Southern California venture firm Draper Goren Holm has invested an undisclosed amount in Akru, a real estate investing platform focused on democratizing commercial real estate.
“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,” said Alon Goren, founding partner at Draper Goren Holm.
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, the company said. Akru uses the benefits of blockchain technology to enhance security and liquidity, but is able to integrate the technology in a user-friendly way.
Akru CEO Mohsin Masud spoke about the importance of being a part of Draper Goren Holm, led by Goren and Josef Holm, who are industry experts in blockchain and fractional investments, and Tim Draper, known for picking early-stage companies like Twitter and Skype. Mohsin met Goren and Holm at the beginning of the pandemic during an event the firm produces called Blockchain & Booze. Akru launched in 2018 and was self-funded for the next two and a half years. From there, the company raised $650,000 in a friends-and-family investor round and has recently announced its series seed with a goal of raising $2.2 million.
“We’re honored to partner with Tim Draper, Alon Goren, Josef Holm and the amazing team and portfolio at Draper Goren Holm,” said Masud, “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.”
