Tokenisation in Private Equity: From Pilot to Product
Why this matters
Tokenisation of PE units is shifting from experiments to production. Managers want faster transfers, cleaner investor records, and embedded controls that reduce operational risk.
What tokenisation solves
Friction in transfers with manual approvals and paper trails
Fragmented records across registrar, admin, and portals
Slow eligibility checks for investor type and jurisdiction
Weak evidence for compliance audits
Design principles
Legal before tech
Select a legal wrapper and jurisdiction that recognise digital securities and authoritative digital registers.
Programmable controls
Encode eligibility, transfer restrictions, and notice periods into the workflow. Keep rules readable and testable.
Single source of truth
Align registrar, fund admin, and custody so one record prevails. Avoid parallel books.
Audit by default
Maintain a tamper-evident trail for approvals, transfers, cap table deltas, and document versions.
Investor experience
Use positive friction at key steps like transfer initiation and final confirmation. Provide plain language warnings.
Reference architecture
Identity and access for investors and ops staff
Registry with cap table state and rule engine
Transfer workflow with checks, approvals, and settlement
Admin integration for NAV, statements, and fees
Evidence vault for logs, versions, and attestations
Rollout plan
Scope a low-risk vehicle or side pocket and define success metrics.
Legal sign-off on wrapper, terms, and disclosure language.
Dry run the end-to-end flow with dummy investors.
Go live with small transfer volumes and weekly reviews.
Scale to additional vehicles once evidence is clean.
Operational KPIs
Time from transfer request to settlement
Error rate in cap table reconciliations
Evidence retrieval time for audits
Investor satisfaction on the transfer journey
Takeaway
Treat tokenisation as an operations upgrade, not a marketing label. Build legal clarity, programmable controls, and an auditable record. The win is speed with control.