Draper Goren Holm, a venture studio focused on accelerating and incubating blockchain and crypto startups, has announced the firm’s newest portfolio company: AKRU.
The Los Angeles-based venture firm led by Tim Draper, Alon Goren, and Josef Holm, has invested an undisclosed amount in the real estate investing platform with goals to make the democratization of commercial real estate a nearby reality.
“We’re so excited to welcome them into our family as Mohsin and his team have a proven track record of understanding the sector on an intimate level, making them well-positioned to become the industry leader in real estate tokenization.”
– Alon Goren, Founding Partner at Draper Goren Holm
ARKU
Headquartered out of Cincinnati OH, AKRU provides an opportunity for users to invest in premium commercial real estate with as little as $1,000.
In tandem, it allows asset owners access to a broad pool of investors, and wealth managers to further diversify their investment portfolios.
By offering fractionalized investments, the platform is working towards tackling and transforming long-held real estate issues like illiquidity of assets, bureaucratic hurdles, expensive middlemen, and lack of available data and transparency.
“We’re honored to partner with Tim Draper, Alon Goren, Josef Holm, and the amazing team and portfolio at Draper Goren Holm. We are excited about bringing our vision of a more liquid and accessible market to life with strong partners who believe in what we want to do.”
– Mohsin Masud, CEO of AKRU
The ARKU team believes that tokenizing real estate provides unprecedented opportunities and convenience for an array of real estate stakeholders.
Masud also believes in the strength of his product, so much that the company launched in 2018 and was self-funded for the next two and a half years. From there, the company raised $650,000 in a friend and family investor round and has recently announced its series seed with a goal of raising $2.2 million.
Having first-hand knowledge of the issues within real estate from his career, Masud sought out an international team of experienced leaders and developers to build out the perfect solution, AKRU.
Masud also emphasizes the significance of blockchain as an immutable ledger of records that has the potential to make the real estate financial ecosystem more efficient and secure.
AKRU uses the benefits of blockchain technology to enhance security and liquidity but is able to integrate the technology in a user-friendly way.