France’s first! ST Group will execute a full on-chain IPO, with a listing on 4/9 on the Lise blockchain platform

ST Group in France will complete the world’s first all-on-chain IPO with Lise, combining tokenized securities and real-time settlement mechanisms to pioneer a new financing model for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Aerospace parts company leads the way; France will see the world’s first all-on-chain listed company

France’s fintech industry is about to reach a historic moment. ST Group, an aerospace component manufacturer headquartered near Toulouse, has officially announced that it will conduct its initial public offering (IPO) on April 9. This move skips the traditional securities exchanges and instead chooses to list on the blockchain trading platform Lise (Lightning Stock Exchange), enabling an all-on-chain listing.

Image source: ST Group ST Group announces its IPO on the blockchain trading platform Lise

According to the aerospace subcontractor, this is the world’s first IPO completed by a traditional company on a native tokenized exchange. ST Group mainly produces composite parts used in aircraft, defense systems, and space programs. Its potential planned revenues for the next 10 years are expected to reach as much as €59 million (about $68 million). For SMEs like ST Group, the cost of the traditional path to going public is extremely high and the process is cumbersome.

The company’s CEO, Mark Kepeneghian, frankly admits that blockchain technology provides a practical equity financing route for France’s industrial SMEs; otherwise, the company would not even consider going public.

Breaking traditional financial barriers, Lise integrates trading and settlement with blockchain technology

The Lise platform helping ST Group access the capital markets is a new exchange headquartered in Paris, built specifically for tokenized equity. Lise’s core technical architecture is based on a permissioned Hyperledger Besu blockchain, enabling it to highly integrate transaction, clearing, and settlement functions that are typically distributed across different institutions in traditional markets into a unified automated system.

Compared with the clearing process that traditional exchanges require days to complete, Lise can operate 24/7 around the clock and offers near real-time settlement services, running without interruption for 7 days a week. The exchange has obtained an investment company license from the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR) and operates under the EU Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) pilot regime.

The shares issued on Lise are “security tokens” from the moment they are created. The blockchain ledger is the sole source of truth for securities registration, fundamentally changing how the underlying infrastructure of financial markets operates.

Zero fees and starting from one share; tokenized securities reshape the retail investing experience

To lower the investment barrier and put financial democratization into practice, Lise has introduced multiple innovative mechanisms into ST Group’s IPO plan. After investors complete registration on the platform, the transferred funds are automatically converted into digital deposits, after which they can make a subscription with a simple click. The platform eliminates the subscription fees and custody fees commonly charged in traditional markets, and sets a minimum investment threshold of “starting from one share.” This mechanism effectively removes the privileges of institutional investors and the interference of gatekeepers. All investors are allocated according to the “first come, first served” principle, ensuring that ordinary investors can compete fairly on the same track as professional institutions.

This IPO has received support from major mainstream French financial forces, including BNP Paribas, CACEIS, an asset servicing entity under Crédit Agricole, and Bpifrance, among other heavyweight institutions. With these professional financial institutions and placement banks joining in, it ensures that this action is truly an IPO, with a high level of professionalism and credibility.

The acid test under the regulatory sandbox; Europe’s financial transformation before MiCA

The timing of this listing initiative is highly strategic, coming right around the eve of the 2026 Paris Blockchain Week. At present, the tokenized real-world assets (RWA) market size worldwide is nearing the $1 billion mark, and the total market capitalization of tokenized stocks has reached $941 million.

As the transition period of the EU’s “Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation” (MiCA) ends on July 1, 2026, only formally authorized crypto-asset service providers will be able to operate in the EU. The French regulator AMF has repeatedly urged relevant companies to submit their applications as soon as possible.

Lise’s operational results are a key benchmark experiment under the EU DLT pilot regime. If ST Group’s all-on-chain IPO succeeds, Lise is expected to guide an additional 3 to 4 companies to list again by the end of 2026. This will open a cheaper, more efficient capital market path for Europe’s SMEs, and demonstrate that blockchain technology is capable of solving liquidity and access challenges in real capital markets, thereby channeling Europe’s savings into the real economy.