By Riley Kaminer
What’s the point of crypto, anyways?!”
Is there any question that a diamond-handed crypto stan gets asked any more frequently than that? And for a good reason: Too often, the crypto world can feel too intangible, too gimmicky.
Increasingly through, web3 pioneers are working to bring the digital and physical worlds together on-chain through what’s called RWA: the Real World Assets sector. That refers to the tokenization of tangible assets that exist in the physical world, and it represents “one of the largest market opportunities in the blockchain industry,” according to Chainlink – with a potential market size in the hundreds of trillions of dollars.
Miami startup Fortunafi is right in the middle of the excitement when it comes to RWA. The company works with crypto institutions, L1 and L2 protocols, DAOs, and more to enable the tokenization of RWAs on-chain – creating DeFi-structured yield products, alternative lending, and all-in-one liquidity solutions.
To further expand its RWA product offering and launch a stablecoin protocol, Fortunafi has raised $9.5 million through two rounds: a strategic round and a seed round. Participants include Shima Capital, Manifold, and the Miami-based Claure Group.
“We’re beyond excited to close out this strategic funding round and pursue new and existing opportunities,” founder and CEO Nick Garcia said in a statement. “Here at Fortunafi, we believe the biggest opportunities that exist today in the broader cryptoasset industry fall within the RWA and stablecoin sectors. We have a distinct vision of what both sectors will look like in the years ahead and we’re ready to execute on our mission.”
Set to launch in June, the new stablecoin protocol, Reservoir, will operate independently from Fortunafi and will provide users with various yield-bearing products backed by digital and real-world assets. The stablecoin market is set to increase from $170 billion to $3 trillion over the next five years, according to institutional broker AllianceBernstein. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency that is typically pegged to the U.S. dollar.
Garcia told The Block that Reservoir is being built on Ethereum “with native integration across all chains.” Once launched, Reservoir’s native stablecoin rUSD can be used across DeFi platforms. rUSD will be “backed by a balance sheet of both digital and real-world assets,” Garcia noted.
Founded in 2020, Fortunafi initially operated as one of the first issuers on the tokenization platform Centrifuge. In December, Fortunafi launched its own tokenization platform, which currently only offers tokenized U.S. Treasury Bills (with five new tokenized assets coming soon).
The Fortunafi team is currently 10-people strong. Founder Garcia started his career in traditional finance, working at Wells Fargo, Zenefits and Shippo before moving into the crypto space – first as an investor.
At this moment, Miami’s web3 crypto scene may not have the same hype we saw in the last crypto boom – but there is clearly still activity in the space. To give a few recent examples: Félix Pago, a remittance platform that is run off a stablecoin, just raised $15.5M; web3 logistics platform HEALE is pioneering the DePIN space; and Superlogic raised $7.6 million last month to build the future of loyalty points on-chain.
READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:
- It’s $15.5M for Félix Pago: Fundraise to enable product development and expansion
- The real and virtual worlds collide through web3 logistics platform HEALE
- Superlogic lands $7.6M strategic round to pioneer the future of loyalty points
- Koywe’s answer to slow international payments started with a lifelong friendship - September 9, 2026
- Split Pay raises $125M to give your paycheck better timing - September 9, 2026
- PRIMA raises $5M to turn hot tables into a referral business - September 4, 2026