Securitize Buys Its Way Into Lending as Revenue Rises and Losses Pile Up
In its first quarter as a public company, Miami-based Securitize grew revenue 13%, booked a $66.3 million loss mostly tied to its listing, authorized a $50 million buyback and agreed to buy asset-back
MIAMI — Securitize, the Miami company that turns funds and stocks into blockchain tokens for firms like BlackRock and KKR, wants to do more than issue those tokens. It now wants to lend against assets too.
On Monday, the company reported its first quarterly results as a public company. It also announced a deal to acquire River One, a young New York lender, and its board approved a $50 million share buyback. The stock rose after hours, though it remains well below where it traded in September.
The quarter in numbers
Securitize (NYSE: SECZ) reported third-quarter revenue of $18.6 million, up 13% from a year earlier and 29% from the second quarter, according to its earnings release. Tokenization revenue rose 28% to about $11.5 million. Asset servicing revenue, which comes largely from its fund administration arm, slipped 6% to about $7.2 million.
The bottom line looked worse. Securitize posted a net loss of $66.3 million, or 41 cents per diluted share, compared with net income of about $4.1 million a year earlier. The company said about $60 million of the loss, roughly 90%, came from largely non-cash expenses and accounting charges tied to its business combination and NYSE listing, plus warrant-related costs. The income statement shows a $23.2 million charge from a change in the fair value of earnout liabilities and a $20.6 million loss on settling convertible instruments.
Operating costs still jumped. Total operating costs and expenses rose 183% to $42.2 million. Selling, general and administrative expense more than tripled, and compensation and benefits rose to $16.5 million from $4.4 million, with share-based compensation making up $13.4 million of the total.
Securitize reported an adjusted EBITDA loss of $2.0 million, compared with positive adjusted EBITDA of $3.6 million a year earlier. That was still a 64% improvement from the second quarter, Chief Financial Officer Francisco Flores said in the release.
CEO Carlos Domingo told CNBC that the company had reinforced “certain areas of the company like finance, compliance, legal [and] cybersecurity,” raising corporate costs “compared to a year ago when we were privately held.”
The platform metrics
Securitize said average tokenized assets on its platform hit a company record of $5.0 billion in the quarter, up 39%. Total tokenized assets stood at $4.8 billion on Sept. 30, up 9% from a year earlier. Aggregate transaction volume rose 20% to $4.3 billion.
Domingo said in the release that the growth “came from tier one asset managers bringing real products onchain including new ones from ARK Invest, BlackRock and Neuberger.” During the quarter, BlackRock launched a tokenized money market fund designed for stablecoin reserve management, ARK tokenized its ARK Venture Fund, and Neuberger launched a tokenized high-income fund.
Not everything grew. Assets under administration at Securitize Fund Services fell 29% to $25.2 billion, and the number of active funds it serviced was roughly flat at 669.
River One and the move into credit
The bigger strategic news was River One. Under a definitive agreement, Securitize will acquire River Credit Labs Inc., which does business as River One. It is a New York company founded in 2025 that provides warehouse financing backed by pools of income-generating assets such as small business loans and receivables. Warehouse lines give lenders capital to fund loans as they make them.
River One was incubated by Framework Ventures and is also backed by Maple Finance. Its plan is to fund those credit lines with stablecoin capital. The Block reported that the stablecoin money sits on the back end, while borrowers draw and repay in ordinary dollars.
“Credit is one of the most exciting emerging asset classes for blockchain-based financial markets, and acquiring River One represents an important step in expanding our business into this space,” Domingo said in the announcement. Braham Mehta, River One’s co-founder and CEO, said the infrastructure behind asset-backed financing “has significant room for innovation.”
Securitize pointed to KKR estimates that the global private asset-backed finance market could grow from $6 trillion to $9.2 trillion by 2029. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The company expects it to close in the fourth quarter, subject to customary conditions. Its own filing lists risks including “the early-stage nature of River One’s business and technology.”
Cash, buyback and the stock
Securitize listed on the NYSE in July after merging with Cantor Equity Partners II. It ended September with about $299 million in cash and cash equivalents and no debt. On Nov. 6, its board authorized up to $50 million in share repurchases through Dec. 31, 2027, paid for with cash on hand.
CoinDesk reported that the shares rose about 10% in after-hours trading Monday but were still roughly 50% below their late-September level. The Block put Monday’s close at $6.97 and the after-hours price at $7.82.
Why it matters for Miami
Securitize is one of the few Miami-based fintech companies trading on a major U.S. exchange, and its clients include some of the largest asset managers in the world. Moving into warehouse lending would take it from back-office infrastructure for Wall Street funds toward the kind of credit that eventually reaches small businesses and specialty lenders.
The next two quarters should show whether that pays off. Investors will be watching whether the River One deal closes on schedule, whether adjusted EBITDA keeps improving, and how quickly the listing-related charges fade from the income statement.