Ripple: $200 Million In Funding And Massive $10 Billion Valuation

By Amit Chowdhry ● Dec 21, 2019
  • Ripple has announced it raised $200 million in Series C funding at a massive $10 billion valuation. This funding validates blockchain tech in improving global payments.

Ripple has just announced it raised $200 million in Series C funding at a $10 billion valuation. This investment marks a record year for the company and it also further validates the value of blockchain technology in improving global payments and the broader utility of the digital asset XRP and the XRP Ledger. The Series C round of funding was led by Tetragon with participation from SBI Holdings and Route 66 Ventures.

“We are in a strong financial position to execute against our vision. As others in the blockchain space have slowed their growth or even shut down, we have accelerated our momentum and industry leadership throughout 2019,” said Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse.

Ripple’s global payments network RippleNet has grown to over 300 customers worldwide and the company also signed a new strategic partnership with MoneyGram this year. Now the network also has customers in over 45 countries and 6 continents with payout capabilities in over 70 countries. Plus the network also drove 10x year-over-year growth in transactions across the network and more banks and payment providers using XRP to source liquidity on-demand than ever before.

XRP is a cryptocurrency that has its own blockchain. And the market cap of XRP tokens makes it the third-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Ripple also announced the next chapter for Xpring: the open developer platform for money. And this platform offers tools, services, and programs making it easier for developers to send and receive payments in any currency, across any network, using the XRP Ledger and Interledger Protocol (ILP) thus removing the pain and friction from integrating money into apps.

This round of funding will be used to expedite the company’s on-boarding of new global talent to meet market demands and better serve its growing community of customers and partners.

XRP is known for helping customers free up capital that would otherwise have to be parked in local banks. Moneygram is a customer of Ripple and that company now uses XRP for 15% of its transfers into Mexico explained Garlinghouse in an interview with Fortune.

Ripple was originally founded by programmer and entrepreneur Jed McCaleb. Now McCaleb is the co-founder and CTO of Stellar — which is an open-source decentralize protocol for digital currency to fiat money transfers.