Funding Talent and FTMO are two of the “original” prop trading firms. While Funding Talent is no longer operational, it’s still interesting to see how both of these prop trading firms differed from one another.

FTMO survived, and Funding Talent did not: perhaps analyzing the differences between the two prop firms can help you understand why!

Funding Talent VS FTMO: Short Overview

Funding Talent

  • $25,000 to $300,000 funding and scaling up to $2,000,000
  • Monthly fees OR challenge fee
  • Complex profit split system

FTMO

  • $10,000 to $200,000 funding and scaling up to $2,000,000
  • $150-$1200 challenge fee depending on account size
  • Very straightforward profit split

Funding Talent Review

Funding Talent was a hugely popular Canadian prop trading firm that had a massive client(trader) base. They offered two types of accounts: Flex and Challenge.

funding talent is closed

The Flex account was very complicated to understand, and after multiple interactions with their customer support, I was convinced that they themselves did not understand the rules.

Essentially, every time you made a profit, part would be paid out to you and part would go into a “live” trading account which was still apparently a demo account.

The “live” account would slowly be built up for you to trade.

The challenge account was much more like a typical challenge account offered by other prop firms.

According to Funding Talent, they did not offer any live accounts nor did they copy trade from any funded account to their own account. This meant that the only revenue they were bringing in was from failed challenges and the monthly fee.

Yikes!

Instead, their philosophy was to “discover trading talents” and reward profitable traders in a game-based environment.

Funding Talent Programs

Funding Talent offered 3 types of programs:

  • Flex
  • Flex Aggressive
  • Challenge

As we mentioned above, the Flex rules were way too complicated and their website did not really make clear how much the demo account profit would be OR how much the funded account profit would be!

If I were looking to become a funded trader, I would want to know EXACTLY how much I could potentially make.

Funding Talent Pros

  • One of the oldest(now defunct) prop firms
  • Used to have a great reputation in the funded trader community
  • Lots of scaling opportunities
  • Reasonable profit target
  • Multiple trading options

Funding Talent Cons

  • Rules were too complicated for any prop firm
  • No source of revenue aside from internal funding and failed challenge fees

FTMO Proprietary Trading Firm Review

FTMO is one of the best-known, if not the best known prop trading firm out there. In fact, the FTMO challenge is the pioneer of trading challenges.

They’ve been funding traders since 2015 and to date, thousands of people call themselves a successful FTMO trader.

The profit target is a little steep at 10% for the 30 day trading period, but the profit split is really good and thousands of people have managed to get a funded account with them.

There are no minimum trading days and the trading objectives are quite reasonable. There’s also an extensive account analysis dashboard.

Account sizes range from $10,000 all the way up to $200,000.

The evaluation process is two stages, where one is meant to test your aggressive trading skills and the second is meant to test how well you manage risk.

Many Forex traders have used FTMO to reach financial independence.

ftmo logo

FTMO Pros

  • Best reputation amongst all proprietary trading firms
  • No minimum trading days
  • Realistic rules
  • Many different funding options
  • Generous profit split
  • Great scaling plans

FTMO Cons

  • While reasonable, 10% profit target can be a little steep for new traders

Funding Talent Vs FTMO: Key Differences

Operational or not

It’s kind of obvious, but the key difference between FTMO and Funding Talent is that FTMO is still in business while Funding Talent is not!

Fees

Funding Talent had one model that had a monthly fee, and one model where you would pay a one-off challenge fee.

FTMO, on the other hand, does not have any monthly fee in any of their programs. There’s just a one-off challenge fee.

FTMO’s fees are a little bit on the higher side, but many traders still prefer to work with them rather than other firms because of their stellar reputation.

Profit split

When Funding Talent was operational, their profit splits were fixed depending on the plan you chose.

FTMO has a guaranteed 80% profit split that can scale up to 90% after you’ve successfully traded with them for a period of time.

Trading programs

Funding Talent offered a challenge account and a Flex account which you would get access to for paying an entrance fee and a monthly fee.

As mentioned above, the Flex account had very complicated rules, where your funded earnings would be deposited into another (real) account.

FTMO has very one straightforward program. The only differences are in the size of the account and the drawdown/profit target.

There’s a normal account with a 10% drawdown and 10% profit target, and an aggressive account with a 20% drawdown and a 20% target.

The aggressive account works better for those who like to trade with EAs that can often go into deep drawdowns before picking up again.

Conclusion

Back in its heyday, Funding Talent was a force to reckon with. Now that they’re defunct, FTMO and other firms like My Forex Funds have filled in the gap and capitalized.

If you’re looking to to start a challenge account, FTMO and My Forex Funds are excellent firms to work with.