In conversation with Nicolas Picard

Read time: 2 Minutes

Nicolas Picard, Head of Product at AstroFinance, spoke on our Club Stage about “Finding Product-Market Fit in Tokenization”. He then stayed on to answer some more questions.

The US is currently the main market for tokenized assets and how people perceive that type of investment. How do you see this developing in Europe, whether culturally or in terms of education and understanding of real-world tokenized assets?

Nicolas Picard: I think the US is a natural fit for tokenization in many ways. Americans are used to crowdfunding platforms and investing in startups through them. They also tend to have a higher risk tolerance compared to investors in other countries. So, it makes sense that the US is leading the market.

For Europe, I think regulators are moving quite fast. As soon as one regulator, for example in Switzerland, which is more advanced, makes progress, other countries like Germany will pay attention and follow. There will be a kind of coordination between regulators across European countries.

Another factor that will drive adoption is integration with traditional financial institutions. Offering tokenized investments through existing investment portals or brokers will be a major driver.

Moving to aerospace specifically, one of the most well-known use cases is real estate tokenization. We also hear about assets like racehorses or art. Why aerospace? How did that idea come about?

Picard: The idea came from our founder, who spent time at Airbus and saw the difficulties in financing these types of assets. There is a general financing gap, whether it’s helping customers buy expensive assets or expanding a commercial portfolio.

At the same time, we come from entrepreneurial backgrounds, so we thought about helping innovative drone startups access more financing and expand. As we spoke to more people and developed early concepts, we realized that early-stage startups are not the best fit for tokenization. Tokenization relies on trust, and that usually requires companies with existing revenue-generating assets and some level of financial stability.

So, we worked through finding the right type of client and asset. Aerospace remains very interesting because there is a real financing need. Banks are often unwilling to step in, and venture funds can be too complex and require too much equity.

From the investor side, how do you explain the liquidity and overall value of a tokenized asset, especially in aerospace, where many people may not have domain knowledge? How do you explain that this is a viable investment?

Picard: What you’re buying is a share of the revenue generated by the asset. For example, the asset could be a drone performing infrastructure missions. You can show data on how much it earns every quarter.

Depending on how many tokens you buy, you receive a proportional share of that revenue, distributed to your wallet every few months. The tokens represent participation in the economic performance of that asset.

You also explain the investment horizon, how the exit might happen, whether through acquisition or decommissioning with a buyback structure, and outline the risks.