Japanese Conglomerate SBI Injects 7-Figure Sum Into Securitize

Japanese financial services conglomerate SBI Holdings has invested a seven-figure sum in Securitize, a provider of services for issuing digital securities.

The investment, announced Tuesday, comes just two months after Securitize announced it had raised a combined $14 million from Santander Bank and MUFG.

The exact amount injected by SBI wasn’t disclosed, but Carlos Domingo, Securitize’s founder and CEO, told CoinDesk that there are six 0s at the end of the figure. 

He said his company intends to use the funds in part to build out its new Japan office, which will be open by the end of the year. 

“We’re going to do business there and that involves not only finding customers in Japan, but also localizing the technology and making sure you know the language for the next similar types of integrations that you might be looking at,” he said. 

Securitize already has a subsidiary set up in the country, though Domingo expects to launch with a small crew initially.

In a statement, SBI Holdings CEO and president Yoshitaka Kitao said his company “strongly believes in the future of digital securities,” citing Securitize as one “leading player in the industry.”

The move is part of a broader shift in Domingo’s view. A few years ago, he said much of the interest around the space came primarily from those already sold on the ideas of blockchains and initial coin offerings. 

Now, it seems there is more mature interest around security token offerings and similar tools, Domingo said. 

“I think that the fact that [SBI is] putting their faith and investing in a company like us [is] signifying the move towards more adoption of security tokens,” he said.

SBI has collaborated with a number of other blockchain-related groups, including payments startup Ripple and the R3 consortium. Kitao is a member of Ripple's board of directors.