Christian Platzer, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Black Manta Capital – Interview Series

As a senior HR professional, managing director, and as a consultant, Christian has broad experience from startups to a global enterprise (Groupon). He managed complex international teams in high growth environment, operating in 30+ countries. He lived and worked in Berlin, Zurich, Sydney, and Vienna. Christian is passionate about startups, talent management, people operations, and organisational design.

Outside work, Christian likes to eat well, travel often, and dive hard. He is based in Malta.

How did you first personally come across cryptocurrencies?

I kind of stumbled quite late into crypto: in 2017 during a consultancy project, and finally out of curiosity. For my Co-Founder Alexander Rapatz and me, creating Black Manta Capital Partners was and is more about the adoption of blockchain capabilities in the wide realm of securities, “real world assets”, rather than widening the field of crypto currency adoption. That said, being able to invest both in fiat and crypto currencies on the Black Manta Investment Platform is at the core of our value proposition.

What inspired you to launch Black Manta Capital Partners?

Our very first business idea circled around tokenized funds. We have a broad and deep experience in venture funds and private equity in our team. Yet, when we analyzed the market closely the question remained: who is going to run all those STOs we’d like to invest in? Setting up a single STO as a company is a complex and lengthy endeavour; you have to bring a lot of services together for one offering. In the end, you still have to face the financial regulator for the whole package. This is not easy. Hence, we came up with Tokenization as a Service® on a Multi-STO-Platform.

The token issuer space in Europe is becoming crowded with token issuers such as Fintelum & Neufund. How will Black Manta differentiate themselves?

Crowded? I beg to differ. There are indeed many FinTech players in the space, that provide tokenization engines. Then some players went for niche jurisdictions like Liechtenstein or into a London sandbox. But licensed Financial Services Institutions in major financial markets like Germany, we do not see too many. In that regard, we are very pleased and encouraged that we were able to convince the German Financial Regulator, BaFin, to grant their permission to us.

What types of products can be tokenized on your platform?

This is another way how the Black Manta Investment Platform will differentiate from what we see on the market so far: step by step, STO by STO, we will develop a broad portfolio from real estate to startups and small and medium sized enterprises, from commodities to tokenized funds. We want to give investors, both retail and professional ones, the options to diversify their STO investments on one platform. At the same time all our issuers will benefit from an existing and growing pool of registered investors.

Why should startups or small businesses choose to tokenize versus more traditional fund-raising methods such as venture capital?

For us, we do not see it as an either-or, nor is a Security Token Offering the magic bullet of fundraising. If you are planning a seed round, you might be well served with a venture fund or business angel, its connections and expertise. If you are a grown-up startup that is looking at a series B or C round or an established SMB, that has a track record in the market, you might be much better served with a STO. In the end, it boils down to the fact that as the issuer of a Security Token, you are highly flexible in structuring your capital and you gain access to a highly international financial market.

You recently partnered with Tokeny to launch a ‘Multi-STO Platform’. Could you share with us some details regarding this partnership and what it means for potential clients?

We see Tokeny Solutions as the European leader in the field and for sure one of the top global players. Their platform has a proven track record, is stable, and has met regulatory requirements. In our partnership, we both focus on what we do best: Tokeny the FinTech on Blockchain part, Black Manta Capital the part as a licenced Financial Services Institution. For the client, we’d like to think you get the best of both parts. And apart from that, we simply enjoy working with these guys in Luxembourg.

For potential clients who may be interested in your services. Are there minimum capital or other financial requirements?

In general, we see a minimum capital target of EUR 5 million. In some cases, we will run a smaller first round, but these will usually prepare the market for a bigger round two.

Do clients pay up front or are fees collected from the revenue that is generated?

Our services for structuring and placing the offer require a retainer for the financial and technical setup and a success fee on capital raised. Both parts of the fee are tailored to the complexity of the project, the type of asset to be tokenized, and the estimated sales and distribution effort for the placement itself.

Are there any current projects in the pipeline?

The Black Manta Investment Platform will start in the first quarter of 2020 with two real estate projects in Germany. After those, we are looking at a long list of offerings and different kinds of tokenized assets, but for them it is still too early to make announcements. It is important to know that within the European Union’s freedom of services and the so-called MiFID-II directive, we are able to execute STOs all over Europe, based on our German license.

Is there anything else that you would like to share about Black Manta Capital Partners?

Finally, one question I get a lot is: why Black Manta? And the simple answer is: I am a passionate diver and Manta Rays are not only the fish with the biggest brain power, they are simply majestic and it is mind-blowing to meet them in the deep blue.

To learn more visit Black Manta Capital or our Black Manta Capital Business Listing page.