Rayo Withanage Family Invest in FinTech for Cultural and Environmental Assets

The Withanage family office, led by Rahula Withanage, is investing $40 million into new FinTech platforms focused on the tokenisation of real world assets. The first platforms will focus on unlocking the intrinsic value of cultural and environmental assets, enabling a means for long term conservation. The announcement comes in advance of a $500 million investment vehicle, led by the Withanage family office, into new platforms which are due to be announced in 2025.

Tokenisation has vastly increased the possibilities for ownership and investment beyond traditional models. The ability to tokenise real world assets enables easier entry into the market for owners, increased liquidity, fractional ownership, and greater transparency. Real world assets with the potential to harness the immense benefits of tokenisation include real estate, art, intellectual property, and commodities. The new Withanage-led platforms hope to capitalise on these advantages to unlock powerful stores of value held in illiquid real world assets, and to secure the preservation of cultural and environmental assets.

The Withanage-backed FinTech platforms will be able to draw from the family office’s considerable experience in finance. The Withanage family office is the group behind the founding of BMB Group in the early 2000s, and Scepter Partners in 2014. Both became highly successful investment platforms, trusted by sovereign investors across the Middle East and Asia. The BMB Group became one of the leading asset management vehicles to unify some of the largest family offices from the Middle East & Asia, across diversified holdings. Scepter Partners is a principal investment firm and capital syndicate of sovereign investors, headquartered in Bermuda. The family office is led by Rahula Withanage, an accomplished financier with over 20 years of experience leading a multi-family office. Rahula Withanage led the acquisition of EMP Global, which was one of the leading players in emerging markets private equity. The Withanage family office is currently focused on impact media and technology businesses, starting with artificial intelligence, gamification, and tokenisation.

Rahula Withanage’s son, Rayo Withanage, is a well-known entrepreneur and financier. He recently began a sabbatical from finance, and is currently working solely in the non-profit sector, as Program Coordinator for the Withanage Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Withanage family office. Trained as an M&A lawyer in New Zealand, Rayo Withanage was the co-founder of the BMB Group and Scepter Partners, and in 2017, he purchased the famed Château de Vie estate, Pablo Picasso’s final home in the South of France. Château de Vie is one of the most important art production estates in the world, where Picasso produced artworks worth over $4 billion. The house has an iconic history in the arts and culture, hosting notable 20th century greats such as Winston Churchill, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Henri Matisse, Man Ray, Salvador Dali, Charlie Chaplin, Édith Piaf and the Rolling Stones. The estate has since been transferred to a new investment consortium.