East Ventures and EMTEK Inject Funding Startup NFT Developer Real Estate Project

Faction, startup fintech based in Hong Kong and Bangkok, announced the raising of $3 million (nearly 43 billion IDR) in a pre-series A round led by East Ventures. Also joined by EMTEK Group, Thakral Limited, V Ventures, and other regional investors.

This fundraising is in line with the receipt of the Thailand ICO Portal License (subject to activation approval) from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand (SEC). Also previously announced plans to offer partial ownership (fractional ownership) of some of Thailand's iconic real estate assets in the first quarter of 2022 via the platform end-to-end fractional ownership powered by NFT and blockchain.

In the initial round that was held earlier, Fraction has been supported by several well-known names, both from the technology and traditional finance industries, including SINGHA Ventures, John Wylie's Tanarra Capital, and Skystar Capital Indonesia.

Fraction was founded by Eka Nirapathpongporn ex-Director and Partner of Lazard, a global financial advisory and asset management firm based in New York. And Shaun Sales, a seasoned entrepreneur in technology. Fraction opens access to wealth creation for everyone by enabling partial and digital asset transactions to be owned or traded, starting with world-famous iconic real estate projects.

By platform plug-and-play Fraction-owned, individuals and companies can now invest, sell, and manage partial ownership of everything from small stakes in city condominiums, beachfront inns, or works of art to managing personal funds, assets and investors.

“Removing barriers and providing equal access to opportunities to achieve wealth for all has become a pressing global issue. We are pleased to be a pioneer in implementing NFT and a decentralized Ethereum digital solution to partially manage ownership of multiple assets,” said Nirapathpongporn in an official statement, Monday (17/1).

He continued, “From now on, we can enable financial inclusion that allows small investors to participate in exciting asset classes that were not accessible before. The growth opportunities for Fraction are enormous, with the real estate tokenization market estimated to be worth US$80 trillion and we are delighted to be at the forefront of this new wave of convergence of finance and blockchain technology.”

Co-founder & Managing Partner of East Ventures Willson Cuaca expressed his joy at being part of the Faction's vision to create access to investment capital that is currently only reserved for a select few.

“But we are getting excited about the huge growth opportunities of this platform; making digitization and partial ownership of real-world assets an easy day-to-day activity. Real estate is the first asset class and we look forward to supporting Fraction as it evolves into multiple asset classes and jurisdictions,” said Willson.

Product Fraction

With the ICO license obtained from the Thai authorities, the company can link assets offline like real estate to non-fungible token (NFT), digitize them, and offer a small portion of them to interested parties. “We share ownership of this NFT, and this ownership token is offered to investors. Therefore, it is an asset-backed ownership token,” Co-founder and CEO Eka Nirapathpongporn was quoted as saying in Tech in Asia.

Fraction prints an NFT that has a "real world legal link" to a property. These tokens will consist of different exchangeable tokens, or fractions, with each representing a portion of the property. Then, the tokens are listed via IFO with a fractional ownership equivalent to a partial ownership of the actual real estate asset. Fractions can be traded between investors.

“Now you can […] legally own part of this villa – maybe 1% of it – instead of having to pay US$5 million to buy the whole thing,” he added.

In its journey, Fraction has developed an integrated platform in the world which includes, i) Digitalization and integrated fractional ownership of assets, ii) Initial fraction offering to investors (Initial Fraction Offering/IFO). Then, iii) Fraction token trading platform on the secondary market among investors, iv) All services to accommodate the experience end-to-end.