Ownera: The Blockchain for Ownership

We have seen multiple industries transformed as they moved from analog to digital, the next in line is the securities marketplace. Trillions of dollars worth of private securities are still traded by signing contracts, a long and costly process. Digital securities have the ability to transform this market place and increase availability, distribution, and liquidity of assets by bringing the transaction to near-zero and instant settlement. However, this innovation have not yet been adopted by the institutional investment ecosystem.

Enter Ownera. 

Ownera is an institutional-grade blockchain network for digital securities where all nodes are regulated financial entities such as banks, asset managers and exchanges. The nodes on the platform also act as underwriters to verify and stake their reputation on the assets that launch on the network. The network then enable instant, regulation-compliant trade, globally, 24X7, at low costs for both asset launch and per transaction.

What is the market potential? 

Ownera is actively positioned inside a financial hotbed, building the rails for eventually digitizing a $70 trillion-dollar global equity market, $217 trillion real estate market, a $544 trillion-dollar derivatives market, and $215 trillion-dollar worth of global debt. 

What are major tenants of the Ownera platform?  

On Ownera, every investor can see all the relevant assets for them, see all the information related to each asset, and which underwriter verified it – so they can transact with safety and trust while meeting institutional fiduciary duties.

Regulated entities as nodes: All nodes on Ownera will be regulated financial entities, with a solid business model for bringing quality assets to the platform and distributing them to their client base. 

Verification by Underwriters: Ownera nodes function as both validators of the digital transaction (on-chain) and validators of the information provided by the asset issuers (in the real-world).

Know-Your-Asset (KYA): The information about each asset is packaged in a format called KYA, which is a set of legally-binding documents detailing the rights of token holders in the asset, and which are kept immutably on the network with the token

Distribution: Once the financial information is verified on a secured, immutable ledger, Ownera will serve as the distribution platform that promulgates the assets into global, financial markets. Given the underwriters’ role at the center of the institutional investor ecosystem, they can distribute assets at scale.

Technology: Ownera is based on institutional-grade HyperLedger Fabric, which was upgraded by Ownera from a private to a public infrastructure. For application developers Ownera offers an API that deals with all the building blocks of securities such as identity, atomic swaps, regulation and so on, so app builder can focus on the use case for various asset classes.

Who are the founders? 

Ami Ben-David: Ami co-founded several companies in the enterprise and mobile space, engaging with mobile apps, casual games, AI, search engines and messaging. In 2017 Ami was one of the inventors of the security tokens industry when he co-founded SPiCE VC, the world’s first fully tokenized fund. Ami was also a co-founder of tokenization platform Securitize, and later an investor in several startups in the security token ecosystem including exchanges, stablecoins, and platforms. Ami founded Ownera to bring digital securities to the institutional investment space.

Josef Holm: Josef is a serial entrepreneur and investor with 20+ years of startup and digital marketing experience. Born in Austria, Josef worked and lived in Vienna, Sydney, Berlin, Zurich, and Panama before immigrating to the US in 2012. Josef was named a “Top 100 FinTech Influencer” and frequently speaks at public events such as SXSW, V2V, Social Media Week LA, Fundit USA, and Metropole. Josef also founded Security Token Summit (SecurityTokenSummit.com), which in its first year, sold out of major sponsorship slots and nearly filled the attendance to capacity. Additionally, Josef is a founding partner at Draper Goren Holm. 

Alon Goren: Alon is an investor and host that has been involved in over $200 Million in online investment transactions while developing technology for well-known foundations such as Coca-Cola, American Express, ATB Financial, and Global Philanthropy Group. Alon worked for tech giants such as Amazon, IMDb, and MySpace where he managed customer experience, product development, and support.  As a thought leader on social enterprise, venture capital, and crowdfunding, Alon has spoken at SXSW V2V, and Kingonomics. His work has been featured in prominent publications including Forbes, WSJ, Washington Post, TechCrunch, and VentureBeat.  Alon also founded CIS (Cis.la), which has become the biggest conference and expo in crowdfunding, as well as Security Token Summit, and most recently, Draper Goren Holm with Josef Holm. 

Yuval Carmel: Yuval has spent most of the past two decades working at some of the leading software solution providers such as Hewlett-Packard, Capriza, and Mercury Interactive. His roles have included spending 8 years at the senior and executive-level, as well as leading software and R and D teams. While at Capriza, he designed business impact systems for clients such as Mastercard International, Volvo Financial Services, and Titan Machinery. At HP, Yuval built and managed a team on a platform group HP Project and Portfolio Management Center. 

Diego Besprosvan: Diego Co-Founded MailVision, Inc. in 1997 where he served as its Chief Technology Officer until 2012. Mr. Besprosvan has extensive experience in the development and engineering of communications products and Internet technology. After MailVision, Diego 5 years at TangoMe where he served in roles such as the Vice President of Technology, Senior Architect, and Director of Engineering. Prior to founding MailVision, he was the Chief Technology Officer of BOS, and R&D Manager for ZNAX Communications. Mr. Besprosvan earned his BSC in Computer Engineering from the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology).