Pontoro, the financial technology company creating the first institutional-grade digital asset securitization and liquidity platform to address the $15 trillion shortfall1 in infrastructure debt finance by enabling broader investor participation, today announced a $6 million preferred seed funding round led by Ulu Ventures, with participation from Franklin Templeton, Neva Sgr. the venture group of Banca Intesa Sanpaolo, Illuminate Financial, Adit Ventures, Fin Venture Capital, Viking Maccabee Ventures, Bloccelerate Ventures, Nevcaut Ventures, Quest Venture Partners, and others.
The funding round will be used to accelerate and scale Pontoro’s digital asset platform, which will curate infrastructure project loans from banks into a tokenized and securitized digital asset pool. This will enable a wider spectrum of institutional investors to gain access to an increasingly diverse portfolio of hard-to-access assets with the ability for secondary liquidity and enhanced price discovery. Based on Ethereum and interacting with other chains, Pontoro’s blockchain-based platform has the potential to significantly reduce transaction times and settlement risk, improve cost efficiencies, and provide opportunities to tap into emerging digital liquidity pools.
“Our platform is designed to help solve challenges for increasing private capital in infrastructure financing, which stems from participants’ constraints in supporting greater lending capacity even as investors have a strong demand for the asset class,” said Antonio Vitti, Co-founder and CEO of Pontoro. “We are building the digitally enabled bridge for the future of infrastructure financing, and the validation from a range of top investors will enable us to address this opportunity and expand the necessary strategic partnerships to become the leading conduit between an expanded range of institutional investors and originating banks.”
In addition, the company will continue to attract top talent and advance its discussions with leading global banks and institutional investors involved in the adoption and use of the platform’s capabilities.
“Financial institutions and investors are increasingly interested in the power of digital technologies, but they want a partner with a strong track record in private market assets and the deep regulatory expertise to build compliant platforms,” said Paul Atkins, regulatory advisor to Pontoro. “I am thrilled to support a team of experts who bring vast experience in the institutional finance and infrastructure sectors, as well as the sophisticated technical ability, to deliver an effective innovation.”
Pontoro continues to strengthen its senior leadership team, which has a combined global $100 billion infrastructure finance track record, and includes Co-founder & Chief Investment Officer Bob Dewing, former Managing Director, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Infrastructure Debt Strategy, Head of Product Isaac Eleftheriadis, former Senior Technical Product Manager, BitGo; advisors Ben Chan, former Chief Technology Officer, BitGo, Paul Naumann, former Managing Director, GE Energy Financial Services, Martin Reese, former CFO, InterGen, Annemarie Tierney, former VP Head of Strategy and New Markets, NASDAQ Private Markets, and Paul Atkins, former SEC Commissioner. among other recognized leaders across the infrastructure finance, regulatory, technology, and blockchain sectors.
The investment round endorses Pontoro’s mission to enhance institutional investor access to real assets and help banks free up capital for new project finance loans.
“Infrastructure financing uniquely benefits the whole of society, and we are thrilled to invest in the Pontoro platform to help broaden participation in this asset class,” said Miriam Rivera, CEO and Managing Director of Ulu Ventures. “Pontoro has the promise to significantly enhance capital flows from existing financial institutions by creating a more inclusive investor base for infrastructure assets.”
“The ability to allow diverse pools of assets to be curated and accessed securely by a far greater spectrum of accredited investors confirms Pontoro enormous potential to become a leading company in innovative financing solutions for infrastructure reform,” said Mario Costantini, CEO of Neva Sgr.
“At Illuminate, we firmly believe that digital assets are the future of financial markets infrastructure,” said Luca Zorzino, Investment Director, Asia, at Illuminate Financial. “The team at Pontoro blends this vision for the future with a deep understanding of the market that is required to make changes from within. We are delighted to participate in this funding round and look forward to connecting the business to our extensive TradFi & DeFi network.”
To learn more about Pontoro and the future of infrastructure financing, please visit the company’s website.
About Pontoro
Pontoro is the digital asset connectivity platform to provide institutional investor access, price discovery, and asset liquidity for real assets to unlock global infrastructure finance. Through Pontoro, the digital asset world can influence the physical infrastructure world as we help synchronize bank underwriting with investor demand. By enabling greater participation by institutional investors in large bank underwritten infrastructure loan assets, Pontoro creates opportunities for greater capital flows that in turn can stimulate infrastructure development.
Learn more: www.pontoro.com
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211208005133/en/