Lift off!

I am excited to announce that Texture Capital has received FINRA membership approval. FINRA membership allows Texture Capital to commence operations as a digital securities broker-dealer and operate an Alternative Trading System (ATS). You can read the full press release here.

We are delighted to achieve this milestone, and excited to launch our business; delivering on our mission to improve the structure of private capital markets through modern technology; enabling increased efficiency, participation and improved capital allocation.

The US private capital markets are massive, with almost $2 trillion of new issuances every year[1] which is significantly more than is raised in public offerings[2]. They also serve a vital role in our economy – private companies represent 99.7% of US employer firms and create two thirds of net new jobs[3] And yet the capital markets serving these companies has not had a technological upgrade in decades. Securities are recorded in book entry form with ownership records stored in Excel spreadsheets or manually updated in siloed software tools.

Liquidity in the secondary market is severely restricted by the lack of transparency and the complex array of regulations that restrict the resale of these securities. While some trading does occur across a number of disparate private markets and specialist OTC desks, the trades are infrequent and characterized by high costs and wide spreads.

At Texture Capital we see this as a tremendous opportunity to create a market structure from scratch, leveraging the most advanced technology available. Texture Capital will utilize blockchain to facilitate the issuance of digital securities - also known as security tokens - enabling increased transparency, auditability and accountability for investors, issuers and regulators. Smart contracts can programmatically enforce compliance with securities regulations, removing frictions which could to increased liquidity in the secondary market.

As a digital securities broker-dealer, we are creating a new institutional marketplace for private capital, leading to greatly improved capital formation opportunities for issuers, and lowered hurdles for institutions to access private investment opportunities, both in the primary and secondary market.

With FINRA membership in hand and our product built, we are preparing to go to market. Our platform supports digital securities offerings, tokenization, and trading via our ATS. We are currently in discussions with a number of issuers about tokenizing and listing on our ATS and will be making further announcements in the coming weeks.

If your company is planning to raise capital in the private markets and would like to learn more about digital securities; or if you are an investor who would like to access unique investment opportunities in digital securities, please reach out to schedule a call.

[1] https://www.sec.gov/files/DERA%20white%20paper_Regulation%20D_082018.pdf 

[2] Renaissance Capital, https://www.renaissancecapital.com/IPO-Center/Stats/Proceeds

[3] https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/files/sb_econ2008.pdf