Finland’s Mash Group Launches Security Token Offering as Part of €50M Equity Round

Finish fintech firm Mash Group, which focuses on consumer lending and pay later services, announced on Wednesday that it started pre-registration for its Security Token Offering (STO). In order to make sure the STO event goes smoothly, the company has partnered with global law firm DLA Piper, Trust and tokenization platform provider Tokeny, to allow accredited and institutional investors to take part in the current equity round by using both fiat money and cryptocurrencies. Professional services firm Deloitte was chosen to support Mash with the AML and KYC procedures.

The STO is part of Mash’s equity round that aims to raise 50 million euro. The whitelisting will start in December of this year. During the STO event, investors will buy Mash security tokens, which will be backed by the company’s stock and will have voting rights and dividend rights built-in.

Security tokens are built on blockchain networks the same way as utility tokens, though they are fundamentally different as they’re backed by real-world assets, like company shares, commodities or bonds among others.

Mash CEO James Hickson explained:

“Security Tokens by definition are securities. As such, they are subject to securities regulation and oversight. We are working closely with our partners to ensure we are fully compliant with security laws and regulations on a platform that can manage the process of issuance and management through the lifecycle of the asset. The STO is only open to professional investors, with each token having the same voting and dividend rights as one ordinary share of Mash.”

Mash was founded about a decade ago and has offices in Finland – its homeland, Sweden, Spain, Poland, and Luxembourg. It provides consumer credit and pay-later solutions for retail users.

Hickson said that the company is open to innovation and it found great potential in blockchain, the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies, utility tokens, and security tokens.

Judging by Mash’s list of new partnerships, we may guess the company will use Tokeny’s platform and solutions to conduct the STO. In June of this year, Tokeny CEO Luc Falempin admitted in an interview with Cryptovest that the ICO space was dealing with an increased number of scams. On the other side, the STO market brings hope that there is no place for scammy businesses.