Former Credit Suisse Banker to launch Blockchain investment firm

6 years ago - Published in Finance, Fintech Land, Technical Analysis

The former digital chief of Credit Suisse is launching a blockchain-based investment platform that lets people share ownership of "experiential" assets such as artwork or a classic car, and is seeking to raise funding for the startup via an initial coin offering (ICO).

Marco Abele, who left the investment bank this summer, is offering investments in assets usually limited to high-net worth individuals through a new platform called Tend. Well-known fintech industry insider Oliver Bussman, a former chief information officer at UBS and the investment bank's "blockchain guru" is a strategic advisor.

"People are looking for more real investments that reflect passions or interests," he told CIty A.M.. It means a small group of investors would own a piece of art or vineyard together from which they would get a return, but they would also get to use the asset, getting to stay at the vineyard, for example.

Cryptocurrencies are big business in Switzerland, and have drawn international regulatory scrutiny including from Swiss, U.S, and Singapore regulators. 
A pilot of the platform has already been created and it's aiming to have 100 customers by next spring to begin a test phase. By August next year Abele hopes to have 400 users. "We will start slow to have high quality integrations and learn and iterate from there," he said.

And the project, so far self-funded "to series A level" Abele said, will be funded by an initial coin offering (ICO) or token sale through which it is seeking to raise SFr30m (£22.5m). It will be a separate token to the one underpinning tansaction on the Tend platform.

Abele said he had gone the route of an ICO rather than venture capital funding as it gave more people access to investing in innovative startups. "They're [VCs] looking for a high exit, not a long-term business. They have an agenda."

And, he hopes to "set new standards" for token sales, having structured the offering around the laws of a bond issuance. “TEND’s forward-looking philosophy is reflected in our funding strategy,” Abele continued about his own sale.

«Token-generating events are, we are convinced, the future of financing innovative new ventures like ours,» Abele said in a statement. He hopes to raise 30 million Swiss francs by selling tokens, to be structured much like a bond under Swiss law, the former banker told «City A.M.» and «Financial News».