- Software startup Inveniam runs blockchain pipes that authenticate private-market data.
- Inveniam raised a $25 million Series A in September at a valuation of $190 million.
- See the 16-page slide deck Inveniam used to raise the Series A.
For investors in publicly-traded stocks, there’s typically no shortage of company data to guide investment decisions. Company financials are easily accessible and vetted by teams of regulators, lawyers, and accountants.
But in the private markets — which encompass assets that range from real estate to private credit and private equity — that isn’t always the case. Within real estate, for example, valuations of a specific slice of property are often the product of heavily-worked Excel models and a lot of institutional knowledge, leaving them susceptible to manual error at many points along the way.
Inveniam, founded in 2017, is a software company that tokenizes the business data of private companies on the blockchain. Using a distributed ledger allows Inveniam to keep track of who is touching the data and what they are doing to it.
From foot-traffic numbers to structural engineering and hazardous material reports, Inveniam is able to maintain a record of the data’s original source, prove that it hasn’t been altered since it was created, and provide a stamp of authenticity in the process.
It’s all info that is ultimately used by Inveniam’s clients, which range from insurance companies to fund managers, pensions, banks, and real estate players.
“We’re using the blockchain not to store data but to commute trust in the data, just like a notary,” Patrick O’Meara, the CEO and chairman of Inveniam, told Insider. “We’re the distributed Edgar database,” he added, referring to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s trove of regulatory filings.
Inveniam raised a $25 million Series A in September, valuing it at $190 million post-investment. The round was led by Apex Group and saw participation from K20 Fund, Dev.Pro, and Global Blockchain Ventures.
Pricing data on the blockchain
Inveniam’s addressable market is big: Globally, private markets cover roughly $7.3 trillion in assets under management, according to a McKinsey report as of 2020.
Much of that is within private equity (including buyout activity, venture capital, and the like); the remainder, some $2.9 trillion, is split between real estate, infrastructure, and private-credit investments.
Inveniam isn’t the only market player to turn to distributed-ledge tech to offer financial data.
In October, the Member’s Exchange, a members-owned stock exchange backed by the likes of Citadel Securities and Goldman Sachs, said it would begin offering real-time pricing data on Solana’s blockchain for free. Given its role as a stock exchange, MEMX’s data centers on publicly-listed companies, not ones in the private markets.
Since launching in 2017, Inveniam has grown the volume of assets flowing through its service to around $700 million in the fourth quarter.
But capturing and authenticating data is one thing; putting that data to use is another.
Core to Inveniam’s business is a valuation service that prices private-market assets (like a real-estate investment property, for example) using the data verified on the blockchain. The valuation business, O’Meara said, is Inveniam’s way of monetizing the flow of data running through its decentralized pipes.
Doing so also means that private-market assets can be priced quicker, and more accurately, than was previously possible, he added.
In 2020, the company began pricing its first commercial real estate asset on a monthly basis through a partnership with CRE giant Cushman and Wakefield. Later that year, Inveniam onboarded private-equity businesses for valuation.
In the first quarter of this year it started its first monthly pricing of a private-equity asset via a partnership with Deloitte.