Cushman & Wakefield Goes Blockchain
C&W will use technology to trade private market assets with real-time data monitoring.
Fintech company Inveniam Capital Partners, which in its press release describes itself as “providing proprietary data solutions to digitize and automate the private wealth middle office,” announced that it would provide technology to Cushman & Wakefield to “advance the global trade of private market assets with real-time data monitoring.”
Inveniam says it has a “data operating system” that allows technology to work with big data, do analytics, but without a data lake or database – without a single place where all the data must reside, which is the typical approach used, says the company’s website. Instead, the data “sits on the edge.” Edge computing refers to distributed computing that brings processing to the data sources, rather than requiring the data to be brought to the computing.
The company says this allows for the timely delivery of data on such “data-rich, low-frequency trading assets” such as real estate, private equity or infrastructure, which historically have not seen frequent valuations. The data can help with valuation and risk management on a quarterly, monthly and weekly basis. Inveniam says that they will eventually be able to conduct daily valuations.
“Cushman & Wakefield will use the proprietary computer operating system Inveniam.io which is based on patented blockchain technology,” the press release said. “This will transform the way asset data is authenticated, extracted, structured and delivered for clients – delivering better data faster.”
Relatively fast updating should make trading such assets easier and also allow near-real-time price discovery that is currently nearly impossible to achieve. The lack of ongoing price discovery has been one of the mechanisms that has slowed current CRE transaction levels and made it difficult for buyers, sellers, developers and lenders to understand the current state of the market. This has resulted in more conservative practices as the only practical way to manage risk when there is not enough available data.
“The value that the Inveniam platform brings to our valuation and advisory business is just the beginning,” said Sal Companieh, C&W’s Chief Digital & Information Officer, in prepared remarks. “Our continued V&A Digital Transformation will provide many other opportunities to benefit our customers across multiple businesses that rely in different ways on reliable data.”
