Manifest Raises $2.5M Pre-Seed Round and Becomes the First to Unlock Global Access to U.S. Private Equity Real Estate Investments via Blockchain

Manifest announced a $2.5M pre-seed round co-led by VanEck Ventures and Lattice Fund. Manifest is redefining how investors access the $35 trillion U.S. home equity market, facilitating institutional-grade investments in under 30 seconds.

Manifest, founded by Nathaniel Sokoll-Ward and Robert V. Lee, is the first company to successfully bring U.S. private equity real estate onchain in a scalable and liquid form.

“American real estate is among the most stable and high-performing asset classes in history. International investor demand is already tens of billions of dollars a year, but for many of these users, investing in U.S. real estate is like eating glass,” said Nathaniel Sokoll-Ward, CEO and Co-Founder of Manifest. “Traditional investing has been hamstrung by high transaction costs, operational burdens, and geographic restrictions. Manifest changes that. We combine the global reach of Bitcoin with the practical, native utility of stablecoins – to finally make institutional-grade real estate investable for anyone, anywhere at the speed of blockchain.”

Manifest is flipping the traditional real estate investment model with $USH, a tokenized real estate vehicle backed by Home Equity Investments (HEIs). Whereas traditional real estate investments require high capital commitments and long holding periods, $USH enables seamless, onchain access to institutional-grade real estate with the liquidity and efficiency of stablecoins.

“The future of real estate investment is tokenized, fractionalized, and accessible to all. With Manifest, everyday investors all over the world can now invest in high quality real estate with a few taps on their phone. VanEck is proud to back Manifest in their mission to democratize wealth creation for the most valuable asset class on the planet,” said Wyatt Lonergan, General Partner at VanEck Ventures.

“At Lattice, we back founders who are rethinking how value is created and exchanged onchain. Manifest is pioneering permissionless real-world investing, bridging traditional finance with crypto-native infrastructure. They’re starting by making U.S. real estate more liquid and globally accessible while maintaining the trust and transparency investors demand. This is exactly the kind of innovation we look for—projects that use blockchain to unlock real-world assets at scale,” said Mike Zajko, Co-Founder and General Partner at Lattice Fund.

The $2.5M pre-seed round will support Manifest as they prepare to launch $USH, its real estate-backed token. The funding will also drive DeFi integrations and the launch of new financial instruments, further expanding the ability for global investors to access and leverage U.S. assets.

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