BlackRock leads $47 million strategic funding round for Securitize

BlackRock leads $47 million strategic funding round in tokenization firm Securitize

Published 1 minute earlier on

Quick Take

RWA tokenization firm Securitize raised $47 million in strategic funding led by BlackRock.
Hamilton Lane, ParaFi Capital and Tradeweb Markets also contributed to the financing.

BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, led a $47 million strategic funding round for the tokenization firm Securitize.

The alternative investment management firm Hamilton Lane, ParaFi Capital and Tradeweb Markets also contributed to the round, according to a Wednesday statement. BlackRock's Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships, Joseph Chalom, will also join the board of directors of Securitize following this raise.

“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,” Chalom said in the statement. “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.”

Securitize and BUIDL

Securitize is a web3 firm that tokenizes real world assets (RWAs). It has worked with major players, such as investment firms KKR and Hamilton Lane, to provide tokenized exposure to assets.

BlackRock launched a tokenized investment fund called the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) with Securitize in March of this year, The Block previously reported. Built on Ethereum, the fund invests in cash, U.S. Treasury bills and repurchase agreements, aiming to give investors daily dividends from yields by holding the on-chain token, the company statement continues.

BUIDL amassed $160 million in inflows within its first week of launch and became a leading tokenized investment fund on May 30 after accruing around $375 million in assets under management.

"Securitize has built cutting edge infrastructure that enables traditional assets to move onto the high speed, modern rails of blockchains — enabling greater transparency, immediate settlement, reduced counterparty risk, and heightened programmability,” said ParaFi Founder and Managing Partner Ben Forman in the release.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

About Author

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.