Empowering tomorrow’s traders

What does it take to build an online trading ecosystem for every trader, every type of asset and for every market? Co-Founder  and CEO Syed Abdullah Jayed’s vision for making FundedNext, the flagship proprietary trading platform of parent company NEXT Ventures, is built on five key steps, with the goal of building a global community of 50 million traders.

Those five steps, he reveals to The CEO Magazine, include building a global company presence and culture; owning rather than outsourcing technology; innovating with new products; engaging and educating users; and perhaps most importantly, articulating a crystal-clear vision so every member of every department knows exactly what they’re aiming for.

Just three-and-a-half years since launching, Jayed is well on his way, with one million traders already regularly using the platform, which boasts up to six million monthly visits across 170-plus countries. He acknowledges that now the time is right to build a full suite of online trading products to maximize its wealth building potential.

“In the prop trading industry, there isn’t a single platform that strikes the right balance, offering a great product, delivering strong customer support and engagement, and at the same time, having a solid execution team at the back end to ensure scalability,” Jayed says.

“This is absolutely scalable if all the foundational and back-end structures are optimized directly. The total addressable market could be huge, and there is no existing competitor who actually has all of those balanced components.

“We recognized a specific gap in the market and decided to seize the opportunity, working toward building a complete ecosystem.”

International expansion

While ambitious, Jayed is realistic about the challenges, one of which is developing a strong multicultural company across five different countries.

This includes a strategic hub in Malaysia, plus operations in Dubai, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Cyprus.

Jayed believes trader support is crucial at all times, whether it is Christmas Eve or Eid holidays.

“Executing the company’s vision on a global scale has been both essential and challenging,” he admits, adding that building strong teams across regions means preserving the core culture everywhere while ensuring the product feels local.

“Scaling globally while building locally is incredibly difficult, but it’s one of the most rewarding parts of our journey.”

From the start, he says, the team knew trust would be a defining pillar of the business. That’s why the company operates through established physical offices, not remote setups. Each location is run by skilled professionals who uphold the same culture of excellence.

“Professionalism and trust are the core pillars that define how we build and lead our teams worldwide,” he notes.

Securing tech talent

Technology serves as the backbone of the organization, and FundedNext’s international presence allows Jayed to source top-tier tech talent from across the globe. The focus, he emphasizes, is on developing as much in-house technology as possible to ensure the platform runs seamlessly.

“Particularly in Malaysia, we have access to exceptional tech talent and professionals who have contributed to globally successful products,” he says.

“Our recruitment team is working diligently to screen and assess candidates to bring together the right expertise needed to build a complete, future-ready ecosystem.”

“Another major gap we identified is that many of our competitors were outsourcing a lot of their software and using many third-party solutions, so when there is an influx of customers, the system breaks down.

“We realized that there is not one company that is actually identifying all the important pillars and thinking full cycle and having everything in-house in their control to build a scalable system. So that’s exactly what we are tapping into.”

Promise of professionalism

To set a new benchmark of professionalism in the fintech industry, Jayed introduced FundedNext’s brand promise. In the proprietary trading space, a common concern among traders is denied payouts after passing the challenge phase.

Through his strategic vision, he ensures that traders receive their payouts within 24 hours, and if there’s any delay, the company compensates them with an additional US$1,000 on top of their earnings. This commitment reflects FundedNext’s focus on reliability, trust and raising the standard for the entire industry.

The vision and leadership remained unshaken under a system glitch that saw 174 delayed payouts. As a result, the promise was kept and US$174,000 was disbursed to the affected clients – no questions asked.

“Having a vision is crucial,” Jayed says. “But the real challenge lies in articulating that vision, breaking it into short and long-term goals, and cascading it across teams and divisions. It’s about ecosystem building, closing gaps and connecting the dots.

“Ensuring everyone in the team understands it clearly and executing it effectively, that is where the true hard work begins and ultimately, where meaningful impact is created.”