The Thai media and entertainment group T&B Media Global is looking to raise over $300 million for its new “interconnected metaverse platform”.
The fundraising, which will be through a hybrid equity-NFT (non-fungible token) fund structure, will be organised in partnership with Sygnum, a Singapore- and Switzerland-based digital asset bank, according to a statement on Tuesday.
T&B Media Global is run by members of Thailand’s Chearavanont family — Asia’s fourth wealthiest. The family owns The CP Group which runs the popular 7-11 chain of convenience stores, and is also one of the world’s largest producers of animal feed and livestock.
T&B’s new platform, named Translucia, will provide businesses with a launchpad to build experiences in the metaverse. Metaverse is often billed as the next iteration of the internet, involving immersive and interactive virtual experiences and environments where entertainment, business, socialising and other activities can happen.
Currently, the platform has onboarded its first corporate partner MQDC, a leading real estate developer in Thailand with a portfolio of over 20 residential and hospitality development projects. MQDC plans to leverage Translucia to build a metaverse within a virtual city that connects digital buildings with its property projects in real life.
“Immersive metaverse experiences require tokens and other forms of digital assets to facilitate interactions within digital worlds. This affords metaverse developers the capability to structure fundraising for their projects in exciting new ways – combining traditional financial market instruments with token generation events – and also enables investors to fully participate in the global metaverse opportunity,” said Gerald Goh, Sygnum co-founder and CEO in Singapore in the release.
Regulatory uncertainty in the sector
Several crypto startups are offering both equity and tokens to potential investors, as opposed to sole token sales, amid regulatory uncertainty in the US over what type of tokens can be defined as securities, per a report by digital asset publication The Block.
Sygnum will provide T&B Media an end-to-end finance solution, including advising and setting up of the hybrid equity-NFT structure, developing metaverse token economic models and providing institutional-grade custody for traditional securities and tokens, the firm said in the announcement.
Sygnum holds a Swiss banking licence, as well as a capital market services (CMS) licence in Singapore. It provides digital asset financial products and services including bank-grade digital asset custody and fiat rails, spot and options trading, cryptocurrency-backed fiat loans, innovative digital asset-focused asset management products, asset tokenization solutions, and B2B banking for regulated financial institutions.
In May, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) granted Sygnum the right to conduct additional activities including advising on corporate finance, dealing in capital markets products and providing custodial services.