A Cologne-based startup called functionSPACE has secured $1.7 million in pre-seed funding to build developer tools for prediction markets that settle on continuous numerical ranges rather than simple binary outcomes, according to deal trackers that surfaced the round in late September. Maven 11 Capital and Blockwall co-led the investment, with SMAPE Capital joining.
The pitch centers on a gap in how existing prediction markets work. Platforms like Polymarket or Kalshi force bettors into yes-or-no propositions: Will a candidate win? Will a team cover the spread? functionSPACE's SDK instead lets developers create markets where traders speculate on a number that can land anywhere along a scale. How many goals will a striker net in a tournament? What temperature will Paris reach on a given afternoon? Where will the S&P close on Friday?
"functionSPACE is a purpose-built market structure for pricing beliefs on a numerical continuous range," the company explains on its website. The architecture supports multiple applications drawing from a single shared order book, allowing different front-end interfaces to offer varied payoff structures atop the same underlying prediction.
The company ran its earliest markets during what it described as the 2024 World Cup. Through a fantasy sports demo called propSPACE, users set custom lines on player performance. functionSPACE claims it settled 129 markets, logged more than 8,800 positions and powered four apps—Polysights, Trepa, Kelvon and the house demo—on one shared layer. A post-tournament survey found that 16 of 17 respondents said they would trade such markets for real money, according to a case study on the company's site.
That enthusiasm remains theoretical for now. "Markets to date have run as play-money on an off-chain engine, and the on-chain contracts are a proof of concept," the startup noted on a documentation page. functionSPACE added that it "enters testnet shortly," meaning live blockchain deployment is still ahead and current markets serve demonstration and research purposes.
The company frames the infrastructure as "a flexible primitive for prediction markets, structured derivatives, research tools, and media." Code samples reference packages labeled @functionspace/core, @functionspace/react and @functionspace/ui. An external GitHub fork from August, however, suggested those packages were not yet published to npm and recommended workspace linking instead, though functionSPACE's documentation claims the SDK is live and includes install commands.
Maven 11 Capital, a crypto-focused venture firm, confirmed the investment through a portfolio update. Principal Alexander Essle "has led investments into … FunctionSpace," the firm said. Blockwall, which backs web3 infrastructure at early stages, co-led the round. Deal aggregators including Dealroom published the news between September 24 and 26, 2024, citing SMAPE Capital as a participant.
The raise unfolds against a fractious regulatory backdrop in the United States. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and state authorities have clashed over prediction market oversight, with Kalshi—a federally regulated exchange—and Polymarket, which relaunched U.S. access following a 2022 settlement, drawing scrutiny over election and event contracts. functionSPACE's off-chain-first design and SDK approach position it as infrastructure for compliant platforms rather than a consumer-facing market, a distinction that may offer some regulatory distance.
Dealroom pegged functionSPACE's employee count at one as of the funding announcement and said the company launched in 2025, though these figures are difficult to verify and the startup declined to disclose its valuation. AlphaDrops listed a $17 million figure, though this remains unverified by primary sources. The company maintains a research hub that published posts through August on topics including resolution mechanisms, hedging structures and distributional markets, suggesting a team perhaps more interested in building a technical foundation than chasing headlines.
Whether continuous-range betting finds traction beyond play-money demos will depend on regulatory clarity, developer adoption and whether traders actually want the added complexity. For now, functionSPACE is betting that the answer falls somewhere in the middle.
