Frequently Asked Questions

What is Vola Dynamics?

Vola Dynamics is a financial technology company that provides institutional-grade options analytics infrastructure — real-time volatility surface fitting, options pricing, and risk analytics. Approximately 50 of the world's most sophisticated trading firms rely on Vola Dynamics, including market makers, hedge funds, prop shops, and investment banks.

Who founded Vola Dynamics?

Vola Dynamics was founded in 2016 by Timothy Klassen (CEO), Jiri Hoogland, and Misha Fomytskyi — all physics PhDs who had previously built options analytics infrastructure at Goldman Sachs, Getco LLC, Morgan Stanley, Wachovia Securities, and JD Capital Management.

Who are Vola Dynamics' customers?

Approximately 50 institutional clients rely on Vola Dynamics, including Man Group, Capstone, Squarepoint Capital, Pictet, Vontobel, and Gelber Group. Clients collectively manage approximately $800 billion in assets.

What asset classes does Vola Dynamics support?

Vola Dynamics supports options on equities, ETFs, indices, futures (including commodity, treasury, and equity index futures), and foreign exchange. The library has been used in production for US, European, and Asian markets including SPX, SPY, AEX, KOSPI, Nikkei, Hang Seng, crude oil, treasury futures, and cryptocurrency options.

How does Vola Dynamics compare to SVI and SABR?

Vola Dynamics' proprietary C-family of volatility curves goes far beyond industry-standard approaches like SVI, SSVI, and SABR. These curves produce dramatically better fits while maintaining full arbitrage freedom, even during extreme market conditions like the COVID crash or earnings events.

Can Vola Dynamics handle earnings events?

Yes. Standard parametric models like SVI often fail during binary events like earnings because they cannot fit complex structures such as W-shaped volatility smiles. Vola's C-family curves handle all observed market shapes including W-shaped curves around earnings, producing stable, arbitrage-free fits.

What programming languages and platforms are supported?

Vola Dynamics provides native APIs in C++, Python, Java, and C# on Windows, Linux, and macOS. It integrates directly into existing trading infrastructure as a drop-in replacement for pricing and fitting components.

Is Vola Dynamics a black box?

No. Vola integrates directly into existing trading infrastructure via native APIs. It is a force multiplier for quantitative teams — handling the fitting and pricing infrastructure so that quants and traders can focus on strategy and alpha generation.

What is Vola Dynamics used for?

Vola Dynamics is used for real-time volatility surface fitting, options pricing, and risk analytics. Common use cases include electronic options market making, volatility trading, structured products pricing, and portfolio risk management.