In June Hamilton Lane closed its Secondary Fund VI, attracting $5.6 billion in investment. Now Securitize is enabling qualified individuals to invest in the tokenized feeder fund for the Secondary Fund VI on the Polygon blockchain. A key advantage is that the minimum investment is $20,000 rather than the typical $5 million, the so-called fractionalization benefit.
“By digitizing the investment process, we are removing barriers and making it easier for more investors to participate in high-quality private market opportunities,” said Carlos Domingo, Co-Founder and CEO, Securitize.
The Secondary Fund VI invests in private equity, but rather than making primary investments, it buys equity stakes from primary investors. The advantage is the investment is more mature, so the return may come sooner than for primary investments.
Research has shown a growing appetite for alternative investments from high net worth individuals (HNWIs). Earlier this year, Bain & Co and JP Morgan estimated that if alternatives made up 20% of HNWI portfolios, like it does for institutions, that would attract $12 trillion in additional funds to the sector. This could translate to increased revenues of $270 billion for asset managers.
Securitize has an existing relationship with Hamilton Lane. Last year it tokenized its Equity Opportunities Fund V and its private credit fund SCOPE. The asset manager also took part in Securitize’s $47 million funding round alongside BlackRock and others.
In March BlackRock partnered with Securitize to issue its first tokenized money market fund, BUIDL. Securitize has also previously tokenized a KKR feeder fund.
Meanwhile, Hamilton Lane is involved in various blockchain initiatives around the world, including Singapore’s Project Guardian. One of its most notable initiatives is it issued a digitally native class of shares for its Luxembourg-based Global Private Assets (GPA) Fund.