About
A trading technology studio, and nothing else
Why we exist
Trading firms deserve specialists
Generalist agencies can build an app, but will not know why the FX daily candle starts at 5pm New York time, what a dealing desk needs from its back office, or why an AI feature that says “buy” is a regulatory problem rather than a feature.
Platform and data vendors know the domain, but their advice comes with a product attached.
AlchmAI sits between the two. We understand trading, we build to your requirements, and we have nothing else to sell you. That independence is the point.
Kush Chheda
Founder, AlchmAI
- Focus
- Trading technology and AI
- Based in
- London
Kush Chheda founded AlchmAI and leads its engineering and client work. Kush has spent more than ten years in trading technology: building trading products for prop firms, FX and crypto businesses, and front-office systems for investment banks, including a charting engine for a trading-floor surveillance desk and the shared ticket library behind six trade capture and pricing applications.
More recently that work has turned to AI: agents with custom skills, MCP integrations, guardrails and evaluation frameworks, and the adoption of AI-assisted engineering across a team of fifteen. Two of those projects are written up on the Work page.
AlchmAI grew out of that work. It brings the trading knowledge and the engineering under one roof, so clients get both from the same team rather than having to translate between a domain expert and a developer.
Kush is involved in every engagement, from the first call to the handover.
Where our experience comes from
Part of the GCL group
Capital markets
A charting engine for a global investment bank's trading floor, with views down to the nanosecond. Routine compliance monitoring work cut by more than 70%.
100m+ ticks a day charted for a surveillance desk.
Front-office trading
Bond, repo, swap, structured and RFQ booking for a UK investment bank's markets division, with new products onboarded without code changes.
6 trade capture and pricing apps on one ticket library.
Retail banking
Digital banking products for six of the UK's biggest financial brands, delivered by the GCL team.
6 UK banking brands on one tested foundation.
Delivered by our founder and the GCL team before AlchmAI was formed. Client names are withheld under confidentiality agreements.
How we work
Principles we hold ourselves to
01
Domain first
We learn your instruments, your clients and your market structure before we write code. A product that gets the domain wrong will not be trusted, however good it looks.
02
Straight estimates
If something will take three months, we say three months, and we tell you what would make it shorter. Bad news travels early.
03
Written down
Plans, decisions and handover notes live in documents, not in one engineer's head. You can see why something was built the way it was.
04
Tested where it matters
Anything that touches prices, positions or client money has tests that check it against known answers.
Our position
What we will not do
- Give investment advice, personal recommendations or trading signals, to anyone.
- Build products that make investment decisions for retail clients unless the client holds the right regulatory permissions.
- Write marketing that promises returns or presents past results as a guide to the future.
- Claim regulatory status we do not have.
AlchmAI is a software company. It is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and does not carry on regulated investment activities. Our clients remain responsible for their own permissions and for what their products show their customers. More detail is on our important information page.
Where to find us
Mayfair, London
Mayfair, London
W1K 1QW
contact@alchmai.com
We reply within a working day.
Tell us what you are building.
A 30-minute call is usually enough to know whether we are the right team. If we are not, we will say so and point you somewhere better.