Dubai’s new tokenized fund for UK law firms targets a 16% annual return

The sponsor behind a new DIFC fund lending to UK law firms is targeting a 16% annual return for investors, Leon Clarance, chief strategy officer of the fund’s sponsor Seven Stars Legal Group, tells EnterpriseAM. The fund opened to professional investors this week as a DFSA-regulated exempt credit fund in the DIFC, it said in a press release. It has no commitments yet and hasn’t made any loans.

How it works: The fund will make senior secured loans to regulated UK law firms and claims management companies. They use the money to pursue consumer compensation claims against banks, insurers, and other deep-pocketed respondents over motor finance mis-selling, PPI, irresponsible lending, pension transfers, and housing disrepair.

Seven Stars Fund CEIC is targeting GBP 250 mn, with a hard cap of GBP 400 mn and a minimum investment of USD 50k. DFSA-authorized Truleum Venture Partners manages the fund, Apex Group administers it, and fund interests are issued as ERC-3643 security tokens on Apex’s Tokeny platform. It’s aimed at family offices, private credit investors, private banks, and wealth management platforms in the GCC and internationally and won’t be offered to retail investors, Clarance said.

REMEMBER- We first wrote about the fund in November 2025, when it was described as a tokenized litigation fund. Clarance says the investment thesis hasn’t changed and that full-recourse lending was always its foundation. “What has changed is the institutional framework surrounding that established strategy; the fund now operates within a regulated credit fund structure, incorporating independent fund management, administration, valuation, governance, and tokenized distribution,” he tells us.

SOUND SMART- The difference is in who carries the risk. Traditional litigation funders usually get their money back only if claims succeed, whereas Seven Stars’ borrowers must repay regardless of how individual claims turn out. That doesn’t remove the risk, Clarance says, adding that a firm’s ability to repay still depends on how its claims perform.

The fund plans to lend to some 20-30 borrowers and will lend to FCA-authorized claims management companies and SRA-regulated law firms. Seven Stars Legal Group’s own lending is concentrated in a small number of UK law firms. One firm accounts for more than 30% of its capital deployed, and the group is working to bring its book back within its limits, Clarance said.

What’s next: The fund expects a first close of some GBP 50 mn in 1Q 2027. It will then raise toward its GBP 250 mn target through 2027 and will keep deploying for at least four years after the first close.