On the morning of May 23, ADDX, a Singapore-based trading platform for digital assets, announced that it had raised $58 million in a Pre-Series B fundraising round led by SET Venture Holding, a subsidiary of the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), UOB, Hamilton Lane (NASDAQ: HLNE), and Krungsri Finnovate, the corporate venture capital arm of Krungsri (Bank of Ayudhya PCL).
The platform is owned by Singapore Exchange and Heliconia Capital, a subsidiary of the national wealth fund Temasek. However, the value of the company after the funding-round is not disclosed. It is stated that the raised funds will be used by the company to fractionalize investments in privately owned shares, hedge funds, bonds, and other asset classes. Through tokenization, ADDX can minimise the minimum investment quantities for such private ventures.
Oi-Yee Choo, CEO of ADDX, remarked in an interview:
“ADDX is on a mission to democratise the private markets.The new shareholders aren’t just capital partners, but strategic partners too. They have much to contribute in the form of expertise, ideas, market experience, and business networks, and ADDX looks forward to adding value to their businesses in return.”
According to ADDX, the platform dramatically reduces the minimum investment requirement in private markets from $1 million to $10,000. Furthermore, as part of the transaction, SET gains the right to choose an ADDX board member. Furthermore, it wants to devote some of the new financing to other strategic objectives, such as growing collaborations with issuers and assisting with the launch of ADDX Advantage, a private market service for wealth managers.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has awarded ADDX licences for the issue, custody, and secondary trading of digital securities. To date, it has raised approximately $120 million, the majority of which came in the form of a $50 million Series A investment in January 2021.
