Kaia's KIP Expands Yield8 RWA Investments Into EV Finance, Adds ONiON Mobility Loan

Kaia Investment Partners, or KIP, the investment arm of the Kaia DLT Foundation, has expanded the investment scope of its tokenized private credit fund into Southeast Asian electric-vehicle finance. The structure uses vehicle lease payments as the source of repayment and allows investors to monitor a separate reserve account on-chain.

KIP announced on Nov. 4 that it had added a loan to Cambodian electric-mobility company ONiON Mobility to the Yield8 portfolio. The transaction uses the on-chain financing structure of Musubi, a mobility real-world asset, or RWA, platform.

ONiON Mobility is an affiliate of MVL Group, which operates ride-hailing platform TADA. The company runs electric vehicles, rentals and battery infrastructure businesses in Cambodia, and lease payments generated from vehicles deployed in local mobility services will be used to repay the loan.

To help investors track business performance, vehicle lease invoices will be provided as reference assets. The invoices are intended to show cash flow and do not serve as collateral for the loan.

A reserve designed to cover any repayment shortfall will be funded in USDC, the dollar-pegged stablecoin, and deposited into a smart contract. The balance and transaction history can be viewed on the blockchain. If the borrower fails to meet the repayment amount, the reserve will be used under pre-agreed conditions. Its use is limited to the deposited amount, and the structure does not guarantee principal or returns.

Yield8, launched in April, is a fund that links Asian private credit assets with on-chain capital. It previously invested in Galactica's Indonesian vessel bridge financing and South Korean real estate- and stock-backed loan claims from 8Percent. KIP plans to gradually expand the size of its investments and the markets it targets after reviewing the performance of this transaction.

Yoon Ho Lee, chief executive officer of KIP, said the firm is linking Asian real-world assets with verifiable cash flows to on-chain capital, expanding from ships and loan claims into mobility. He added that KIP would improve transparency in RWA investing with a structure that lets investors monitor not only asset information but also reserve flows on-chain.