Source: Fortune
Summary
Fission, a New York-based startup, raised $10 million in Series A funding to solve liquidity issues in tokenized private funds. The company allows investors to sell their digital fund shares instantly, bypassing long wait times. Founded in 2024 by Jonathan Shaffer, Steve Bendit, and Chris Humphrey, Fission works with institutional investors and wealthy individuals. Pantera Capital led the round, with other investors including Circle Ventures and Borderless Capital. The startup aims to address a gap in the tokenization market, where selling shares remains difficult despite digital issuance. Shaffer said the process can settle in under 90 seconds, compared to 200 days normally.
Our Reading
The numbers tell one story.
Fission raised $10 million to solve a liquidity problem.
Investors still wait months to sell tokenized shares.
BlackRock and JPMorgan are expanding tokenization.
But no one is fixing the exit.
Author: Evan Null
The missing exit
Tokenization has gained traction on Wall Street as asset managers put fund shares and investment products on digital ledgers. BlackRock expanded its lineup in August with two tokenized money market products, while JPMorgan’s asset management arm has also stepped up its efforts, launching its second tokenized money market fund for U.S. investors in May.
This recent push also extends to brokerage distribution: Pittsburgh-based investment manager Federated Hermes announced a partnership with Prometheum this month to offer tokenized funds through brokerages, with the first product expected in early 2027.
But liquidity issues remain. In June, InvestaX, a platform for digital investments, said investors in tokenized private-credit products mostly put money in or withdrew it through the funds, instead of selling their holdings to other buyers. An earlier report by the International Organization of Securities Commissions, a global group of financial regulators, found that firms had made more progress creating digital tokens than establishing markets where investors could sell them to one another.
“Where tokenization is today has really been focused around the bridging layer and the issuance layer… but what Fission is focused on—the post-tokenization problem—almost nobody is focused on,” Franklin Bi, general partner at Pantera Capital, told Fortune.
Fission’s founders encountered the problem firsthand. As an investor at Point72, the hedge fund of billionaire Steve Cohen, Shaffer watched Wall Street turn private fund shares into digital tokens without shortening investors’ waits to cash out. As he dug into the mechanics, he connected with Bendit, then head of business development at Securitize, a company that puts financial assets on blockchains. After more than two years discussing why fund liquidity remained elusive, they teamed up with Humphrey to launch Fission and build a faster exit for investors.
Fission’s market
Today, the startup has eight employees, with team members on Long Island and in Los Angeles. Most of its customers are institutional investors or organizations that hold assets on blockchains, Shaffer said. They include U.S. and overseas hedge funds with tokenized private-credit or equity holdings, crypto organizations managing their treasuries, and stablecoin issuers that keep reserves in tokenized investments that earn interest. A smaller but growing group of wealthy individuals also uses the platform to cash out personal holdings.
The Series A follows a $1.6 million pre-seed round led by SALT Fund and Kraynos Capital. Existing investors New Form, gumi Cryptos Capital, Anthony Scaramucci, Manhattan Venture Partners, Reflexive Capital, and Lattice Capital also continued their backing.
Investors in tokenized private-credit products mostly put money in or withdrew it through the funds, instead of selling their holdings to other buyers.
BlackRock and JPMorgan are expanding tokenization.
But no one is fixing the exit.
The liquidity gap
The International Organization of Securities Commissions found that firms had made more progress creating digital tokens than establishing markets where investors could sell them to one another.
InvestaX said investors in tokenized private-credit products mostly put money in or withdrew it through the funds, instead of selling their holdings to other buyers.
Fission’s founders encountered the problem firsthand. As an investor at Point72, the hedge fund of billionaire Steve Cohen, Shaffer watched Wall Street turn private fund shares into digital tokens without shortening investors’ waits to cash out.
Shaffer connected with Bendit, then head of business development at Securitize, a company that puts financial assets on blockchains.
After more than two years discussing why fund liquidity remained elusive, they teamed up with Humphrey to launch Fission and build a faster exit for investors.
The future of tokenization
Federated Hermes announced a partnership with Prometheum to offer tokenized funds through brokerages, with the first product expected in early 2027.
BlackRock expanded its lineup in August with two tokenized money market products.
JPMorgan’s asset management arm launched its second tokenized money market fund for U.S. investors in May.
Investors still wait months to sell tokenized shares.
Fission is building a faster exit.
Investor behavior
Investors in tokenized private-credit products mostly put money in or withdrew it through the funds, instead of selling their holdings to other buyers.
InvestaX said this trend highlights the lack of secondary markets.
Franklin Bi of Pantera Capital said Fission is addressing a post-tokenization problem that few are focused on.
Fission’s platform allows investors to sell their tokenized shares instantly.
The startup has eight employees and serves institutional investors and wealthy individuals.
