Singapore fund tokenisation player ADDX raises $58m
ADDX, a Singaporean digital securities exchange that helps PE firms and other fund managers tokenise funds, has raised USD 58m in pre-Series B funding featuring the Stock Exchange of Thailand.
UOB, Hamilton Lane, and Krungsri Finnovate, the corporate VC arm of Thailand’s Bank of Ayudhya, also participated. UOB and Hamilton Lane are clients of ADDX. The former has partnered with the technology company to launch various digital bonds. The latter tokenised a global private assets fund in March with the aim of attracting a broader set of individual Asian investors.
It brings total funds raised by ADDX to USD 120m since its inception as iStox in 2017. The company raised a USD 50m Series A last year from a group including Singapore Exchange, Hanwha Asset Management, Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings, Japan’s Juroku Bank, Development Bank of Japan, and JIC Venture Growth Investments, the VC arm of Japan Investment Corporation.
ADDX is a full-service capital markets platform with Monetary Authority of Singapore licenses for the issuance, custody and secondary trading of digital securities. It uses blockchain technology to fractionalise private market products, reducing minimum investment sizes to as little as USD 10,000. The idea is to increase efficiency and lower the cost and fundraising threshold for issuers.
The company, which describes its mission as the democratisation of private markets, has played into an industry shift toward mass affluent investors in fundraising. There is a significant Asian angle to this theme, with Boston Consulting Group and iCapital Network estimating individual investors’ private equity contributions in the region will account for 37% of global commitments by 2025.
Partners Group became the first major private equity firm to explore the technology, engaging ADDX in September last year to tokenise its Global Value SICAV Fund. Earlier this month, ADDX helped Singapore’s Fullerton Fund Management tokenise its latest private equity fund-of-funds. Both vehicles allow for commitments as low as USD 10,000.
ADDX will use the fresh capital to advance various strategic initiatives, including a recently launched private market service for wealth managers called ADDX Advantage. There are also plans to expand the exchange into new business areas, geographies, and market segments, while developing technology and pursuing partnerships with more GPs.
“This investment will further strengthen Krungsri’s ecosystem and partnerships, and significantly broaden investment opportunities for our high-net-worth customers as it offers enhanced access to private markets with a wide range of asset types such as private equity, hedge funds, and bonds, which better serve the needs of customers today,” Sam Tanskul, a managing director at Krungsri Finnovate, said in a statement.
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