KKR dives into the Avalanche blockchain to tokenize and “democratize” financial services

As institutions continue to dip their toes into the world of digital assets, KKR & Co. is the latest to enter the space by tokenizing part of one of its private equity funds — a step that may provide institutional private market strategies to more individual investors.

“We strongly believe in blockchain technology and the role it will play in shaping future private markets,” Dan Parant, managing director and co-head of US private banking at KKR, told TechCrunch.

KKR is one of the largest investment management companies in the United States, with $491 billion of assets under management as of June 30.

The fund, KKR’s Health Care Strategic Growth Fund II (HCSG II), which provides exposure to the investment firm’s healthcare growth equity investment strategy, will be tokenized on the Avalanche layer-1 blockchain by digital asset securities firm Securitize.

This fund was a four-year process in the making, according to Parant and Carlos Domingo, the founder and CEO of Securitize.

“I met Dan in 2018,” Domingo told TechCrunch. “Using blockchain and tokenization as a way to democratize financial services has been part of our mission since the beginning, even before Avalanche existed. We shared this vision.

But in 2018, there was no way that would happen, Domingo said. “Over the past four years, we have collectively built the infrastructure to get to the point where KKR could take a step forward to achieve this.”