Asset management titan BlackRock is leading a new fundraising round for Securitize, a US company geared towards the tokenization of real-world assets.
According to a new press release, Securitize has completed a $47 million funding round led by BlackRock, which has over $10 trillion of assets under its management and is the largest asset manager in the world.
The investment includes appointing Joseph Chalom, BlackRock’s current global head of strategic ecosystem partnerships, onto Securitize’s board of directors.
As stated by Chalom, according to the press release,
“At BlackRock, we believe that tokenization has the potential to drive a significant transformation in capital markets infrastructure. Our investment in Securitize is another step in the evolution of our digital assets strategy.
We are pleased to lead this investment round alongside other participants and help foster innovation that will help meet the future needs of our clients.”
The real-world tokenization of assets is when digital representations of tangible and intangible assets are embedded onto blockchains to represent ownership. Examples of real-world assets that can be tokenized include real estate property, money, contractual obligations, and art.
Other investors include stablecoin issuers Paxos and Circle, as well as Web3 blockchain firm Aptos Labs.
In March of last year, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said that the tokenization of asset classes “offers the prospect of driving efficiencies in capital markets, shortening value chains, and improving cost and access for investors” and noted that the US is lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of financial innovation.
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