Why did you start Smartlands?

Initially, we built Smartlands on top of Stellar blockchain because it ensured better speed of transactions and fees were close to zero, compared to other popular platforms.

To have a shot with institutional investors, we had to make sure that our security token offerings were compliant. So we developed a regulated segment on the Stellar network mainnet and gained the status of an Appointed Representative registered with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Tell us more about the company?

Smartlands is a London-based global digital security investment platform. We’re one of the pioneers in the field of regulated asset tokenisation. We were the first to tokenise a property in the UK – a purpose-built student accommodation in Nottingham valued at over £12 million.

Converting shares of real economy assets into digital securities makes them highly divisible, allowing investors to buy fractions of properties – say one square meter in a multi-million building. Blockchain removes bureaucratic complications which traditionally accompany any investment deal, together with multiple intermediaries such as banks, attorneys, brokers and other intermediaries making fees sky-rocket. Altogether, this approach dramatically reduces the buy-in threshold and potentially unlocks billions of retail capital to infuse the market.

Crowdfunding on blockchain brings numerous benefits to asset owners as well: the fact that potential investors can now avoid complicated structures and can invest with cryptocurrencies erases geographical borders opening access to an international pool of investors and ultimately bringing liquidity to the asset.