Podcast Summary: The Digital Executive

Episode: Tokenizing Equity: Joris Delanoue - Building Fairmint and the Future of On-Chain Capital Markets | Ep 1129
Date: October 18, 2025
Host: Brian (Coruzant Technologies)
Guest: Joris Delanoue, Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Fairmint

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Brian interviews Joris Delanoue, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Fairmint, a fintech company transforming the future of equity fundraising through blockchain technology. Joris shares the origin story of Fairmint, the hurdles of navigating both technology and regulation, and his vision for how decentralized finance (DeFi) will ultimately erase the boundaries between private and public capital markets.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Genesis of Fairmint & The Problems with Traditional Equity

• Early Frustrations: Joris describes his frustration at not being able to include many people on his previous company’s cap table due to lack of VC funding and illiquidity.

  • “My main frustration came from my inability to onboard a lot of people to my cap table in my previous business… things were illiquid for years and years… shouldn’t there be a better way to democratize the access to the financial upside?”
    (Joris, 01:35)

• Blockchain Discovery: Initially, Joris experimented with building a traditional financial exchange for startups using SPVs, but a pivotal moment came when his co-founder introduced him to blockchain.

  • “I see a groundbreaking technology that the whole industry will at one point use because it's inevitable. It's simply a better tech, it's simply superior tech.”
    (Joris, 02:44)

• Sticking to Vision: Over seven years, Fairmint maintained a singular focus: “We build equity securities on chain, we bring equity on chain, we turn cap tables into smart contracts.”
  (Joris, 04:05)

2. Balancing Compliance & Innovation in Crypto Finance

• Learning in a New Environment: Moving to the US required Joris to adapt, learning English, legal concepts, and a new business culture.
• Regulatory Strategy: Joris outlines Fairmint’s methodical approach to compliance, notably securing transfer agent status (2023) and pursuing a broker-dealer license. Unlike others, Fairmint waited to monetize and avoided becoming shackled by regulation too soon.
  • “We said, okay, what if we don’t monetize, we don’t do anything that is in the realm of the regulated agent, but we build the rails, we build the business… It might be a harder path, but at the same time it gives you an opportunity to be much stronger with a strong business the day you decide to go after the licenses.”
    (Joris, 06:28)
• Growth Milestone: In under a year, Fairmint onboarded over $1.2–1.3 billion in assets.

3. Overcoming Technical & Legal Hurdles

• Initial Industry Resistance: Legacy vendors and lawyers were often unwilling to recognize tokenized equity as legitimate—insisting that if it was a token, it wasn’t truly equity.

  • “All the activity we had, we were trying to see it in the cap tables of our customers…they were saying…if it’s a token, it’s not an equity. And that was very frustrating.”
    (Joris, 09:39)

• Open Cap Table Format: Fairmint collaborated with top U.S. securities law firms to create a standardized, open-source cap table format, now adopted by the industry. This step overcame legal inertia and technical fragmentation.

  • “Since we released the open cap table format…now not only are we integrated into the cap table, but we are literally turning the entire cap table into a smart contract by bringing the format and turning it into a protocol on chain.”
    (Joris, 11:47)

• Breaking Vendor Lock-In: This compatibility broke down barriers, enabling customers to migrate from high-cost incumbents like Carta to Fairmint’s near-free model.

  • “Now we talk the same language between the two products, it offers us a great compatibility with the rest of the industry.”
    (Joris, 12:33)

4. The Future: Blurring Private and Public Markets with Blockchain

• Current Divide: Joris explains how private and public markets are traditionally distinct—public companies face immense costs, complex regulation, and intermediaries, while private firms have limited liquidity.

  • “Today, there are two worlds. The private companies are in one world and then you have the public one. The cost, the mindset are so different… it’s extremely hard for many people to imagine a shift.”
    (Joris, 14:08)

• DeFi’s Promise: He argues that blockchain composability will dissolve these divisions by automating compliance and drastically reducing costs.

  • “My vision is that blockchain technology, and more particularly and specifically the composability of DeFi will completely blur the line between these two worlds.”
    (Joris, 14:20)

• Democratizing Equity Ownership:

  • Fairmint aims to let companies at all stages offer ownership to employees and communities, with continuous trading and compliance integrated by default.
  • “This is what we are building right now. We plug the cap table and all the holding of the investor to DeFi for private companies… we decreased significantly the cost of each transaction.”
    (Joris, 17:46)

• Segmenting the Market:

  • Joris differentiates between Tier 1 (pre-IPO), Tier 2 (profitable but not IPO-ready), and Tier 3 (early-stage) companies—all of which can benefit from these rails.
    • “What I like is… the tier two, tier three, the ones that are making enough revenue but not enough to do like an IPO… We need to make it so much easier to do that.”
      (Joris, 16:36)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Blockchain is inevitable. It's simply superior tech… The analogy with my previous business on cloud computing was so obvious.”
  (Joris, 02:50)
• "Many companies raising a lot of money to become a broker-dealer… years after, they have no business."
  (Joris, 05:29)
• “We released the open cap table format, which is now the new commoditization and open-source format for cap tables in the US. The whole industry is now using that as a common language.”
  (Joris, 11:32)
• “With DeFi we get an opportunity, a unique opportunity, to literally automate things to the point where these costs will drop so much… we can finally see a world where… liquidity can happen because we made the rail possible.”
  (Joris, 17:28)

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:35 - Joris shares Fairmint’s origin and the inspiration from prior frustrations.
• 02:44 - The pivotal introduction to blockchain technology.
• 05:02 - Navigating regulatory challenges and Fairmint’s compliance strategy.
• 09:39 - Facing (and overcoming) industry resistance to tokenized equity.
• 11:32 - Launch and impact of the open cap table format.
• 14:08 - The private vs. public capital market divide.
• 17:28 - How DeFi and protocol rails will enable continuous, compliant secondary trading for all.

Tone and Style

Throughout, Joris is candid, pragmatic, and visionary—rooted in operational experience but optimistic about blockchain’s transformative impact. The conversation is direct and insightful, with Brian offering clear and affirming summaries to keep the focus on actionable takeaways.

This episode is essential listening for founders, investors, and anyone interested in how blockchain is reshaping equity, liquidity, and capital formation for startups and beyond.