History
DFI Labs was founded in 2019 by a small group of quantitative researchers and portfolio managers with backgrounds in tier-one hedge funds and the earliest generation of institutional digital asset participants. The founding thesis was simple and, in retrospect, unfashionable at the time: digital asset markets are information-rich enough to reward disciplined research, and structured enough to operate inside the kind of governance framework institutional allocators require.
Between 2019 and 2022, we built our research and data-validation infrastructure from the ground up. Our methods have since been assessed across multiple historical market regimes, including the 2021 retail bull market, the 2022 venue crises and the regulatory reset that followed.
Regulatory status
DFI Labs SAS is a quantitative research and technology company. It develops research models, methods and data infrastructure; it does not provide portfolio management, investment advice, order execution, custody, crypto-asset services or live client-portfolio monitoring. Where a research model is implemented, all regulated activity and client responsibility sit solely with the authorised manager.
DFI Labs is a member of Finance Innovation, a French government-backed competitiveness cluster for financial innovation, and part of the La French Tech ecosystem.
Scope
We design and validate digital-asset exposure profiles solely as research models, covering directional, market-neutral and hedged risk profiles. Each has a clearly stated research objective, diagnostic envelope and capacity consideration. We work exclusively with authorised asset managers and institutional counterparties. DFI Labs does not contract with investors for regulated services, manage money, execute orders, monitor client portfolios or hold client assets or private keys.
- Institutional counterparties only: regulated managers and professional institutions, as defined under the MiFID II regime.
- Capacity-aware research. Capacity assumptions and limits are documented during research validation.
- Transparent research outputs. Methodology, assumptions and validation findings are documented for each authorised counterparty.
Culture
The team is deliberately small, senior and technically dense. Decisions are written down. Research is peer-reviewed. Operational incidents, ours or the industry's, generate playbooks rather than anecdotes. We place a high premium on staying within our circle of competence and on saying "no" when a mandate or a counterparty does not fit.
Leadership
Olivier Chevillon
Founder & Head of Research
20+ years in quantitative research and portfolio management at tier-one hedge funds. MBA INSEAD, MSc ENSAE.
Louis Benassy
Partner
Digital-asset specialist; co-founded Chainvest (2017). MSc/BSc Finance, Cass Business School & National University of Singapore.
Leo René
Quant Researcher
Data & ML-focused; Researcher at Qube. ENSAE & École Polytechnique.
Hadrien Darmon
Partner
Principal PM at Method Investments. CentraleSupélec & Paris-Assas.
Julien Boudier
Advisor
Ex-Morgan Stanley, Head of Hybrid & Light Exotics. Fund structuring & institutional distribution. ENSAE Paris.
Flavien Gelineau
Advisor
Data-science & ML expert (top 1% Kaggle). Ex-Google; ENSTA ParisTech.
Research collaborations.
Authorised asset managers and institutional counterparties are welcome to discuss our quantitative research, model-validation methods and data infrastructure. Conversations begin with a short call.