Investre and 21X are teaming up so natively tokenised investment funds can finally be listed and traded on a regulated European exchange.
The Luxembourg fintech and the Frankfurt-based exchange operator announced a partnership on September 9 to connect native fund issuance with regulated secondary-market trading — a move that comes just weeks after Investre closed a €2.4 million round to accelerate its tokenisation push.
We caught up with Georges Bock, Founder and CEO of Investre, to dig into what onboarding actually looks like, who’s in the pipeline, and how far Investre’s multi-venue ambitions really go.
“We are ready to move into implementation with fund managers today.”
Georges Bock, Founder and CEO of Investre
What does onboarding look like for a fund manager to get listed and tradable on 21X — and how soon could the first fund go live?
The underlying infrastructure is operational today. The process starts with the fund product itself: we work with the promoter either on the launch of a new digitally native fund or on a digital-native share class within an existing fund, using the Control Agent framework where applicable.
From there, the fund needs to go through the applicable product documentation and regulatory process in Luxembourg and the admission process with 21X. 21X already has an established framework for issuer onboarding, due diligence and secondary-market listing under the EU DLT Pilot Regime.
So this is no longer a technology-development question; it is a product-implementation question. How quickly the first fund can go live will therefore depend primarily on the promoter’s readiness, the fund structure and documentation, the required regulatory steps and the admission process with 21X.
We are ready to move into implementation with fund managers today.
Do you already have fund managers lined up for this Luxembourg-Frankfurt setup, or is this groundwork for now?
We have a number of commercial prospects in our pipeline for native fund issuance, including discussions around new funds and digital-native share classes of existing strategies.
One recurring issue in those discussions has been a classic chicken-and-egg situation: asset managers want to understand where a digitally native fund can ultimately be distributed and traded before committing to issuance, while trading venues need a pipeline of natively issued assets before building out those markets.
The partnership with 21X helps remove that obstacle. It gives promoters a defined regulated route from native issuance in Luxembourg to potential secondary-market admission and trading in Frankfurt.
It is too early to disclose individual managers or funds, but for several of the prospects we are discussing today, access to regulated secondary markets is an important part of the rationale for moving towards native issuance.
“Native issuance should not lock an asset into one platform. It should make it easier for that asset to access multiple regulated markets and new forms of distribution.”
Georges Bock, Founder and CEO of Investre
Is 21X the “regulated tokenised trading venue” partnership you mentioned to us in July, or should we expect more announcements like this?
21X is the one we referred to in July. But our strategy and vision for the fund distribution of the future is deliberately not based on a single marketplace. We are in discussions with other regulated venues and market infrastructures, so you can expect further connectivity and partnership announcements.
That is important because we do not believe the future of tokenised funds will be one blockchain or one closed marketplace. We expect a network of regulated venues and distribution channels connected through a wallet-centric capital market infrastructure.
21X is particularly relevant because it operates a regulated DLT Trading and Settlement System under the EU DLT Pilot Regime and already provides infrastructure for the listing, multilateral trading and atomic settlement of eligible tokenised financial instruments.
Our objective is therefore broader than this individual partnership. We want eligible Luxembourg fund products — from highly liquid UCITS and money-market strategies to private-market funds — to be able to reach the regulated venues, wallets and distribution channels that fit their investor base. Investre wants to feed those marketplaces with a large range of tokenised financial products, and Investre is ready to provide investors with regulated MiFID-compliant wallets to connect and invest seamlessly across all these marketplaces.
The strategic principle is simple: native issuance should not lock an asset into one platform. It should make it easier for that asset to access multiple regulated markets and new forms of distribution. In the same way, investors should not be locked into one platform, but should be able to connect to a wide range of platforms to invest in all kinds of opportunities.
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