Elastics, a Warsaw-based startup building AI agents for prediction market trading, has closed an oversubscribed €1.7 million pre-Seed round led by French VC Frst, according to EU-Startups. The round drew angels including ElevenLabs co-founders Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowski, XBTO founder Philippe Bekhazi, a16z scout Bartek Pucek, and Alven partner Bartosz Jakubowski.
Founded in April 2025 by Szymon Pawica (CEO, ex-Goldman Sachs, NYU Stern) and Mateusz Brodowicz (CTO, mathematician, University of Houston), Elastics positions itself as an AI-native operating system for prediction markets powered by auditable agents. Traders build and automate workflows in plain language, from signal generation to live execution.
The Thesis: Quant Tooling for Retail
Pawica’s argument comes from direct observation. “The quant edge at hedge funds comes down to people and infrastructure. We think AI can now replicate most of that and make it available to anyone,” he told EU-Startups.
The timing context: Polymarket is now valued at $9 billion following a $2 billion investment from Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE’s parent company). Kalshi recently closed at a $22 billion valuation. The retail traders driving much of that volume operate without meaningful automated tooling.
Pierre Entremont, co-founder and partner at Frst, described prediction markets as “a new asset class in finance” still in its early innings: “Elastics is building the AI layer that this market needs.”
Agent Architecture for Trading
The platform uses auditable AI agents that handle research, execution, and portfolio management. The “auditable” distinction matters in financial contexts where regulatory scrutiny and user trust require explainable decision-making. The product is currently in private beta with an agent builder and the broader Elastics OS available for early access.
The funding will go toward hiring AI and quantitative talent in Poland, where the cost of senior technical talent remains significantly below U.S. and Western European rates.
At €1.7M, this is a small round. But as a signal of where agent use cases are expanding beyond productivity software and coding assistants into domain-specific financial execution, it maps a path that other vertical agent startups are likely to follow.