Today blockchain firm Securitize announced that it has raised $14 million from some of the world’s largest banks. Santander InnoVentures, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) Innovation Partners, and Nomura Holdings participated in the investment for blockchain stored securities.
San Francisco-based Securitize provides a compliance platform for tokenized securities. Its DS Protocol manages the trading of digital securities in the regulated market, and currently boasts the highest adoption rate in the sector.
Today’s announcement is an extension of Securitize’s Series A round and additionally includes platforms Tezos and Algo VC so that they can digitize securities on their blockchains. The firm previously raised $12.75 million from the likes of Ripple, Blockchain Capital, and Coinbase.
The CEO of Securitize, Carlos Domingo, said: “Bringing on key strategic investors like Santander InnoVentures, MUFG, and Nomura, as well as leading blockchain investors, validates how transformative digital securities are for traditional financial markets.”
Indeed, the tokenization of securities is one of the most active areas in blockchain finance. Now that three multinational banks have staked their support, it is set to get even busier.
“As we bet on companies that are reengineering core pieces of our industry’s infrastructure through blockchain technologies, Securitize is an obvious addition to our portfolio that further enables Santander taking part in the nascent digital securities markets,” said Manuel Silva Martínez, Partner and Head of Investments at Santander InnoVentures.
Nobutake Suzuki, the CEO of MUFG Innovation Partners, agreed: “Digital securities are increasingly becoming a leading use case for distributed ledger technologies within the financial services industry. Securitize has emerged as a leading solutions provider within this rapidly growing space.”
Santander InnoVentures, along with the London Stock Exchange, has funded banking startup Nivaura. Meanwhile, Nomura Holdings established a joint venture this month with NRI for blockchain securities. It is very likely Securitize will now help with this project.
MUFG has several high profile blockchain investments, including a Utility Settlement Coin (USC) project and Chainalysis. The firm is a member of commodities platform komgo and is working on its own digital currency.
