For the first time in history, a single-family property fund will be financed through blockchain-based securities. UK investment company London Chelsea Limited is partnering with SolidBlock, a digital securities issuance and trading platform, to raise financing for London Digital Bond, a new fund that invests in prime residential real estate.
“We are creating a digital age financial instrument that provides the stability and upside potential of prime London residential properties, combined with the flexibility of trading on a top digital securities platform,” said Yael Tamar, co-founder of SolidBlock.
SolidBlock will begin its global fundraising on July 1, 2020, for the London Digital Bond by issuing digital security tokens (tradable assets that can be bought and sold exactly like conventional securities). The offering will be available to global investors starting from £10,000.
“Cross-border residential real-estate investment is marked by inaccessibility and inflexibility,” said Ramon Vega, head of investments at London Chelsea. “Today’s investors don’t want their money locked in, and they need more choice in terms of which properties they wish to invest in. Blockchain-based securities enable exactly that, and we believe they will have a significant impact on our industry.”
While this is SolidBlock’s first tokenized project in the UK, the company has already disrupted the U.S. real estate industry by tokenizing the St. Regis Resort in Aspen, Colorado. The prestigious hotel raised $18 million and was the first commercial property in the world financed by blockchain-based securities.
“More recently, one of the side effects of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the onset of digital transformation in a variety of traditional industries such as real estate, and London Chelsea together with SolidBlock is leading this trend in the UK,” Tamar said.
SolidBlock utilizes real estate asset tokenization – the convergence of real estate investing and blockchain technology – to transform real estate into a tradable financial product. This gives investors the opportunity to buy shares in a property and trade them on an exchange or ATS. SolidBlock is a partner company of BuiltUp Ventures, which invests in innovative proptech startups. For more information, visit www.solidblock.co.
London Chelsea is an investment consultancy based in Chelsea in the heart of London. Established in 2012, the company advises on the buying and selling of residential investment properties in London and the Home Counties. For more information, visit www.londonchelsea.com .
Also published on Medium.
Kastelein has an Honorary Ph.D. and is Chair Professor of Blockchain at China’s first blockchain University in Nanchang at the Jiangxi Ahead Institute software and Technology. He has over a half a decade experience judging and rewarding some 1000+ innovation projects as an EU expert for the European Commission’s SME Instrument programme as a startup assessor and as a startup judge for the UK government’s Innovate UK division. Kastelein has spoken (keynotes & panels) on Blockchain technology at over 50 events in 30+ cities.
