confidence
PULSE
Market analyst sLLM
Evidence
Source-led response
Open demo
005Contact

Tell us what you are trying to build

Honest conversation before any engagement. We read every message and reply within two business days.