Ripple Reels In $28M Investment To Aid Expansion

Distributed payments technology company Ripple Labs has secured $28 million in Series A financing from a mix of venture capital funds and technology peers, the company announced yesterday (May 19).

Investors in the round were: IDG Capital Partners; venture arms of CME Group and global data storage company Seagate Technology; AME Cloud Ventures; ChinaRock Capital Management; Chine Growth Capital; Wicklow Capital; Bitcoin Opportunity Corp.; Core Innovation Capital; Route 66 Ventures; Vast Ventures; and Venture 51.

Ripple Labs serves as the springboard for Ripple — a payments technology that allows for real-time fund transfers across any currency, without the need for currency reserves.

The latest fundraising, the company said Tuesday, will help underpin international expansion. Ripple is setting its sights on driving Ripple adoption in Asia, management said. Li Feng, partner at IDG Capital, will join Ripple’s board.

“We are excited to build on our relationship with Ripple Labs, especially as they expand their presence in Asia,” said Feng in the release. “Growing their influence in key regions like Asia will help activate new markets, further accelerating the use of Ripple as a real-time settlement protocol by the world’s leading financial institutions.”

“Managing a global treasury operation and supply chain finances for one of the world’s largest high-tech storage technology companies puts us in a unique position to understand the frictions and pain points in funds transfer,” said Dave Morton, Seagate Technology’s SVP of finance and treasury, in a statement. “With its real-time settlement capabilities, we recognize the opportunity for Ripple to reduce money transfer costs, create transparency, and increase working capital in corporate treasury use cases. Banking and corporate applications are just the tip of the iceberg for a technology like Ripple, and we’re excited to support the team’s pursuit of those opportunities.”

The company’s latest financing round follows news early this year that the company had raised $30 million in financing and was valued at roughly $100 million. In a less positive light, earlier this month, Ripple Labs also became the first virtual currency exchanger to face fines from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which seeks to punish Ripple for “the willful violation of various provisions of the Bank Secrecy Act,” among other violations.