Finternet & Avalanche target India's $10bn TradeFi push

Finternet Labs has partnered with Avalanche to expand tokenisation in India, starting with lending linked to agricultural assets valued at nearly $2 billion.

The partners see a potential $10 billion opportunity across agriculture, finance, real estate, sports, entertainment and education. Work begins with a pilot focused on trade finance and credit in agricultural value chains.

Finternet Labs is a universal digital infrastructure project. It was co-created by Pramod Varma, chief architect of Aadhaar, and Siddharth Shetty, chief executive of Finternet Labs, and has backing linked to Nandan Nilekani, a central figure in India's digital public infrastructure programmes.

Avalanche is a Layer-1 blockchain network developed and supported commercially by Ava Labs. In South Asia, Avalanche has been building partnerships focused on tokenisation and on-chain finance models.

Agriculture pilot

The first pilot focuses on lending and financing tied to agricultural assets and related cash flows. The partners described it as a step from experimentation to production use in India's tokenisation market.

Agricultural finance in India spans inputs, warehousing, logistics and trading, involving many participants and fragmented data. Tokenisation typically aims to represent assets or claims digitally, allowing lenders to assess and fund positions using standardised records and rules.

The work is framed around "TradeFi", a term used for technology-led trade finance models. As agricultural value chains grow more complex and capital intensive, the partners argue demand is rising for credit products and stronger risk controls.

Finternet Labs is expected to lead market design and ecosystem coordination, while Avalanche will provide the blockchain rails to record and settle transactions. The collaboration also includes developing tokenisation frameworks suited to India's regulatory and institutional context.

Market context

The partnership comes amid growing interest from financial institutions and technology providers in tokenised real-world assets. The partners cited the "Real-World Assets in On-chain Finance Report", which referenced a Standard Chartered projection of a $30 trillion tokenisation market by 2034.

They also pointed to data suggesting the tokenised real-world asset market reached $15.2 billion by December 2024, excluding stablecoins, and exceeded $24 billion by June 2025-an implied 85% year-on-year increase over the period cited.

Private credit remains one of the largest categories within tokenised real-world assets. The release put tokenised private credit at $14 billion as of June 2025, underscoring demand for structures that represent loan exposure and credit strategies on blockchain networks.

Regulation focus

Tokenisation activity in India sits alongside an evolving policy and regulatory approach to digital assets and market infrastructure. The collaboration said it will engage stakeholders and align activity with compliance, transparency and market integrity.

The partners also indicated they will demonstrate tokenisation use cases on public blockchain infrastructure. Public networks remain a point of debate for regulated finance because they are open by design and rely on decentralised validation.

In agriculture, tokenisation models can involve inventory, receivables, contracts and collateral, each raising questions around legal enforceability, identity, audit and dispute resolution. The collaboration did not outline detailed pilot structures.

Sanmesh Kalyanpur, director of programs at Finternet Labs, said the work centres on tokenisation as a base layer for innovation.

"This collaboration reflects a shared belief that tokenisation can be a foundational layer for the next phase of India's financial innovation. With this partnership, we aim to demonstrate how global blockchain infrastructure can be adapted to local market needs and unlock significant economic opportunities."

Devika Mittal, South Asia head at Ava Labs, linked the project to broader growth in tokenised finance activity in the country.

"India represents a key market for the future of tokenised finance. Collaborations like this help bridge the gap between emerging on-chain innovation and real-world financial systems," Mittal said.

Broader activity

Avalanche has also been working with companies outside finance. Mugafi, an AI-driven platform focused on entertainment intellectual property, recently partnered with Avalanche to tokenise media assets including films, anime and music.

That initiative aims to finance more than $10 million in entertainment IP, with a longer-term target of more than $1 billion in annual IP financing throughput. The Finternet Labs partnership is a separate track focused on lending tied to physical supply chains and trade documentation.

After the pilot phase, the partners plan to expand beyond agriculture into other sectors, with use cases shaped by market participants and India's regulatory direction.