Property ownership is just a dream for generations that find themselves priced out of the property market. But while many see a crisis, Tom de Lucy, CEO and co-founder of Bricksave, sees a market failure. The fractional real estate platforms promising a solution were, he believed, offering institutional-level complexity to everyday investors who craved simplicity.
We recently spoke with Peter Oser, the co-CEO of Linxfour, where Kinled Holdings is a key investor and now in our latest TechTalks with TFN, de Lucy explained how his background in fixing startups led him to build a borderless property investment platform, the regulatory labyrinth involved, and how tokenisation unlocks a new era of accessibility.
Have a look at the full video here:
From fixing startups to fixing a market gap
De Lucy’s route to founding Bricksave was atypical. After exiting two businesses, he began working with a family office, taking a hands-on role supporting over seventy early-stage companies.
“I was going into businesses and helping them,” he told us, “supporting founders to help them grow.”
This operational perspective proved crucial when analysing the fractional real estate space.
Initially planning to invest in an existing platform, de Lucy realised there was a significant gap.
“We were naturally drawn to the real estate space,” de Lucy explained. “But what we found was they were still offering institutional products.”
He saw a disconnect between the sophisticated products and client understanding. The realisation came that real estate needed a product as simple as the equity crowdfunding platforms revolutionising other asset classes.
“We just couldn’t find anyone who was doing it,” he said. “The idea of Bricksave came about from creating something that wasn’t there in the market.”
This was more than a business opportunity; it addressed a social challenge.
“By giving them access to fractional real estate, you are allowing that younger generation to get onto the property ladder with smaller capital amounts,” de Lucy explained.
It does so using a proprietary algorithmic software to identify undervalued properties. Factoring thousands of data points, like demographic patterns and rental values, it optimises investor returns.
Navigating a labyrinth of wet signatures and global regulations
Building a platform to democratise a global, trillions-pound industry presented many hurdles. De Lucy found the biggest barriers were regulatory and cultural.
“The real estate industry moves slowly, it moves with outdated processes,” he observed.
Traditional fractional ownership involves expensive SPVs, legal structures, and remarkably, often needed ‘wet’ (pen and paper) signatures.
Bricksave’s vision is borderless investment in a world where each country has distinct securities laws. Their strategy to overcome this included the acquisition of Colombian platform Macondo. This provided a ready-made structure and an immediate foothold.
However, the real breakthrough was obtaining regulatory approval.
“We recently got regulatory approval which allows us to issue a fully tokenised security. It’s one of the only approvals of its kind in the world,” de Lucy revealed. “That will allow us to expand faster.”
Tokenisation reduces the cost and complexity of fractional ownership, promising better investor returns. Bricksave has already processed over $4 million in tokenised assets in a beta test.
The new approval potentially opens 96 markets, but also introduces a final hurdle: finding a partner from traditional finance.
“The challenge is finding an asset manager that is technology forward-thinking, and who wants to be at the forefront of the tokenisation of real-world assets,” de Lucy explained.
A founder’s advice: simplify, revenue, and the art of the roll-up
With his experience across the startup landscape, de Lucy offers a pragmatic perspective on European fintech and founder best practice. He notes a dramatic shift from chasing growth.
“There’s been a big shift in actually building businesses that don’t necessarily follow the kind of growth at all costs model, but from day one, starting out to build a revenue-generating business,” he advised.
This resilience is essential where “almost everyone I speak to today is really finding it difficult to raise capital.”
He also identifies the ability to simplify as an underrated skill.
“The ability to simplify things, to simplify a message, to simplify processes, and communicate what you’re trying to build in a clear and concise way.”
Looking forward, he anticipates that European fintech, which he currently considers fragmented, will see consolidation. The EU’s harmonisation of payments, which has allowed giants like Revolut successes, has not been matched in wealthtech, where cross-border investment rules hamper growth.
“We’ve been seeing quite a lot of movement on roll-up style deals,” de Lucy said.
“Investors are looking at bringing together a number of businesses from different geographies and integrating them into a larger entity.”
Building a portfolio, one token at a time
Bricksave’s future revolves around scaling its vision of a globally trusted platform. With nearly $5 million raised and a current round 75% funded, the goal is expansion into new markets and asset classes, allowing investors to build a balanced international portfolio.
And Bricksave matches that international intent, with technology and underwriting in London, sales in Latin America, and local teams in their property markets.
For de Lucy, the mission remains the driving force, helping those left stranded by increasing property values to use fractional ownership so they can benefit from capital growth.
Bricksave focuses not just on investment returns, but on reshaping access to a foundational asset class.
“We want to build a company that is reshaping the way people can access real estate,” he said, “giving those opportunities to people who maybe can’t own their own property.”
This content is produced in collaboration with Kinled, a Hong Kong-based investment firm with a growing footprint in Austria and Switzerland, which has quietly assembled one of Europe’s most impactful fintech portfolios since 2010.
