Funding Talent was one of the earliest prop firms to hit the market, but in late 2021, they shut down without much warning.

All of their members received this email:

Effective immediately, we are permanently removing Challenge as a Funding Talent program offering. This decision was difficult to make, and we understand that we will lose members as a result.

Like any new business, Funding Talent has experienced difficulties that are often felt during periods of hyper growth. While Challenge provided an exciting time of expansion for our organization, it carried us away from our original mission.

Since our founding 19 months ago, our membership skyrocketed to welcome 13,000 members in 162 countries around the globe. This extraordinarily fast growth has required us to become abundantly clear about who we are as an organization, and how we want to grow.

It is important for us to be explicitly clear that Funding Talent is not, and has never been a broker. There is no live capital or trading taking place, nor do we benefit from any of the simulated trades taken on Elite accounts. All accounts within our program are demo accounts. Our business operates as a globally leading simulated learning experience ─ or game ─ where aspiring traders have the opportunity to be quickly rewarded for their increased knowledge and success.

We will be providing Challenge members a place to continue their journey with us by releasing our new Edge program in beta on Monday, October 4. This evaluation-free model reflects our company’s objective to help traders learn risk management and develop their trading strategies. We recognize that Edge will not be a great fit for all Challenge members. You can evaluate whether Edge is the right fit for you by visiting here.

FundingTalent.com

They then offered a few choices to their existing traders:

At Funding Talent, we are excited to be moving forward with a crystal clear vision of who we are, and with a commitment to returning to the type of offerings that originally made us great. Although our relationship will be ending with some of you today, we are committed to doing what’s right. Moving forward, Challenge and Challenge Elite members will have the following options:

Option 1: Continue With Edge and/or Request Final Payout

All Challenge members have been automatically transitioned to Edge. A description of the Edge program can be found here. To obtain your Edge account details, please email [email protected]

Those who do not wish to continue with Edge are able to request their final payout and exit the program with no further actions required.

Please note that the rules of this model go into effect immediately. This includes those who currently hold a Challenge Elite account and are in “profit”.

As a one-time courtesy, we will remove the consistency parameters for Challenge Elite members on their next payout.

The Edge program’s payout caps and payout percentage will be applied at the next and final Challenge Elite payout.

All Challenge Elite members must request a payout within 48 hours of this notice.

All Phase 1 and 2 members who have not violated their account may request their new Edge details by 11:59:59 p.m. EST on Saturday, October 2.

Edge does not require an evaluation to be passed, so these members can begin trading the simulated account and earning rewards on program launch.

Option 2: Request a Refund
We will authorize a refund for members who meet the following conditions:

Challenge Phase 1 or 2 account that has not been violated.

The account must be active: a position must have been entered on the account within the last 14 days.

Challenge Elite accounts that have not been violated.

The account must be active: a position must have been entered on the account within the last 14 days.

Please note that we will experience delays in our response time as this decision will affect many members. We kindly ask that you do not email our support team more than once as it will move your inquiry to the back of the queue.

While we acknowledge that today’s announcement will be upsetting for some members, we are confident in our decision as we fully commit to the educational gaming space and formally depart from the prop firm community.

We thank you for your loyalty to Funding Talent, and wish you the very best of luck no matter where your journey may lead.

Sincerely,

Your Funding Talent Team

FundingTalent.com

Why Funding Talent may have shut down

There are two possible reasons that Funding Talent may have shut down:

One reason may be that there is very little regulation regarding prop firms and ran into trouble with the law.

Another possibility is that they were not financially stable and were using money from failed challenges to fund their profitable traders, which eventually led to their downfall.

Funding Talent was quite explicit in stating that they did not trade at all. They were just a demo(game) platform meant to reward talented traders for their skills.

Personally, I found that to be a red flag from day one.

That almost guaranteed that the only way they were paying out profitable traders was by using money from failed challenges.

While most prop firms probably do this, they at least state that they have a master account on which they do take trades.

Still, how much they trade on the master account is not known.

They also had one of the most complicated payout terms in the whole prop firm world. I sent them multiple emails to try to get them to explain it, but nobody was able to really give me a clear answer.

What this means for other prop firms

Trading with any prop firm is risky, no matter how reputable they are. Still, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t trade with them at all.

It just means that your long term goal should be to build up your personal trading account.

In the mean time, you should work on getting funded with multiple prop firms to spread your risk out.

More: Funding Talent Vs FTMO

Conclusion

Funding Talent may be an outlier in the prop firm world, but they’re definitely a warning sign that no prop firm will last forever.