Distributed ledger settlement startup Ripple has raised $55m in venture capital from a mix of financial industry heavyweights. Participating in Ripple ‘s Series B round are Standard Chartered, Accenture Ventures, SCB Digital Ventures, the venture arm of Siam Commercial Bank and SBI Holdings. Additional investors include Santander InnoVentures , CME Ventures, Seagate Technology and Venture 51. With a growth trajectory that will soon force the settlement startup out of its San Francisco headquarters, much of those funds will be spent on expansion projects including sales and marketing. However, the investment is distinct for Ripple in that some of the funds could also fuel new acquisitions. Ripple president and COO Brad Garlinghouse told CoinDesk: "This gives us a strong balance sheet to also consider acquisitions. There are a lot of small players doing something interesting. Historically, we wouldn’t be interested, but going forward we may be." In total, Ripple has raised $93m venture capital including earlier investments from Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, IDG Capital Partners and Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures, a figure that makes it one of most-funded blockchain firms. While Garlinghouse wouldn’t give any details about which startups the company might have in its sights, but he did reveal new information about how it would seek to evolve its strategy in the months ahead. Customer acquistion When Ripple was founded in 2012, the company emerged virtually without competition in its efforts to explore blockchain technology. At the time, most startups were focused solely on the bitcoin protocol, and the use of cryptographic code as currency. But, Ripple (then called OpenCoin) was already working to distinguish itself to its potential customers, bringing to the table a novel take on the technology as well as experienced financial executives in the form of CEO Chris Larsen, who joined in 2013. Unlike […]
