Futu Holdings Ltd

Futu was founded by Leaf Hua Li, an early employee of Tencent who worked at the company for eight years before leaving in 2008. Dissatisfied with the fees and trading systems of existing Hong Kong brokerages, Li invested about HK$40 million of his savings in developing his own online brokerage.

The group's technology operations trace back to Shenzhen Futu Network Technology Co., Ltd., established in December 2007. In April 2012, Li incorporated Futu Securities International (Hong Kong) Limited, which obtained a Type 1 licence from the Securities and Futures Commission and began operating an online brokerage in October. Futu Holdings Limited was incorporated in the Cayman Islands in April 2014, and Futu Securities International was transferred to the holding company the same year.

Futu received funding from Tencent, Matrix Partners China and Sequoia Capital China in three rounds: a Series A round in 2014, a US$60 million Series B round in 2015 and a US$145.5 million Series C round in 2017. Before its public listing, Tencent held about 38.2% of Futu, making it the company's largest institutional shareholder. By 2018, Futu was the fourth-largest online retail broker in Hong Kong by revenue for the first half of the year and had brokered about US$116 billion in trades during the year.

Futu went public on the Nasdaq on March 8, 2019, selling 7.5 million ADR at US$12 each and raising US$90 million. The shares closed their first day of trading at US$15.32, 28% above the offering price, giving Futu a market capitalization of about US$1.7 billion.

Futu's paying client base more than doubled year-on-year by September 2020, reaching 418,000 amid a boom in retail trading and strong demand for Hong Kong IPOs. In August 2020, Futu raised US$313.5 million in its first follow-on offering after the IPO, in part to expand its margin-financing business. By February 2021, its market capitalization had risen to about US$25 billion, roughly fifteen times its valuation after the IPO. In April 2021, Futu raised a further US$1.24 billion to fund margin financing, international expansion and additional licensing.

In December 2022, Futu postponed a planned dual-primary listing in Hong Kong Stock Exchange one day before trading was due to begin.

Futu began expanding outside Hong Kong in 2018, opening a U.S. office and launching its Moomoo platform for U.S. investors later that year. Its overseas expansion accelerated in 2021, when Futu launched Moomoo in Singapore and established its Southeast Asian headquarters there. Moomoo entered Australia in 2022. Futu launched securities trading in Japan and Canada in 2023, followed by Malaysia in 2024. Futu expanded to New Zealand in May 2025.

Futu entered wealth management in 2019 with the launch of Money Plus. Assets under management in the business exceeded US$10 billion in 2024. In June 2024, Futu invested HK$440 million in the parent company of Airstar Bank, acquiring an indirect 44.11% stake in the Hong Kong digital bank. It invested a further HK$500 million in September 2025, increasing its stake to 68.43% and becoming the bank's controlling shareholder. Airstar Bank was renamed Ele Bank in April 2026.