Local angel investing group Milwaukee Venture Partners Inc. has invested in Cincinnati blockchain real estate investing platform Akru, according to a Sept. 2 release.
Akru is the second investment for Milwaukee Venture Partners, which started earlier this year as a follow-on to Silicon Pastures, another local angel group. Akru raised a total of $2 million in the round, which also included investment from Draper Goren Holm, a global blockchain venture capital studio and fund based in Santa Monica, California, and Vienna, Austria.
Formerly called Tokenism, Akru allows users to invest in fractions of commercial real estate properties for as little as $1,000. The platform is aiming to have 1,000 users by the end of the year, Wisconsin Inno's sister site Cincinnati Inno previously reported.
"Arku.co is taking an illiquid asset and making it easy to invest,” said Charles Truitt, a Milwaukee Venture Partners member who co-chaired the group's research team for the Akru investment. “The key is behind the tokens is a tangible asset."
Milwaukee Venture Partners co-founder and vice president Matthew Friedel was the other research team co-chair.
"(Akru) is an excellent demonstration of the potential of blockchain technology," said Friedel, a senior lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Friedel is teaching a new class at UWM's business school that's about entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence and blockchain, he said. He's also the co-founder of the Disruptive Technologies Lab at UWM, which focuses on research, innovation and collaboration around those topics.
Last month, Milwaukee Venture Partners closed on an investment in Madison biotechnology firm Immuto Scientific, Friedel said.
