Securitize CEO on Onramp Acquisition, Future of Asset Tokenization

Asset to organization firm. Securitize is buying digital asset wealth platform on ramp invest to grow its offering to registered investment advisors. This is of course known as R I is joining us now is Securitized Ceo Carlos Domingo. Welcome Carlos. Hi, good morning and thanks for having me on the show again. It's a pleasure. How much uh did you purchase on Ram West for? And what are the terms of the transaction, getting the terms of the transaction? So you already know that that part, but I, I have to say we're very excited about the, the acquisition. We, we had partnered with them since early this year. So we actually got to know the company uh quite well. And then, you know, looking at you guys know how the market it is is. It's tough for companies to, to raise money and some smaller companies like on, they decided that they're better off being part of a bigger organizational entity where, where they can thrive and, and have uh you know, proper funding without having to go out to, to the outside market. Um So we, you know, had the opportunity of uh bringing a new house and uh we thought it was a very good idea as, you know, the Ira channel is very important. It's huge, it's $100 trillion of wealth being managed there that is very poorly served by anything related to digital assets or digital asset securities. So we thought it was a very good opportunity. You know, the, the funny thing is that uh we've had, uh we were just talking about SPF uh and he kind of let down the entire industry and perhaps the world and then led to a trust deficit for the entire industry because of him. And you know, uh and in that context, I just want to ask the question again, you don't have to share how much you purchased on Ram four, but perhaps give us the tidbits of the crumbs of some terms of the transaction at least. Well, so the the transaction uh hasn't closed yet. By the way, we signed the, the purchase agreement, we're expecting to close it. Uh This week uh on comes with uh uh 13 employees. They currently have connected in their platform. Uh A number of Ira s that collectively manage around uh $40 billion. So it's a big, big opportunity because $40 billion is a very, very, very small percentage of the Ira channel, which as I mentioned is uh estimated to be around $100 trillion in in the US and keeps growing around 10 12% per, per year. So I think that uh expanding on on the basis of what they built. Uh And the tech platform is a, is a massive opportunity for us. What does expansion look like for you from here? Any more acquisitions on the horizon? We always look for acquisitions. I think that when markets are depressed us now and then VC funding has dry up and there is a lot of companies that raise money in 2021 when valuations were obviously much higher. And as you've seen public markets, valuations have dramatically uh declined as interest rate have been going up. And the, the same corrections haven't happened in private market, but I think they are coming as people are running out of money. So I think that uh inorganic growth is something that we always keep an eye on. It's not our first one. So we acquire a company in Japan already. We acquire uh our broker dealer, we acquire a transfer agent, this is our fifth acquisition. So it's something that we always look at uh as a way to inorganically growth to take advantage of the momentum in the industry. Let's talk about real world assets. You know, you're talking about the kind of depression in the markets, the consolidation. Do you feel like firms that are focused on these real world assets haven't been hit as hard by what's been happening in, in the industry and outside? Like um if we were to consider inflation, for example, I think so. So look, um the, I think crypto goes, uh you know, back and forth between different narratives. The organization was something that six years ago when we started in the space and, and subsequently started the company, it was supposed to be a big thing and it, it has been growing fairly slowly uh compared to the more unregulated side of crypto. But I think that last year, you know, debacles in, in many companies, you guys just talk about FTX and SBF. But that was not the only one. I mean, you have Celsius Block Five, Voyager, like there's so many companies that, um, you know, went out of business and I think people in crypto have realized that now it's time to, to go back at looking at doing productive things with Blockchain and taking real assets and make them more productive because they are natively digitized on chain. And that's what we've been, uh, you know, trying to do for the last few years. And I think there is also, you know, a, a different market situation where companies like us have basically over the years, uh, acquire the necessary licenses to operate in a world that is obviously regulated, uh, from the get go because real assets for the most part are, you know, securities and therefore they are regulated. So I think that this is the time that we're gonna see, uh, growth in the industry and we've already seen it. And, uh, as you said, you know, maybe the market has impacted less but the reputational impact is there as well, right? Like a lot of people see all this fraud happening in crypto, sometimes they don't distinguish between some parts of the market and some other parts of the market. But hopefully we'll pass this and, uh, and growth is ahead of us. I was curious to ask you about that actually, because, you know, we've, we've seen how it's, it's kind of difficult for, for perhaps niche uh companies uh in, in this space to decouple themselves from the credibility crisis it faces right now. And what you're doing is token securities and that to, you know, in other parts of the world also. So like, how does, how does that play out? Uh because there is the US market and the global market that is headwinds against something unique that you are trying to do. How do you, how do you manage it? How do you keep, keep doing it? So, first and foremost, we're very committed to the US market. We understand it's a tough market because the regulatory environment is uh stricter and tougher and more complex if you want. But at the end of the day, the US is the largest world economy. But if you look at the, what they represent in terms of capital market is actually 40% of all capital market. So, so, you know, in the us, I'm going to smaller geographies only to try to operate from there. I don't think that this is a long term viable solution for anybody in the space that said we are also looking at other large uh jurisdictions like Europe. Uh Europe has recently passed very comprehensive regulation for both digital assets and digital asset securities. We obviously play on the, on the second uh part of the space. So we are applying for the DFT pilot regime. And recently we announced that in Europe, we have done the first, you know, child organization test on a public Blockchain on avalanche um as part of this uh you know, sandbox environment where we are that we are hoping to emerge with a full license to operate at the end of this year. All right, Carlos, we are going to have to leave it there. Thanks so much for joining the show this morning. Thanks for having me again. That was securitized, Ceo Carlos Domingo.