Through our Consultancy engagements EC recognised an opportunity for asset managers to extend their traditional business of managing high-valued assets by fractionalising “shares” in those assets.
Bitz is a modular SaaS platform that can power this fractionalized model which is branded, controlled and governed by the asset manager, thus creating their own universe of deals and investors. Investors can buy and trade their shares on an exchange within each licensed version.
EC were approached by sector specialists in property, art and cargo shipping who each wanted to increase their pool of investors and access to liquidity by lowering the entry price of their investments, offering them as fractionalised shares. For reasons of lack of busget, bandwidth and knowledge these early engagements validated our approach to develop a licensed product to fuel this burgeoning business model.
Embarking on a series of workshops and employing user-led design EC ideated, architected and developed the Bitz mobile application and web-based back office.
To promote speed to market at a cost effective price, Bitz is a modular platform consisting of:
Listing Module: List and view assets, KYC and onboard investors, monitor transactions, intuitive dashboards for investors and licensees.
Exchange Module: A matching engine to facilitate buy and sell trades between investors on the platform
Blockchain Module: A custom module for licensees that want to use blockchain as a powerful ledger to record transaction history and KYC events. Bitz logic allows EC to integrate with virtually any blockchain of choice.
In addition, each licensee has the opportunity to monetise the various events on the platform in line with their industry standards or desires:
- A listing fee for any new deal posted
- Admin or management fees for storing and maintaining the asset
- A commission on sale of the underlying asset
- A clip on any trades on the secondary platform, buy side, sell side or both.
Our future for Bitz is to provide a regulated, master exchange akin to the London Stock Exchange but for illiquid, real world assets. This environment would allow premium asset managers to list all or part of their funds to a broad range for investors who can trade in and out of a variety of assets safely and in the knowledge that their value is maintained and managed by respected professionals.
