Paris-based Lise (Lightning Stock Exchange) has become the first company in Europe to be approved to operate a fully tokenized stock exchange, the company said on Thursday.
The exchange, which targets the SME IPO market in France, received a DLT TSS license from France’s financial regulator, ACPR, under the EU’s Distributed Ledger Technology Pilot Regime, according to a press release.
Developed with input from the Banque de France, ESMA, AMF and the European Central Bank, the authorization allows Lise to combine the roles of a multilateral trading facility (MTF) and a central securities depository (CSD) within one digital framework.
Lise counts CACEIS (a subsidiary of Crédit Agricole Group), BNP Paribas and Bpifrance among its shareholders. The tokenization-friendly exchange targets French companies with market capitalizations below €500 million ($582 million), and seeks at least half of issuers to be SMEs with valuations below €200 million.
“This license allows us to operate the first fully tokenized stock exchange in Europe, offering a direct response to real-world financing challenges,” said Mark Kepeneghian, Lise’s CEO.
Lise plans to list its first SME and midcap IPOs in early 2026, focusing on sectors such as energy, infrastructure and defence.
For investors, the model can make exposure to Europe’s smaller growth companies easier and more transparent. For policymakers, it represents a test case in using blockchain technology to simplify and modernize capital markets.
