BlackRock-Backed RWA Firm Securitize Goes Public with $1.25B
BlackRock-backed real-world assets (RWA) tokenization company Securitize is going public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) at a $1.25 billion pre-money valuation.
According to a Tuesday announcement, Securitize is merging with Cantor Equity Partners II, Inc. — a blank-check company sponsored by an affiliate of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald — to be listed on Nasdaq. The company’s co-founder and CEO, Carlos Domingo, said the company was founded “to democratize capital markets by making them more accessible, transparent, and efficient through tokenization.”
Domingo said the next step is to make “financial markets operate at the speed of the internet.” Cantor Fitzgerald Chairman and CEO Howard Lutnick, who also chairs Cantor Equity Partners II, said blockchain technology has “massive potential to transform finance.”
Reports earlier this month indicated that Securitize was in talks with Cantor Fitzgerald about going public through this structure.
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Securitize plays in the big leagues
Securitize is involved with so-called real-world assets, or traditional financial assets such as real estate, government bonds, commodities or invoices that are tokenized on a blockchain. Tokenization turns their ownership or yield rights into digital tokens, allowing them to be traded, used as collateral or integrated into decentralized finance (DeFi) systems.
Securitize previously saw financing from the world’s top asset manager, BlackRock, major investment firm ARK Invest, and Morgan Stanley Investment Management, among others. The company is also responsible for tokenizing BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, which was recently integrated into DeFi.
Related: Alpaca rolls out network enabling direct tokenization of US stocks
Real-world assets see increasing growth
RWA, as a niche in the crypto industry, has seen steady growth, especially given the increasingly favorable regulatory environment in the US. In recent months, blockchain firm Ondo Finance urged the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to delay or reject Nasdaq’s proposal to trade tokenized securities, citing the need for more oversight.
Earlier this month, Rob Hadick, general partner at crypto venture firm Dragonfly, said that tokenized equities will bring significant benefits to traditional markets, but not the crypto industry. He said tokenized assets will bring 24/7 trading, but he would not expect institutions to “want to be directly on these general-purpose chains” and instead operate in siloed ecosystems.
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