Valereum PLC (AQSE:VLRM) CEO Gary Cottle spoke with Proactive about the surge in tokenization of real-world assets, early revenue traction at Valereum Markets.
Cottle also highlighted the company’s plans to expand into a full-service digital infrastructure provider.
Proactive: Gary, good to speak with you again. Valereum Markets has been live for just four months and already generating revenue. What does this early traction tell you about the market demand for regulated tokenization?
Gary Cottle: Hi, Stephen. Thanks for having me on. I think anyone that went to Token 2049 last week in Singapore — and judging by the activity we’re seeing as one of the players — would agree that tokenization is very much coming into the foreground. The market’s hot and activity is very high. So, as we expected, it’s really starting to take off now, and it’s going quickly.
Proactive: You’ve reported $135,000 in revenue for September, and expect at least $750,000 by the first quarter of next year. How confident are you that these early projects will scale into sustainable, long-term income streams?
Gary Cottle: If anything, we’ve been incredibly conservative with the numbers. Across our group companies — Valereum Markets and Valereum — we have a pipeline probably north of $100 million. We probably have 15 or 20 deals in Valereum Markets. DigiShares, which focuses on real estate, has 12 to 15 active deals. There's a big focus in the Middle East. Bluebird is working on a $10 billion-plus trade and is very active.
All of these companies are forecasting a doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling of revenues over the next year or two. As minority investors, we're pleased to support them, including with growth capital. Speaking with others at Token 2049, it’s clear this is a market trend. We've seen 15 to 20 deals in the natural resources space just in the past couple of weeks. There's a lot of activity around tokenizing real-world assets.
Proactive: You mentioned the pipeline includes projects across real estate, sports infrastructure, and structured products. Which sectors are showing the strongest momentum, and where do you see the biggest near-term opportunities?
Gary Cottle: The crypto space is huge. Our crypto advisory business, which we started six or seven months ago, is active in five or six trades. Tokenizing natural resources — like gold mines — is incredibly active. There’s growing interest in asset-backed stablecoins, whether linked to oil, gold, or other resources. For example, we’re watching what Tether is doing with BTC and gold.
There are also large moves in crypto payments. Anecdotally, one company we're looking to partner with has signed 70 institutional clients for crypto payments and on-ramping in the last six months. That’s a huge number from zero. As we’ve discussed before, we always knew we had to cross the Rubicon in terms of delivering revenues. I think we’ve done that.
The soft launch of Valereum Markets was to prove value and concept. We’ve already exceeded the initial $1 million goal. Now we’re setting budgets for next year across our portfolio.
Proactive: How do you see Valereum evolving over the next 12 months? What milestones should the market be watching?
Gary Cottle: I think there will be transformational change. We’ve had three or four recent approaches regarding a digital services ecosystem. Valereum will likely shift to institutional ownership — there’s a lot of roll-up activity happening, and we’ll be part of that. It’s a shift from tightly held, professional investors to institutional ones.
As we discussed last time, we’re building partnerships — like with ZigChain — and have three or four more in progress. If we close those, we won’t be at the epicentre, but we’ll be firmly in the ecosystem. We have businesses on the structuring and issuance side, and we’re working on the buy-side now.
With Fideum covering on-ramping and crypto payments, we’re moving toward becoming a full-service digital infrastructure company through fast, organic evolution.
Proactive: Well, Gary, I hope you'll continue to keep us posted on your progress. Thank you very much for the update today.