Santander leads $14 million round in digital securities platform Securitize 🚨 This article is 5 years old...
Santander leads $14 million round in digital securities platform Securitize
2 min read
Updated: Sep. 26, 2019 at 1:37 pm UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
Securitize, a blockchain-based digital securities platform, raised $14 million in its latest funding round. The company secured investments from some of the biggest financial institutions in the world, including Santander and MUFG.
Securitize completes $14 million investment round
A regulated platform for issuing tokens on the blockchain, Securitize, has completed its latest funding round, raising $14 million from some of the most notable financial institutions in the world.
According to the company’s press release, the fundraising is an extension of its Series A funding found which raised over $12.7 million in November 2019. The latest round brings the company’s total financing to over $30 million, it said in the release.
While existing Series A investors Blockchain Capital, SPiCE VC, and SeedRocket4Founders also participated in the round, the company got the backing of three of the world’s largest banks.
Banco Santander led the round through its venture capital arm called Santander InnoVEntures, while MUFG’s participated through its wholly-owned corporate venture capital subsidiary MUFG Innovation Partners. Japanese investment group Nomura Holdings also joined the round.
Carlos Domingo, the co-founder and CEO of Securitize, said that having the support of some of the largest banks in the world validates how transformative digital securities are for traditional financial markets. The CEO believes digital securities will change the investment landscape, telling CryptoSlate:
“Digital securities will change the investment landscape as they will make the securities market faster, more efficient, and cost-effective which we believe provides issuers and investors a better overall experience.”
Growing appetite for digital securities in Asia
Most of the investors in Securitize’s latest funding round come from Asia. Japanese telecom company KDDI participated in the round, as did Japanese real-estate developers Mitsui Fudosan, through its innovation arm 31 Ventures. Two major investors came from China—Kenetic Capital, a Hong Kong-based blockchain venture capital firm, and Fenbushi Capital, a venture capital firm focused solely on blockchain.
“The investment round also demonstrates a growing appetite in Asia for digital securities,” Securitize said in its press release.
Other blockchain companies have also participated in the round. Both the Tezos Foundation and Algo Capital VC will use Securitize to digitize securities on the Tezos and Algorand blockchains.
Securitize’s DS Protocol currently has the highest adoption rate in the industry. The protocol, which manages secondary trading and corporate actions for digital securities, has 11 digital securities issued. While only five securities are currently trading on public marketplaces, “dozens more” are in the pipeline, the company said.
Mentioned in this article
Posted In: San Francisco, Investments
