Santander InnoVentures, Santander Group’s fintech venture capital fund, has invested in Securitize, a California-based startup which issues and manages compliant digital securities on the blockchain.
Santander said that InnoVenture’s investment forms part of a larger fundraise from Securitize, which has received $14m (£11.2m) from other investors including MUFG and Nomura Holdings.
Securitize offers solutions for creating and managing compliant digital securities. The Securitize compliance platform and protocol provide a full-stack solution to issuing and managing digital securities (security tokens).
Securitize’s DS Protocol is claimed to have the highest adoption rate in the industry, enabling a seamless and fully-compliant trading across multiple markets simultaneously.
Santander InnoVentures said that Securitize manages secondary trading and corporate actions for digital securities. It has presently issued 11 digital securities, five trading on public marketplaces and dozens more in the pipeline.
The latest funding is Santander InnoVentures’ eighth investment in California
Santander said that the latest funding is InnoVentures’s eighth investment in the US state of California and adds to the more than 25 fintech investments in the fund’s global portfolio.
Securitize CEO and co-founder Carlos Domingo said: “Bringing on key strategic investors as well as leading blockchain investors validates how transformative digital securities are for traditional financial markets.
“Their investment in Securitize ensures that we can continue to drive adoption and innovation with our execution and industry-leading technology.”
Santander InnoVentures partner and investments head Manuel Silva Martínez said: “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.
“We are excited to work with Carlos and his team to revolutionize the capital markets industry together.”
Earlier this month, Santander InnoVentures invested in Trulioo, a startup offering identity verification services.
The startup offers instant global ID verification for five billion consumers and more than 250 million business entities in over 195 countries.
