ByCoinGape
MANTRA MEF Fund:- The Web3 landscape has witnessed a notable rise in real-world assets moving on-chain and the coming up of startups focused on bringing innovation in RWA tokenization.
According to Tracxn’s report, as of January 2025, there are 412 asset tokenization startups, with 179 receiving funding and 41 securing Series A or higher rounds.
In a further step supporting the growing landscape of RWA startups, MANTRA, the RWA-focused layer-1 blockchain, has launched MANTRA Ecosystem Fund (MEF) of over $108 million to support the developing RWA Projects.
The launch, coming only a month after it received VASP License in Dubai, will deploy the funding assets in innovative RWA projects over the next four years.
Notably, MEF will implement the funding with the help of its vast partner network which includes Laser Digital, Shorooq, Brevan Howard Digital, Valor Capital, Three Point Capital, Amber Group, among other big names. This would ensure that the project applicants seeking investment can be from any part of the world.
Investor interest in RWA startups has intensified significantly. In 2024, investments in RWA-related startups grew by 150%, with $2 billion allocated to asset tokenization projects. Certain notable funding rounds include Maple Finance raising $50 million to expand its tokenized debt offerings and Tokeny securing $25 million to digitize corporate bonds.
And now with this new fund, RWA projects are set to receive further boost.
As per the Press Release shared with CoinGape, the MEF will support the best projects that are innovating with RWA tokenization, and even those that are chain agnostic.
Notably, it will support not only early stage projects but projects at all the stages. It will evaluate the projects on the basis of introductory pitches. Post-selection, the selected teams will have discussions with the MANTRA investment team and its capital partners.
“MEF will operate an open-arms policy, welcoming projects at any developmental stage globally with a particular focus on RWA’s and DeFi”, told John Patrick Mullin, MANTRA CEO.
With no limit on the number of projects to be chosen, the fund would seek projects who are focused on DApps and infrastructure in the RWA or Defi Universe.
It has listed the kind of projects in which the fund would seek to invest. This includes domains such as Trading and Exchange, Lending and Borrowing, Asset Management and Derivatives and Synthetics.
The MANTRA Fund launch comes at a time when the major financial institutions are also increasingly engaging with RWA tokenization amid growing market uncertainity over Trump tariffs.
Last week only, Fidelity filed to SEC seeking the registration of a tokenized version of its money market fund.
BlackRock, in another instance, launched a dedicated RWA tokenization fund in late 2024, signaling strong institutional commitment to this trend. Its USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) has received an increase of 3% in the past three weeks, i.e., from $615 million to $1.87 billion.
Additionally, tokenized money market funds have attracted over $1 billion in assets under management, with offerings from both traditional firms like BlackRock and Web3-native entities such as Ondo Finance.
The market for RWA tokenization is also poised for substantial expansion. Estimates suggest that the total market value of tokenized assets could significantly exceed $10 trillion by 2030. Real estate is projected to become the largest segment, accounting for nearly one-third of the overall market by 2030.
Thus, MANTRA’s MEF Fund can prove to be a boost for the RWA innovation and market by providing the capital support to the needed founders and builders.
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