Ekaterina Holt

Ekaterina Holt was appointed Head of XTX Ventures in 2018, building out and leading the venture-capital arm of XTX Markets — the algorithmic FX and equities market-making firm founded in 2015 by mathematician Alex Gerko. XTX applied the profits and machine-learning expertise from its market-making business (which reported roughly $447M revenue and $183M net profit in 2019) to back external startups where ML is central. Holt ran this effort through at least 2021, when the unit's leadership subsequently transitioned (XTX later named Gabriele Papievyte to head the Ventures unit).

Before XTX, Holt worked in corporate strategy at Deutsche Bank. She is reported to be a graduate of the London School of Economics (LSE). Her background blends financial-institution strategy with the technical, ML-focused mandate of XTX, which shaped Ventures' emphasis on founders combining deep AI expertise with a clear commercial vision.

At XTX Ventures, Holt oversaw two distinct tracks: early-stage venture cheques (seed to Series A, roughly £200k–£2m) into machine-learning companies, and larger strategic investments — at any stage — aligned with XTX Markets' role as a liquidity provider in capital markets. A recurring theme in her public comments was that XTX offers portfolio companies more than capital, leveraging the firm's own machine-learning and engineering expertise to support founders.

• Stage: Early-stage, seed through Series A, with opportunistic strategic investments at any stage tied to XTX Markets' trading business.
• Check size: Approximately £200,000 to £2 million for venture deals.
• Core filter — machine learning as the product: Backs companies "where AI can drive meaningful transformation," prioritizing technical founders who combine deep AI and machine-learning expertise with a clear vision.
• Sectors: Healthcare/med-tech, enterprise & productivity software, fintech and capital-markets infrastructure, property analytics, advertising, and robotics.
• Value-add beyond capital: Direct access to XTX's ML experts, technical advisory / code review / architecture guidance, plus go-to-market and customer-introduction support and access to an engineering talent network.
• On leading Lucida Medical: *"We are delighted to lead the investment round for Lucida Medical, which is targeting to save lives from cancer with their best-in-class, non-invasive machine vision technology."*