Securitize, a US company focused on tokenizing real-world assets, has successfully completed a funding round worth $47 million, with asset management giant BlackRock leading the investment. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with over $10 trillion in assets under management, has also appointed Joseph Chalom, its global head of strategic ecosystem partnerships, to Securitize’s board of directors. Chalom stated that BlackRock believes tokenization has the potential to revolutionize capital markets infrastructure and that the investment in Securitize is part of the firm’s digital assets strategy. Other investors in the funding round include stablecoin issuers Paxos and Circle, as well as Web3 blockchain firm Aptos Labs. The tokenization of real-world assets involves representing tangible and intangible assets on blockchains, such as real estate property, money, contractual obligations, and art. In March 2020, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink emphasized the potential of asset tokenization to enhance capital markets efficiency and accessibility, highlighting the US’s need to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of financial innovation.
