BlackRock doubles down on tokenization via investment in Securitize

The world’s largest asset manager appears poised to move deeper into the tokenization space after injecting capital into a tokenization firm it has worked with before.

BlackRock led a $47 million funding round for Securitize, a company focused on bringing physical and traditional financial assets onto the blockchain, the firms said Wednesday.

Fintech companies and traditional finance giants have increasingly been testing out tokenization, noting that blockchain rails can help reduce costs and improve transparency. BlackRock Larry Fink has called tokenized securities “the next generation for markets.”

To that end, BlackRock and Securitize are not strangers.

BlackRock launched its first tokenized fund — the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund — in March, offering a different way to earn US dollar yields. Qualified investors can subscribe to that fund through Securitize Markets.

“We believe that tokenization has the potential to drive a significant transformation in capital markets infrastructure,” Joseph Chalom, BlackRock’s global head of strategic ecosystem partnerships, said in a statement. “Our investment in Securitize is another step in the evolution of our digital assets strategy.”

Chalom is now a member of Securitize’s board of directors.

Other investors in the $47 million funding round include Hamilton Lane, ParaFi Capital and Tradeweb Markets.

Private markets investment firm Hamilton Lane in January 2023 made available one of its equity funds through a Securitize feeder fund tokenized on Polygon.

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