Seven Stars Fund targets £250m via tokenised private credit in DIFC
A new closed-ended investment company launched from Dubai's International Financial Centre is staking a £250 million target on the convergence of specialty private credit and tokenised securities infrastructure, in a deal that places blockchain distribution rails at the centre of a regulated institutional fund for the first time in the DIFC.
Seven Stars Fund CEIC Limited, managed by DFSA-authorised Truleum Venture Partners Limited and sponsored by UK-based Seven Stars Legal Group, is now open for subscriptions from Professional Clients. Apex Group, the Bermuda-headquartered fund administrator with more than $3.5 trillion in assets under service, provides NAV reporting, transfer agency and investor reporting, while its wholly-owned subsidiary Tokeny supplies the ERC-3643 smart-contract infrastructure through which fund interests are issued as SST Tokens. The fund carries a hard cap of £400 million and a six-year term, with a minimum subscription of US$50,000.
A credit strategy, not a litigation fund
The underlying lending model is designed to distance itself from the litigation-funding sector that has attracted regulatory scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic. Borrowers are SRA-regulated UK law firms and FCA-authorised claims management companies pursuing consumer redress claims across motor finance mis-selling, payment protection insurance, irresponsible lending, pension transfers and housing disrepair. Critically, the lending is full-recourse: the borrowing firm remains liable for repayment regardless of the outcome of any individual claim. That obligation is secured by general debenture and, where applicable, a deed of assignment over funded case proceeds.
Seven Stars Legal Group companies have been deploying this model since 2023, lending more than £19 million across facilities supporting over 73,000 individual claims before the fund structure was established. The DIFC domicile brings DFSA oversight, with a King's Counsel holding a seat on the investment committee for independent legal-merit assessment. Norton Rose Fulbright acted as legal counsel; Crowe Mak is DIFC-registered auditor; Anstey Bond and Insyte IQ provide independent quarterly valuations and claims analytics respectively.
Tokenisation meets institutional governance
The structural novelty lies in the distribution layer. Fund interests are issued on Tokeny's T-REX platform using the ERC-3643 standard, which Tokeny originally created and continues to develop. ERC-3643 embeds investor compliance controls directly into the smart contract, restricting token transfers to verified eligible investors and enabling programmable distributions. Primary distribution runs through Apex Invest, with the fund planned for listing on regulated exchanges in the UK, mainland Europe and Singapore, alongside VARA and ADGM listings subject to regulatory approval.
"The future of private markets will combine institutional-quality investment solutions with modern digital infrastructure," said Peter Hughes, Founder and CEO of Apex Group. "Seven Stars Fund is an example of that evolution, bringing together a specialist private credit strategy, a regulated fund structure and tokenised distribution."
The convergence here is deliberate and carries macro implications that extend well beyond this single fund. The DIFC has spent several years cultivating a regulatory posture that treats tokenised securities as a legitimate institutional asset class rather than a retail crypto sideshow. The UAE's VARA framework and the ADGM's digital assets regime sit alongside the DFSA's Investment Token rules to create a Gulf regulatory triarchy that is actively competing with London, Luxembourg and Singapore for tokenised-fund domiciliation. Capital allocators from sovereign wealth funds to family offices are increasingly comparing these regimes when structuring private credit vehicles that require cross-border distribution.
The broader read-across is for the private credit market, which has grown to an estimated $2.1 trillion globally and is under increasing pressure to lower minimum ticket sizes and improve secondary liquidity for institutional investors. Tokenised distribution, if regulatory harmonisation progresses across the UK, EU and Singapore as the fund's listing roadmap implies, offers a credible mechanism for both. Whether the Seven Stars model becomes a template for the next wave of tokenised private credit structures will depend substantially on how quickly those exchange listings materialise and whether secondary market liquidity follows the primary raise.