Alpaca has raised $135 million to expand the brokerage infrastructure it sells to fintechs, exchanges and other institutions building trading products.

The company describes the round as funding for "agent-first" brokerage infrastructure, with a focus on tokenized markets and AI-native financial services. Alpaca's announcement says the financing was led by Peak XV and will support a broader push to let partners embed regulated brokerage, trading and clearing capabilities through APIs.

The tokenization angle is the important part for crypto and market-structure builders. Alpaca already provides developer-facing APIs for stocks, options and crypto, and the new capital is being framed around rails that could support tokenized equities and other always-on financial products. CoinDesk reported that the company works with exchanges and financial institutions that want to offer brokerage services without building the full back end themselves.

That makes the raise less about a consumer trading app and more about infrastructure. Tokenized stock experiments have moved quickly this year, but many still depend on regulated brokerage, custody, transfer and compliance layers that are harder to make invisible to end users. Alpaca is positioning itself as one of the companies selling those layers to other platforms.

The round also shows how AI is becoming part of the brokerage infrastructure pitch. Alpaca is using "agent-first" language for products aimed at financial services that may be operated by software agents, not only human traders clicking through retail interfaces.