How many of Europe's 24 million SMEs actually have outside shareholders looking for a way to sell their stake? That's a different question than how many SMEs exist, and it's the gap Dusk's pitch for tokenized private markets glides past.
The 24 million figure is real it comes from Eurostat, the EU's own statistics office, and it's the number Dusk uses to frame the opportunity. What that same data also shows: 99% of those businesses are micro and small enterprises, most employing under ten people. Medium sized companies the 50-to-249 employee band, roughly where outside investors and cap tables start showing up make up about 0.8% of all EU enterprises. Call it 240,000 companies, not 24 million.
That's not a flaw in the tokenization idea. A two person bakery was never the customer. But the 24-million figure does more marketing work than the realistic addressable segment would, and quietly treating "SME" as interchangeable with "company that needs a secondary market for its shares" is where that work gets done.
The more honest number is the smaller one. It just doesn't fit as cleanly on a slide.
@Dusk #dusk $DUSK
The 24 million figure is real it comes from Eurostat, the EU's own statistics office, and it's the number Dusk uses to frame the opportunity. What that same data also shows: 99% of those businesses are micro and small enterprises, most employing under ten people. Medium sized companies the 50-to-249 employee band, roughly where outside investors and cap tables start showing up make up about 0.8% of all EU enterprises. Call it 240,000 companies, not 24 million.
That's not a flaw in the tokenization idea. A two person bakery was never the customer. But the 24-million figure does more marketing work than the realistic addressable segment would, and quietly treating "SME" as interchangeable with "company that needs a secondary market for its shares" is where that work gets done.
The more honest number is the smaller one. It just doesn't fit as cleanly on a slide.
@Dusk #dusk $DUSK
