Darrell Martin is the founder and CEO of Apex Trader Funding. If you have ever done an Apex evaluation, you have been playing by rules he wrote himself after getting fed up with every other funding company out there.
| Full name | Darrell Martin |
| Role | Founder & CEO, Apex Trader Funding |
| Background | Raised on a Texas ranch, nearly 20 years trading experience |
| Also founded | Apex Investing Institute (ApexInvesting.com), 2008 |
| Founded Apex Trader Funding | 2021 |
| Based in | Austin, Texas |
| Most active on | YouTube interviews and the official Apex Trader Funding X account |
He started because he needed more money, not because he had a grand plan
You would think a guy who built one of the biggest futures prop firms in the world had it all mapped out from day one. He did not. Darrell will tell you straight up that trading started for him because his regular 9 to 5 job was not covering what his growing family needed. He was raised on a ranch in Texas, and that background stuck with him. Even now, running a company with tens of thousands of traders in over 150 countries, his real passion sits closer to home, in the equine world, where his daughter Felicity is a barrel racing champion.
He got into markets seriously and spent close to two decades trading before Apex Trader Funding ever existed. Back in 2008, he founded Apex Investing Institute, and the story behind that one is worth knowing too. He wanted to leave something behind for his own family, a way to teach his kids how markets actually work. His daughter climbed into his lap at three years old, asked what he was doing, and told him she wanted to learn. That small moment turned into a full education platform that grew into a community of tens of thousands of traders learning his methods around price action, volume, and risk.
Why he built Apex the way he did
By the time 2021 rolled around, Darrell had already spent years around the prop firm industry as a trader and an educator, so he knew exactly where the pain points were. He went out and tried every funding company he could find, and none of them were built the way he wanted as a trader himself. So he built his own. The whole idea behind Apex Trader Funding was simple: fewer rules, lower cost, and a model designed to pay out more to traders than anyone else in the space.
That focus paid off fast. Within a few years, Apex became the leading futures funding evaluation firm anywhere, and it still holds that spot today. The company has paid traders more than any other futures funding firm, and it operates out of Austin, Texas, sticking exclusively to futures markets instead of spreading thin across forex or crypto.
Where you will actually hear from him
Darrell is not someone glued to a personal social feed the way some prop firm founders are. Most of what you see from him comes through the official Apex Trader Funding X account, where the company shares his quotes, his commentary on trading rules like Apex’s well known 30 percent rule, and clips from interviews he has done. He shows up regularly on trading focused YouTube channels and podcasts, breaking down how Apex works and talking through his own trading philosophy with hosts across the industry.
He is also active on LinkedIn under his own name, and he writes as an opinion columnist for CEOWORLD magazine, where he shares thoughts on markets and the economy outside of anything Apex specific. If you want to actually hear him explain his thinking in his own words, your best bet is one of his YouTube interviews rather than chasing down a personal feed, since most of his public voice runs through the company channel and guest appearances instead.
