The pandemic Covid-19 has become a bridge for inculcating technologies in financial sectors. The technology has helped people to seek financial advice more appropriately from any corner of the world. In current pandemic, investing money, performing financial tasks, and risking money without guidance is something everyone will avoid. You need a proper guidance for financing, who can be your life changer.

While searching for such world changers for our edition Champions of Change | 2021, we came across an incredibly smart, amazing, enthusiastic, and optimistic personality, Ángela Álvarez, Founder and CEO of Aglaia Capital. Ángela has been the game changer in financial sector. Ángela helps people in investing at right place, funding, and helps Family Offices. She decided to inculcate blockchain technology in financial sector to enhances it.

In the following interview, Ángela will give us some insights about her professional journey. She will also describe how she managed to build Aglaia Capital and what challenges she faced. We will also talk to Ángela about the challenges she faced during the Covid-19 pandemic and how she managed to overcome them. She will share her future goals and advice to budding entrepreneurs, who aspires to bring a change.

“To me, change means evolution”

Following are the highlights of interview:

What is change according to you?

Change usually means ‘evolution’ to me. It is linked to being out of the comfort zone. It also gives an opportunity to improve. In this new complex world, change is becoming a constant and being resilient to adapt a well valued competitive advantage.

Kindly tell us how you are bringing change in this world with the help of your business. Describe about your company in detail.

I founded Aglaia Capital as an expression of vision in the industry, where I have developed my career in Corporate Finance, Investment Banking, Mergers and Acquisition, Restructuring, and Alternative Finance. I combined them all with blockchain that attracted my interest, some years ago.

Aglaia Capital was born with a strong focus on traditional Corporate Finance and transactional services for financial services with blockchain. Aglaia was established with a view of being the change that I wanted to see in my industry. This is where I found some of the solutions through blockchain and digital assets that came up along my professional career.

Aglaia Capital is an independent Corporate Finance boutique advisory business headquartered in Madrid, mainly in Europe, and selectively in other geographies. We have an affiliated company in London, UK.  We specialize on Real Estate transactions, Hotels, and financing, as well as on Fintech, Blockchain and Digital assets.

We usually work with niche investors, family office and funds, which are mostly not common in market. We also offer off-market selected opportunities, as well as alternative finance solutions for Corporates, Developers, Real Estate, and Hotels.

We are also a Fintech, offering Aglaia Capital Decentralised Finance (DeFi) Platform for Tokenisation, which is developed with blockchain technology. The platform mainly focused on digitalization of securities, security tokens, and connected to a secondary market of digital assets, which we are about to launch.

We advise on ‘Token generating events’ from the strategy process, implementation, development, and set up of investment vehicles constituted for this purpose. We also provide our own platform, Aglaia Capital DeFi Platform to carry out the private and public sale of the digital asset with connection to a secondary market of Digital Assets.

That will provide funding for owners of assets wanting to sell and investment opportunities coming from the new economy.

On digital assets, we are in a process of launching a security token, which allows you to invest with an underlying asset, get an annual result, and reduce your carbon footprint. Participating in venture capital aiming to sustainable investments is aligned with one of our core values.

What made you venture into the industry you are catering to?

Aglaia Capital was born with a determined convincement of contributing to changing the industries, Investment Banking, Corporate Finance, Mergers and Acquisitions, Restructuring, and Alternative Finance industries, where I have developed my career.

On one hand, exploring and developing a platform with blockchain for making more efficient and scalable business of providing funding and making investments. On the other hand, trying to imprint a way of doing business, where ethics and balance among the parties will be present through a transparent and trustful way of proceeding. Constituting our essence, such as innovation, sustainability, integrity, diversity, and impact to make a better world are the values we hold.

What kind of products or services do you provide that are making a difference in people’s lives?

In traditional Corporate Finance, we usually are focused on a niche base, with investors that are not on the market, and with investment opportunities that are off market. Our advice is personalized, independent, and we usually analyze the opportunities with the lens of investor, try to know well the ecosystem of investors and financing providers, and what they are interested in.

Related to digital assets and Blockchain, we are insiders also in the Financial Industry, which makes a difference for the understanding and assisting to maximize the value.

On Digital assets, we are a Fintech company with our own blockchain development, Aglaia Capital DeFi Platform, which allows to get funding and invest easily while participating in the new financial infrastructure. We are about to launch a digital asset as well, a security token that will allow to invest with an underlying asset, get an annual return, and at the same time reducing the carbon footprint, and participating in venture capital aiming to sustainable investments, which is aligned also with one of our core values.

What kind of challenges have you faced while bringing the change through your business? How has it affected your professional life?

Having a vision when it’s too early to be understood or adopted by the system is a challenge itself. The new financial infrastructure with blockchain for digital assets or any emerging technology for the financial industry has attracted my interest, years ago. Although, nowadays it seems that there is a growing adoption and more understanding in the industry—being a pioneer bring you some challenges but also the joy that the creation process may provide you. Also, being one of the first in exploring the possibilities of that change. In my case, we have been focusing on blockchain in many ways before having developed our own platform. I believe that this will be the beginning as there is a constant evolution on the possibilities that for example, blockchain and the new financial infrastructure can provide us.

How has the ongoing pandemic affected the operations of your organization? How are you driving your company to sustain its operations and ensuring safety of your employees at the same time?

Earlier, we were working remotely, having appropriated tools to work within the team, with partners, and external teams. The impact on economy brought us new opportunities on the traditional Corporate Finance and on the digital assets space, where it has speeded further, the transformation and adoption of the blockchain and digital assets.

What would be your strategic approach to scale your business in 2021 and beyond?

We are about to launch Aglaia Capital DeFi Platform, a platform for tokenization that focuses particularly on digitalization of securities, developed in blockchain, and deployed in Ethereum. That will allow us to scale our business quicker along with approaching more clients at the same time. We will also offer an efficient way to provide funding or investments.

What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs and youngsters who are striving to bring a change in their community?

I would advice to keep the passion and focus. Let the vision work. When you have a mission, you will probably find your vision as well. There is always a beginning for everything, and changes start with the determination of people who believe, it is worth trying.

Where do you envision your company to be in the long run and what are your future goals? How do you plan to embrace the changes happening in your industry?

I have been exploring emerging technologies and their application to the finance and financial industries in last few years. I founded my company to contribute to the transformation of my industry and the transactional business with blockchain. Among others, the platform that we are about to launch will provide liquidity to the owners of assets, to digital assets issuers, and it will also provide a new way of investing to investors. At the same time, it will provide the opportunity of investing in the creation of a new financial infrastructure, while making investments.

What is the current industrial scenario of the sector you are catering to?

There is happening a transformation and an evolution of a new financial infrastructure with blockchain and digital assets. The evolution is creating a new transformed financial industry, which is coexisting with the old one. It can be expected that the transformation will converge in the medium term. There will be an increase in efficiency and transparency along with a transformation of the financial entities with a more predominant role of a Fintech approach.