Polychain’s ex-president raises $50 million for a US housing token that Americans can’t buy

Index Industries, a startup led by Polychain Capital’s former president, has raised $50 million to put US home prices on-chain, but the token it is building will not be available to US investors. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the November 10 seed round, with Polychain, Galaxy Ventures and Wintermute Ventures participating.

Former Polychain and Blackstone executives lead the project

Index Industries is led by two executives with backgrounds spanning cryptocurrency investments and traditional real estate finance.

Josh Rosenthal, the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer, previously served as President and General Partner of Polychain Capital. His experience in digital asset investments provides the company with a connection to the institutional cryptocurrency market.

Brian Hardecker serves as co-founder and chairman. He previously worked as a Principal at Blackstone and founded Longmark, a residential real estate platform established in 2021 that reportedly manages approximately $2 billion in assets.

The leadership team believes housing has remained overlooked by financial markets despite its importance to the broader economy.

Rosenthal described indexing as a major financial innovation because it reduces the knowledge and expenses traditionally associated with investing across an entire market.

He explained that applying this approach to American housing could make the asset class more accessible to investors who would otherwise struggle to obtain broad exposure.

Hardecker also highlighted the size of the opportunity, noting that U.S. housing represents roughly one-quarter of the country’s aggregate economic value.

According to him, the sector has attracted comparatively little financial innovation because investors have lacked straightforward ways to take positions based on overall housing market performance.

Justin Overdorff, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, also expressed confidence in the project. He identified the partnership between Index Industries and Longmark as an important factor behind the investment decision.

Overdorff described real estate as one of the most promising opportunities for tokenization, particularly as institutional investors explore ways to bring traditional assets onto blockchain networks.

How the USHP index will connect real estate and blockchain

The foundation of the project is the U.S. Home Price Index, which will combine information from major existing housing indices into a single national benchmark.

Unlike conventional housing indicators that generally publish data at less frequent intervals, the proposed index is designed to calculate home price movements daily.

This approach is intended to provide investors, researchers and financial institutions with a more continuous view of the American residential property market.

The benchmark will support housing research, market reporting and portfolio monitoring. It will also provide the underlying reference for financial products developed through the company’s infrastructure.

The USHP token will be the first investment product built around this system. Rather than directly issuing the asset, Index Industries will provide the technology and services supporting its development.

The planned issuer is USHP Limited, a British Virgin Islands company operating as a subsidiary of the USHP Foundation, a Cayman Islands foundation company.

This separation is important because Index Industries has explicitly stated that it will not issue, distribute, sell, market or redeem the investment product. It will also not accept subscriptions from prospective investors.

The arrangement allows the company to focus on developing the index and underlying infrastructure while a separate entity handles the proposed token issuance.

Why American investors cannot purchase the token

Despite tracking property prices within the United States, the USHP token will initially target eligible investors outside the country.

Index Industries has clarified that the securities have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933. Consequently, the proposed offering will be restricted to eligible non-U.S. persons located outside the United States, subject to applicable legal requirements.

This restriction means American investors will not be able to participate in the initial offering simply because the underlying index measures the performance of their domestic housing market.

The distinction also highlights the regulatory challenges facing blockchain projects attempting to connect traditional financial assets with digital investment products.

For the broader tokenization industry, the project represents another attempt to bring a traditionally difficult-to-access asset class into blockchain-based financial markets.

According to the company’s announcement, USHP Limited plans to introduce the product on Ethereum in 2026 before expanding its availability to Solana in 2027.

The proposed rollout could give eligible international investors another way to gain exposure to movements in U.S. residential property prices without purchasing homes directly.

However, the project’s success will depend on the reliability of its underlying benchmark, the structure of its investment product and the ability to attract sufficient institutional participation.

With $50 million in initial funding and backing from prominent venture capital firms, Index Industries has secured significant financial support for its ambitions. Its next challenge will be demonstrating that blockchain infrastructure can provide a practical and credible route into one of the world’s largest real estate markets.