Investment Giant KKR Puts Portion of Private Equity Fund on Avalanche Blockchain

U.S. investment firm KKR & Co. (KKR) has made its Health Care Strategic Growth Fund available on the Avalanche blockchain.

KKR, which had $471 billion in assets under management at the end of 2021, is working with digital-asset management platform Securitize Capital, which will handle the onboarding of new investors, according to a press release.

Individuals will be able to invest in KKR's health-care fund through a tokenized feeder fund on the Avalanche blockchain provided by Securitize. "What we're going to be providing to investors are digital asset securities or security tokens that represent an economic interest [in] a feeder fund of the the main KKR healthcare fund," Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize, told CoinDesk TV. "It's a way for individual investors to get access into a high quality private equity fund - from a very reputable firm, like KKR - that otherwise is not available [to them]," he said.

Traditional finance companies are still entering the crypto industry this year despite a market downturn that has seen the price of BTC$113,139.63 slump by more than 50%. Wall Street clearinghouse Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. launched a private blockchain last month, and venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz doubled down on its crypto stance by establishing a fourth crypto fund worth $4.5 billion in May.

Read more: BlackRock to Offer Crypto for Institutional Investors Through Coinbase Prime

KKR said it hopes that the tokenized health-care fund will provide a more accessible investment vehicle to individual investors.

“With its ability to digitize operational inefficiencies and increase ease of use for individual investors, blockchain technology has the potential to play an important role in the future of private markets,” Dan Parant, managing director and co-head of U.S. private wealth at KKR, said in the statement.

This isn't the only way to invest in the closed-end health-care fund as it was originally catered towards institutional investors. However, its the only way retail investors can invest in the fund as the requirement for institutional investors to buy in is in the millions, while the minimum threshold for individual investing through the feeder fund is $100,000, Domingo told CDTV.

The feeder fund is sold through its own broker dealer called Securitized Markets, Domingo said. Investors will need to setup an account with Securitize and go through KYC, AML accreditation to invest in the fund, he added.

“This new fund is an important step toward democratizing access to private equity investments by delivering more efficient access to institutional-quality products," Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo said in the statement.

UPDATE (September 13, 16:21 UTC): Adds comments from CoinDesk TV interview with the co-founder and CEO of Securitize.