The inevitable rise of DeepTech as a new asset class

Turning DeepTech into a new asset class would unlock trillions in capital, resulting in massive economic opportunities and a positive impact on humanity

Anastasia Lit, Director of Investor Relations and Business Development - Europe and MENA, Deep Knowledge Group.

The consensus approaches to investment and financing haven’t evolved for decades if not longer. This doesn’t only make successful investment in DeepTech difficult and risky, it also limits the levels of funding DeepTech companies require in order to innovate.

Today, there is a sizable gap between DeepTech innovation and sophisticated financial infrastructure available to support investments in DeepTech. Compared to other industries, investment approaches to DeepTech are outdated. Those approaches were originally developed and adopted for simple, slow-moving industries. Therefore, they require legacy system modernisation.

DeepTech must become a recognised asset class on its own, available for all types of investors regardless of their exposure preferences in terms of risk and liquidity. DeepTech will inevitably be commoditised beyond product and service availability to everyday consumers, but also financially commoditised and available for the average investor, both individual and institutional.

Turning DeepTech into a new asset class would unlock trillions in capital, resulting in massive economic opportunities and a positive impact on humanity.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, developed economies witnessed the commoditisation of raw materials that were previously bought and sold privately, including precious metals, gold, and oil. Entire standardised markets and exchanges were set up to facilitate the trading of commodities, such as the Chigaco Board of Trade in 1848. This led to many secondary financial products and instruments such as derivatives, futures and indices, which diversified the ways investors hold and trade these commodities, and the types of investment positions they were able to take on them.

In the following decades, this level of financial innovation turned such commodities into distinct asset classes, enabling wider investor access to those asset classes. Today, these commodities became core pillars of the global economy – take the gold standard to the monetary system of countries globally for instance. Many of these traditional industries continue to be very well commoditised, being the target and focus of many specialised trading platforms such as the London Metal Exchange.

Read more: The inevitable rise of DeepTech as a new asset class, Arabian Business