European Startup To Enable Access To Commercial Real Estate For Small Investors

A European company Blocksquare.io is developing a Blockchain-based plug and play system to enable commercial real estate tokenization that will allow anybody with an internet connection to buy fractional ownership of assets worldwide.

Diverse investing platforms can integrate with Blocksquare's system and offer tokenized assets for commercial real estate ventures.

Tech startups making impact on real estateIn 2016, the global real estate market was estimated to be worth $217 trln, of which about 25 percent, or $54 trln, was commercial, according to UK research firm Savills.

While VC remains the dominant funding source, funding from non-VC investors - including real estate investment trusts, real estate services companies and investors, private equity firms, and high net worth individuals - grew at a compound annual growth rate of 65.7 percent, according to a study by Deloitte.

It is betting on breaking the dominance of institutional investors in commercial real estate, and opening it to many others including small individual investors.

"Historically, real estate has been an attractive investment option only accessible to institutional shareholders, but tokenized real estate is set to change that so the financial barrier to entry becomes almost non-existent," Denis Petrovcic, Blocksquare's cofounder and CEO, said in a press release.

Just like PayPal created a simple payment option for online stores, Blocksquare offers established real estate businesses a solution to market their local commercial real estate deals to a global network of online users.

The protocol links so-called PropToken smart contracts to an underlying real estate property, bringing, notably, the technology's security and other features.

While its protocol can be used in any type of real estate, Blocksquare expects its first clients to come from short-term rental providers on platforms like Airbnb.

The first real estate that will be tokenized by Blocksquare is a multi-unit house, which offers several accommodation units to students in Ljubljana, Slovenia.