Yesterday Securitize said it acquired MG Stover‘s fund administration service, without disclosing the terms. With the acquisition, Securitize Fund Services now administers $38 billion in assets across 715 funds.
“Securitize’s acquisition of MG Stover’s Fund Administration business cements our role as the most comprehensive platform for institutional grade real-world asset tokenization and fund administration,” said Carlos Domingo, Co-Founder & CEO of Securitize. “This is a significant step in our growth, reinforcing our commitment to expanding our capabilities as we serve an ever-expanding cohort of asset issuers and investors.”
The tokenization firm already offers a broad range of services through various subsidiaries. Apart from tokenization and primary issuance, it also operates a transfer agent and has broker-dealer and ATS licenses for secondary market trading. Last year, it unveiled a lending service using tokenized collateral, and soon it plans to launch its own blockchain, Converge, in collaboration with stablecoin issuer Ethena. Together they aim to provide the settlement layer for real world asset (RWA) tokenization. Hence, it will provide an end-to-end solution across its various subsidiaries.
To date Securitize has been involved in the issuance of $3.3 billion in tokenized assets, with BlackRock’s BUIDL accounting for almost three quarters of that figure. Securitize’s blockchain partner Ethena holds $1.3 billion in BUIDL in the reserves for its USDtb stablecoin.
Last year, when BlackRock partnered Securitize to issue its first tokenized money market fund BUIDL, it raised the tokenization firm’s profile significantly. But Securitize had already tokenized funds for KKR and Hamilton Lane. Apart from BlackRock investing in the startup as part of last year’s $47 million funding round, it had a bevy of existing high profile backers including Morgan Stanley, and many giant Japanese firms such as Sony, Nomura and MUFG.
Growth by acquisition
This also is not Securitize’s first acquisition. It acquired its broker dealer and ATS arm in 2020, its transfer agency business in 2022, and in 2023 expanded distribution to financial advisers with the acquisition of OnRamp.
With the latest acquisition, Securitize claims to be the largest digital asset fund administrator. Traditional finance (TradFi) fund administration firm Apex Group has been active in the sector for a few years and shares some common clients such as Hamilton Lane. With tokenization accelerating the convergence between TradFi and DeFi, the battle is on between Securitize and Apex.
