Oi Yee Choo, Chief Commercial Officer of iSTOX
iSTOX, a Singapore Exchange (SGX)-backed digital securities platform, announced today it has closed its US$50 million Series A funding round, as two Japanese government-backed investors joined the round.
The VC arm of Japan Investment Corporation, JIC Venture Growth Investments (JIC-VGI) and government-owned Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) joined other new investors including Japan’s Juroku Bank and Mobile Internet Capital (MIC) in the latest round of financing.
Existing investors SGX, Japan’s Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings and Korea’s Hanwha Asset Management also made fresh investments.
Oi Yee Choo, Chief Commercial Officer of iSTOX, shared in a statement the new financing will be utilised to bankroll the expansion of iSTOX’s “geographical footprint” and investment offerings. She shared the platform will roll out private issuances by blue-chip issuers for individual investors and expansions in China will continue. The company is also seeking issuance deals involving Europe and Australia.
Founded in 2017, iSTOX is a financial technology company regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) as a multi-asset platform for the issuance, custody and secondary trading of digital securities.
iSTOX said it allows multi-asset issuances of fractionalised private market securities, including equity, bonds and funds, making them accessible to a much larger pool of investors. It graduated from the MAS Fintech Regulatory Sandbox in February 2020.
Also Read: Capital markets platform iSTOX raises US$5M from Korea’s Hanhwa
After obtaining a full MAS license in February 2020, iSTOX signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Chongqing Monetary Authority in November 2020 to set up a digital securities exchange in Chongqing to serve the Chinese market, marking the first overseas expansion by iSTOX. In December 2020, iSTOX listed the world’s first unicorn fund in digital securities form.
“Capital markets are transforming rapidly because of advancements in technology. MAS and our institutional investors have been far-sighted and progressive, and they support the change wholeheartedly,” she further added.
“We have decided to participate in the launch of the next generation of digital financial services and platforms covering Asia. We believe that this project will also contribute to the development of Japanese financial services,” remarked Hideki Yarimizu, CEO of JIC-VGI.
iSTOX claims the Series A announcement takes place at a time when private markets are outperforming public markets. In the past decade, global private equity returned 13.2 per cent on average, approximately double the returns from global public equity. Private market assets under management grew to US$6.5 trillion in 2019, almost 2.7 times more than in 2010.
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Image Credit: iSTOX
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