Fortunafi, a real-world asset (RWA) tokenization platform, announced raising $9.51 million in strategic and seed funding rounds and also unveiled its new stablecoin protocol called Reservoir.

Investors in the funding rounds included Shima Capital, Manifold, Jordan Fish (aka Cobie), Ari Litan of LayerZero Labs, Austin Green of Llama, Evanss6 and Scott Lewis, Fortunafi said Wednesday.

The latest strategic funding round, worth $3.16 million, closed last December, and the seed round, worth $6.35 million, closed in October 2021, but both rounds are officially being announced today, Fortunafi founder and CEO Nick Garcia told The Block.

Both rounds were structured as equity with token warrants, and the latest round brought Fortunafi's valuation to $48.165 million, Garcia said.

What is Fortunafi?

Fortunafi was founded in 2020 and initially operated as one of the first issuers on the tokenization platform Centrifuge. Through partnerships with MakerDAO, Aave and others, Fortunafi said it tokenized over $15 million in private debt and institutional loans.

Last December, it developed its own proprietary tokenization platform called Tokenized Asset Protocol (TAP) as part of its move away from Centrifuge, Garcia said. TAP is a cross-chain tokenization platform where users can mint real-world assets natively on several Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks.

TAP currently only offers tokenized U.S. Treasury Bills, but "very soon" it will launch five new tokenized assets — Coinbase stock, Robinhood stock, Bitcoin ETFs, an equity index (a blend of SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust and Invesco QQQ Trust) and Hilbert Capital Fund — Garcia said.

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Fortunafi plans to also launch a real-world asset index token in partnership with Index Coop soon.

TAP is currently live on Canto, Blast and Arbitrum networks with plans to support more blockchains such as Base and Berachain, Garcia said. The platform currently has a total value locked of $7 million, but Garcia expects the TVL to grow with the launch of the five new tokenized products.

Fortunafi's new stablecoin protocol: Reservoir

Fortunafi today also introduced Reservoir, its new stablecoin protocol. Garcia said that Reservoir is expected to launch in June and is a separate entity from Fortunafi.

As a stablecoin protocol, Reservoir will offer users various yield-bearing products backed by digital and real-world assets. "Reservoir exists to offer highly attractive yields such that users reap the benefits of DeFi across various decentralized protocols where only a wallet and an internet connection are needed," Garcia said.

Reservoir is being built on Ethereum ETH -2.083% "with native integration across all chains." Once launched, Reservoir's native stablecoin rUSD can be used across DeFi platforms. rUSD will be "backed by a balance sheet of both digital and real-world assets," Garcia noted.

There are currently 10 people working for Fortunafi, with a few people moving to support Reservoir, Garcia said, adding that he plans to keep the team lean in the near future.

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