Case Study: Scout – Market Data Platform for Chimera Securities

Client: Chimera Securities
Industry: Financial Trading
Project: Scout – Custom Market Data Platform

Challenge

Chimera Securities, a leading proprietary trading firm specializing in rapid-order-entry and intraday strategies across U.S. equity markets, required a technological foundation capable of supporting its expanding base of professional traders. To remain competitive, Chimera sought a market data solution that could deliver real-time information with minimal latency, high reliability, and full operational control.

Prior to engaging SoftAtBest, Chimera relied on multiple third-party trading platforms such as Takion, Lightspeed, and Sterling. While effective for daily operations, these systems limited Chimera’s ability to innovate, respond rapidly to traders’ evolving needs, and develop proprietary features that could differentiate the firm’s trading environment.

The project was divided into two phases. Scout, the first phase, was designed to establish a robust market data foundation that would underpin a future full-scale trading platform. In addition to proving the feasibility of SoftAtBest’s architecture, Scout provided Chimera’s traders—many of whom continued using existing platforms—a preview of the next-generation capabilities under development.

Solution

SoftAtBest was selected based on its extensive experience building real-time trading systems from the ground up. Drawing on this expertise, SoftAtBest engineered Scout, a fully custom Market Data Platform, purpose-built to meet Chimera’s stringent performance and scalability requirements.

Key technical decisions included:

• High-performance networking: Integration of Solarflare network adapters with the EF_VI API to bypass the operating system kernel and achieve ultra-low latency data transmission.
• Adaptive data distribution: A proprietary protocol that dynamically adjusted to fluctuating market rates and network throughput, maintaining reliability during extreme volatility.
• Optimized C++ architecture: Intensive profiling and optimization of memory access and sorting algorithms to maximize computational efficiency.
• Trader-centric feedback loop: Continuous refinement of user-facing performance, ensuring that updates and on-screen behavior aligned with trader expectations and workflow.
• Dynamic rate management: Real-time adjustment of output rates within milliseconds in response to market conditions, ensuring traders received the freshest data without lag.

The platform’s architecture was designed for scalability and adaptability, enabling a single server instance to efficiently support numerous clients—including both internet-based and algorithmic traders—while preserving low latency and consistent performance.

Results

The deployment of the Scout platform successfully eliminated the data lag that had previously occurred during market open and close periods, as well as during major market-moving events. Traders reported a seamless, real-time experience even during moments when competing systems exhibited several seconds of delay.

In addition to superior performance, Scout enabled Chimera Securities to:

• Rapidly introduce new trader-requested features.
• Prioritize internal innovation aligned with evolving trading strategies.
• Maintain high trader satisfaction through a stable and responsive platform experience.

Scout has since become the foundation upon which Chimera’s future trading system is being developed, proving the viability and long-term scalability of SoftAtBest’s architectural approach.

Differentiators

• Expertise: SoftAtBest’s engineering team brings decades of collective experience in building and optimizing real-time trading infrastructure, ensuring the solution’s performance meets the demands of modern markets.
• Process and agility: Rigorous software development practices, comprehensive testing, CI/CD pipelines, and adoption of the Vibe coding methodology allowed for rapid iteration, high reliability, and verifiable delivery.
• Future-ready architecture: The platform’s scalable and flexible design positions Chimera to evolve alongside market speeds, data volumes, and client expectations.

Key Takeaway

By partnering with SoftAtBest, Chimera Securities established a market data platform that not only delivers exceptional performance and reliability but also reinforces the firm’s ability to innovate and differentiate in an increasingly competitive trading landscape. Scout’s success demonstrates the value of combining specialized technical expertise with a disciplined engineering process to achieve lasting business advantage.