One of Cincinnati's fintechs is undergoing a rebranding.
Tokenism, which aims to increase access to real estate investing through technology, will soon be known as Akru, officials announced this week. The full rollout of the new brand is expected to take place March 25 at the upcoming Security Token Summit, where founder and CEO Mohsin Masud is slated to speak.
The company's original name was a play on its roots in the blockchain world, which allows people to digitally transfer assets, or tokens. The company's platform takes commercial real estate and breaks down properties' values into tokens that can then be purchased by potential investors, thereby creating a lower barrier to entry for real estate investing since investors are only purchasing a piece of a property rather than the full thing.
However, Masud said he came to realize the negative connotation that came with the word "tokenism," which is what led to the rebranding.
"As a first generation immigrant and being born in Pakistan, I never realized the negative connotation that the word tokenism had here in the U.S.," Masud said in an email to Cincy Inno. "I was made aware of the negative connotation the had much closer to our beta release in October of 2019 and even then I felt that the 'ism' is the word tokenism was more for the love of tokens, a blockchain reference.
"As I reached out to more and more people, and especially after our limited beta release, the feedback we received from both users and investors is what led to the name change."
The company hired Brooklyn-based Radish Labs to spearhead its rebranding, in what Masud described as a "fairly extensive project that took around two months to complete."
Currently, the company's platform serves more than 50 users, with the goal of having more than 1,000 users by the end of 2021. By midyear 2022, Masud hopes to have secured the regulatory approval to open the platform up to retail investors.
"Once we obtain the appropriate approvals from the regulators, we expect to reach 350,000 users in a short time, and we would be a step closer to making our mission to democratize commercial real estate investing a reality," he said.
Tokenism is an example of a local fintech business leaders hope to foster in the coming years through their Fintech Frontier initiative, which counts Cintrifuse, Western & Southern Financial Group and Fifth Third Bancorp among its biggest backers. The initiative's goal is to help position Cincinnati as a hub for financial technology innovation.
Tokenism also was a recent participant in the seven-week gBETA Cincy program, which came to Cincinnati after the Brandery partnered with Wisconsin-based Gener8tor.
