Switzerland’s SIX Digital Exchange (SDX), the world’s first fully regulated FMI digital asset exchange, and daura, the leading Swiss equity tokenization platform, have announced a partnership aimed at enriching the exchange’s digital issuers ecosystem. As a result, companies on daura will be able to issue digital equity securities seamlessly in SDX’s regulated Central Securities Depository (CSD).
In today’s markets, companies can and do stay private far longer than ever before. Using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and partnering with innovative fintech firms, SDX provides issuers with the tools to support their funding journey from start-up to maturity.
Since 2018, by issuing their digital shares on daura, in which SIX was a strategic early investor, fifty-five Swiss companies have tokenized their shares and raised over CHF 17 million from a community of 3,900 registered users. This new partnership with SDX will enable daura’s SMEs to issue private bankable securities in SDX’s centralized depository and access secondary liquidity, while managing their share registry and cap table via consolidated workflow.
By coordinating processes across all involved parties, SDX will offer companies enhanced investor visibility, and reduced time to market. This is made possible through the fact that records in DLT are irreversible. A key benefit in raising capital through digital shares on daura, is that it gives enterprises greater control of their cap table and related corporate activities, including organizing digital shareholders meetings and sharing confidential information in a secure environment.
“This partnership with daura, represents a milestone shift in the way our industry functions. This approach builds on the relationship strengths of an organization like daura – where the digital securities are issued – and the separate, trusted and regulated strengths of SDX as a digital market infrastructure. This is another major step in establishing and developing the future ecosystem for the issuance, custody, and transfer of securities in private markets. We plan many more such partnerships as we build out our ecosystem,” says David Hatton, Head of Product at SIX Digital Exchange.
Peter Schnürer, CEO daura: “With this partnership between SDX and daura, we are adding another building block to the Swiss Digital Asset ecosystem: with SDX’s central custodian service and daura’s digital share register, a seamless End-to-End integration of SME and start-up shares into the banking system will be possible.” According to David Newns, Head of SDX, “The expansion of our equity ecosystem aims at establishing a robust infrastructure that supports companies on their funding journey from an early stage to IPO. By combining DLT capabilities within a regulated exchange and CSD environment, SDX will provide a safe and trustworthy venue for these assets enabling institutional investors to securely invest in them.”
About daura
daura – The platform for digital participation and growth in companies.
daura is the market leader for the emission of digital participation instruments (shares, participation certificates, convertible bonds) in unlisted companies in Switzerland. daura uses blockchain technology and provides all functions via a user-friendly and legally secure platform. daura enables furthermore a seamless integration of digital assets into the existing financial market infrastructure in Switzerland (marketplaces and banks).
By using the daura platform, companies simplify their capital raising, employee participation, shareholder management (general assembly, share register) and the listing of their company shares on marketplaces. Users on the daura platform manage their shareholdings in unlisted Swiss companies easily and free of charge and gain access to new investment opportunities. daura is a joint venture of BDO, Berner Cantonalbank, SIX, Swisscom, Sygnum Bank, Luka Müller (MME) and Christian Wenger (Wenger&Vieli).
