The real-world asset tokenization market has a problem. It's easy to make something compliant, but illiquid. It's easy to make something liquid, but unregulated. Pruv Finance, a Jakarta-based startup, is betting it can solve for both at once. Its tool is a purpose-built blockchain, and its first anchor asset is a padel court.
In November 2025, the company closed a $3 million pre-A round led by UOB Venture Management, a corporate venture arm of Singapore's United Overseas Bank. The syndicate included Saison Capital, Taisu Ventures, Spiral Ventures, Royal Group, and Ascent Capital [The Block, Nov 2025]. The capital is earmarked for building SeaSeed Network, a public-permissioned Layer 1 blockchain designed as a registry and settlement layer for tokenized financial instruments [seaseed.network].
The Compliance-First Wedge
Pruv's pitch is infrastructure, not a front-end. The company is selling a stack of rails to banks, fintechs, and asset managers who want to issue regulated financial products on-chain. The target assets are structured products, credit instruments, and yield-generating real-world assets [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief].
The technical differentiation rests on a public-permissioned architecture. This model, which requires validator approval for network participation, is engineered to meet know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) standards from the ground up [admin.d3labs.io].
From Padel Courts to Government Bonds
The company's go-to-market strategy involves a specific, tangible starting point: sports infrastructure. Pruv has partnered with Manta Network to tokenize padel ball courts across Indonesia, using the asset as a proof-of-concept for its infrastructure [blockchain.news].
The stated ambition is to support billions in tokenized government bonds, credit portfolios, and sovereign-backed yield products, beginning in Indonesia with plans for global scaling [seaseed.network]. The backing of UOB Venture Management provides a strategic nod toward institutional credibility.
The Founder's Path and the Investor Bet
Co-founder and CEO Chung Ying Lai is based in Indonesia and emerged from building digital asset infrastructure during the early growth of Southeast Asia's crypto markets [dailyhodl.com]. Lai is also a Partner at Saison Capital, one of the round's participants [LinkedIn, retrieved 2026].
| Investor | Type | Notable Focus |
|---|---|---|
| UOB Venture Management | Corporate VC (UOB Bank) | Financial services, Southeast Asia |
| Saison Capital | Venture Capital | Fintech, emerging markets |
| Taisu Ventures | Venture Capital | Blockchain, Web3 infrastructure |
| Spiral Ventures | Venture Capital | Southeast Asia tech |
| Royal Group | Conglomerate | Cambodian industrial & media |
| Ascent Capital | Venture Capital | India & Southeast Asia |
Where the Wheels Could Come Off
The risks for Pruv are the fundamental challenges of the entire RWA category, magnified by a focus on regulated instruments:
- Regulatory arbitrage: Harmonizing a cross-border distribution framework is a multi-year, political endeavor.
- Liquidity paradox: The permissioning designed to ensure compliance could limit the pool of validators.
- Institutional adoption: Convincing a sovereign debt office or a major bank to use a nascent blockchain is an enterprise sales cycle of a different magnitude.
The Next Twelve Months
The $3 million pre-A round is a validation of the thesis. The milestones to watch are concrete: the first live tokenization of the padel court assets, the announcement of a licensed financial institution as a node validator on SeaSeed, and the closing of a Series A round to fund a push into sovereign and corporate debt instruments.