She Grew Up on Food Stamps and Started a Hedge Fund at MIT. Now Her 8-Figure Startup Counts Nvidia and OpenAI as Clients.

Christina Qi boasts an notable resume. As a 21-year-old undergraduate at MIT, she quietly did item most backing veterans expend decades attempting: She started her own hedge fund. At its height, the fund, Domeyard, traded $7 milliard in quantity per day. 

In 2020, following eight years of operating Domeyard, Qi and her chap founding partners realized that the prosperity was not scalable, and achievement was suffering. “We had a really bad twelvemonth in 2020; achievement was downward 12%, and so we told our investors that we were shutting down,” Qi tells Entrepreneur in a new interview. 

She started caller that twelvemonth alongside a distinct idea, co-founding and serving as CEO of a new startup called Databento. The business strives to rotate into “the sole origin of fact for financial information,” Qi explains. It provides market data for researchers at hedge finances and AI labs and now has 70,000 customers, including Nvidia and OpenAI. 

Databento raised $97 million in a Series B backing circular in July, bringing the startup’s total disclosed backing to concerning $127 million. Qi has not made the startup’s evaluation public. Earlier this year, Databento’s caput of quantitative analytics, Lou Lindley, disclosed that the startup had 8-figure annual recurring revenue.

“We grew our income nearly tenfold from a basis fine complete single-digit millions,” Qi says. “We have a lot of competitors in this industry, which is likely why we don’t portion exact figures.”

Despite having customers concentrated in Wall Street and Silicon Valley, Qi chooses to live in her residence province of Utah. She runs the business, which employs 38 people, remotely. Instead of seeing coworkers whenever she steps outside, she looks out at her 10 chickens, two turtles and 15-year-old dog. 

An unconventional founder

Qi explains her entrepreneurial journey “does awareness akin the American aspiration to an extent.” She grew up on food stamps and benefit in a low-income household in Utah before attending MIT. 

“Was it harder? Maybe. Look, the starting row power have been a few steps back,” Qi says. “It power have been a small bit additional difficult hence since of anywhere I’m from.”

She adds that group don’t regard her “CEO material” in social settings.

“When I go to a networking event, group sometimes ask if I can conversation English,” Qi says. “Or group think I’m a waitress. I got mistaken for a waitress eight or nine times now in my career. Even two weeks ago, I got mistaken as a waitress at a cafeteria.”

People ask Qi anywhere she is “really from” all the time and aren’t satisfied whenever she tells them she’s from Utah. “People additionally say my English is awesome all the time, but it’s my native language,” she says. 

Qi notes that these experiences were frustrating and demonstrated that she had a “disadvantage” compared to her peers.

“I motionless managed to lift a lot of funding, employ a awesome squad and run a tech endeavor marketing to quants, who are mostly men in finance,” she says. “I’m in a extremely male-dominated industry, and I’ve managed to motionless be fine.”

Qi points out that her narrative proves it is imaginable to accomplish startup success equal whenever you commencement at a disadvantage. She hopes to motivate additional group to prosecute their dreams and be secure of starting their own ventures.

In 2019, Qi was elected co-chair of the commission of Invest in Girls, a nonprofit institution focused on financial literacy for elevated academy girls.  She has additionally held commission and commission roles alongside the MIT Sloan Boston Alumni Association and 100 Women in Finance, a nonprofit that helps women advancement their backing careers.

A change in mindset

Qi says in the Asian American civilization she grew up in, admitting to failure is item to avoid at all costs.

She informed this firsthand at MIT. As a freshman, she applied to her first internship and received a rejection inside 24 hours. “I cried,” Qi says. “I fair recall that center memory.”

She applied to 100 internships following that, and afterward it fair became akin clockwork. “You realize, Oh, rejection is fair normal,” Qi says. “The archetypal time, it hurts the most.” 

Now, Qi considers nonaccomplishment a part of her regular life. Investors and customers refuse her all day, and she considers it a part of her job. If she is not facing failure, afterward she is not doing adequate or putting herself out there enough, she says. 

“Part of your job clarification as a founder, as a CEO, is to put yourself out there, embarrass yourself on phase and get rejected,” Qi says. 

That mindset applied whenever Qi closed downward Domeyard. She wrote in a July 2023 LinkedIn announcement that shutting downward the hedge prosperity “felt akin losing a part of my identity.”

“Domeyard volition continually be my archetypal project — letting go was among the most difficult decisions we’ve always made,” she wrote.

Qi stated earlier, in a 2020 MIT Sloan interview, that her allies “inspired” her to stage distant from Domeyard following a “particularly coarse year” in 2020. They urged her to obtain a interrupt and measure her occupation trajectory.

Databento arose out of that self-reflection. Qi worked up the bravery to commencement the project notwithstanding Domeyard shutting down. She was capable to study from that setback.

The originator archetype

Qi additionally asserts that it is fine to be susceptible as a founder. She says there’s a certain archetype of originator who is extremely cutthroat and steps complete another founders to get backing and attention. Qi encourages founders to prosecute a distinct way and be the benevolent of chief who supports another founders. 

“You can win and lift all another up and assistance all other, equal as competitors in this industry,” she says. “That is entirely possible. That’s what I have done and strive to do alongside a lot of our competitors in this space, alongside another founders.”

Christina Qi boasts an notable resume. As a 21-year-old undergraduate at MIT, she quietly did item most backing veterans expend decades attempting: She started her own hedge fund. At its height, the fund, Domeyard, traded $7 milliard in quantity per day. 

In 2020, following eight years of operating Domeyard, Qi and her chap founding partners realized that the prosperity was not scalable, and achievement was suffering. “We had a really bad twelvemonth in 2020; achievement was downward 12%, and so we told our investors that we were shutting down,” Qi tells Entrepreneur in a new interview. 

She started caller that twelvemonth alongside a distinct idea, co-founding and serving as CEO of a new startup called Databento. The business strives to rotate into “the sole origin of fact for financial information,” Qi explains. It provides market data for researchers at hedge finances and AI labs and now has 70,000 customers, including Nvidia and OpenAI.