Digital securities issuance and management firm Securitize, backed by Ripple, has raised $14 million from a swathe of investors, with the intention of putting the funds towards further development of its technology platform which has been created to help “modernize” the existing securities industry.
These recent investments are part of an extension to the Series A funding round which took place last November, bringing the total funds raised in this round to $30 million.
Spanish banking group Banco Santander is among the more notable names to give their support to Securitize, having invested through its ‘Santander InnoVentures’ arm. It follows the bank’s announcement earlier this month that it has issued the “first” end-to-end blockchain bond on the Ethereum blockchain.
Also of note are the contributions from the Mitsubishi UFG Ginancial Group (via MUFG Innovation Partners), as well as blockchain development oriented entities: Tezos Foundation and Algo VC.
Previous participants in the Series A round included Ripple Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and Blockchain Capital; the latter of which being a returning investor, along with SPiCE VC and SeedRocket4Founders.
Securitizing Securities
Ever since the United States’ Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled that the majority of tradeable cryptocurrencies could easily be classified as ‘securities’, the methods used for raising funds on the blockchain have changed considerably.
As many tokens which previously would have been free of legal distinction are now ‘security tokens’, the change in terminology has created a new industry offering investors the opportunity to ‘securitize’ their assets or commodities rather than ‘tokenizing’ them.
Securitize advertises itself as a platform for issuing and managing digital securities, covering industries such as equity, funds, fixed income and real estate.
The company started off in the IBM blockchian accelerator program, and made the news earlier this year when it registered as a transfer agent with the SEC.
Quotes
Carlos Domingo, Co-Founder and CEO (Securitize)
“Bringing on key strategic investors like Santander InnoVentures, MUFG, and Nomura, as well as leading blockchain investors, validates how transformative digital securities are for traditional financial markets. Their investment in Securitize ensures that we can continue to drive adoption and innovation with our execution and industry-leading technology,”
Manuel Silva Martínez, Partner and Head of Investments (Santander InnoVentures)
“As we bet on companies that are reengineering core pieces of our industry’s infrastructure through blockchain technologies, Securitize is an obvious addition to our portfolio that further enables Santander taking part in the nascent digital securities markets… We are excited to work with Carlos and his team to revolutionize the capital markets industry together.”
Nobutake Suzuki, President & CEO, MUFG Innovation Partners
“Digital securities are increasingly becoming a leading use case for distributed ledger technologies within the financial services industry. Securitize has emerged as a leading solutions provider within this rapidly growing space… Through our investment in Securitize, MUIP is seeking to establish a strategic relationship and promote further collaboration in the future.”
Hubertus Thonhauser, Board of Directors (Tezos Foundation)
“Securitize is a pioneer in on-chain digital securities and has a strong founders team. The Tezos Foundation’s mission is to fund strategically relevant projects and businesses building on Tezos, therefore we see a perfect match,”