The R3 group has raised $107 million in two tranches of fundraising, securing the largest ever investment in distributed ledger technology (DLT) to date.
The first and second tranches of R3’s Series A round of fundraising was open only to R3 members, and attracted investment from 40 of the group’s institutions.
A third and final fundraising tranche, due for later this year, will be open to both member and non-member institutional investors.
According to R3, the funds will be used to further the development of DLT, and to expand strategic partnerships for product deployment. The development will focus on Corda, R3’s DLT platform for regulated financial institutions.
The funds will also be put towards R3’s infrastructure, supporting partner-built applications designed to interoperate with existing networks and systems.
R3’s 80-strong member base includes banks, clearing houses, asset managers, trade associations, technology firms, professional services firms, and more
Member that contributed to the fundraising included the likes of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNY Mellon, Northern Trust, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank.
The record investment marks a return to form for R3, following the exit of founding member Goldman Sachs in November last year, followed closely by Morgan Stanley and Santander.
David Rutter, CEO of R3, commented: “This investment is unprecedented. Many of the world’s largest financial firms have come together not just with capital support, but with a robust commitment to work with R3 in developing industry solutions that will be the building blocks of the new financial services infrastructure. We’ve got unparalleled momentum.”
“R3 has proven the collaborative model can successfully drive innovation in financial services to a degree never before seen,” he added.
“In the space of less than two years, we have built a network of over 80 members, launched an open-source distributed ledger platform specifically for wholesale financial markets, conducted over 60 detailed use cases across a variety of asset classes, led the way in regulatory engagement on behalf of the broader DLT community and are ahead of schedule for initial commercial deployments this year. We are on our way to becoming a new operating system for financial services.”
