Add patents to the list of assets once believed to be too illiquid to trade now getting the digital treatment.
Templum Markets, an issuance and trading platform for digital securities, and IPwe, a patent transaction platform, announced a partnership on Wednesday to create digital securities for patents and patent portfolios. The idea is to help companies looking to finance their patented intellectual property while giving investors exposure to assets that have historically been off-limits to them.
“They are largely untapped or locked away on that balance sheet without the pathway to continue to accelerate it. So we can take an untapped asset like that and bring it a level of visibility,” Vince Molinari, CEO of Templum Markets, told Business Insider in an interview. “I think you are really creating what becomes a new pathway as an investable asset.”
Digital assets, also known as digital securities, smart securities, or security token offerings, offer partial ownership of assets previously considered too illiquid to trade such as buildings, art portfolios or soccer teams. They differ from initial coin offerings, which rose in popularity in 2017 before drawing a wave of subpoenas, in that they have stricter regulatory oversight and are tied to actual assets.
With the fall of the ICO market, digital securities drew increased attention in 2018. However, the market is in a nascent stage, with only a handful of launches last year. One of those was the St. Regis resort in Aspen, Colorado which raised $18 million through an issuance that Templum Markets helped facilitate.
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