The global banking blockchain consortium led by R3 has raised a record $107 million in a fundraising round, the largest single investment in a blockchain company to date.
New York-based blockchain firm R3, which leads the global namesake blockchain consortium, has announced the completion of the second if its three-part Series A fundraising round.
In its announcement today, R3 revealed over 40 of its 100+ members participated in the second stage to raise $107 million. R3 sees membership fees at about 250,000 per member.
Investors include the likes of Japan’s SBI group, the UK’s HSBC, Brazil’s Banco Bradesco, French investment bank Natixis and a number of others from around the world. The first two stages were only open to members of the consortium, with an exception to Intel which `
The third and final stage will be open for investment later this year.
“This investment is unprecedented,” stated R3 CEO David Rutter. “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.”
The $107 million funding round is about half of the initially reported $200 million sought by R3 from its members. Those expectations were scaled down to $150 million as a number of early members chose to exit R3 toward the end of 2016. Goldman Sachs was the first to leave, followed by Spanish banking giant Santander. Morgan Stanley, while unconfirmed, was next to go. JP Morgan, the largest US bank and one of R3’s earliest members also quit R3 last month, leaving the New York startup none too pleased.
“We’ve got Unparalleled Momentum” – Rutter
The latest funding round will help continue development of ‘Corda’, R3’s blockchain software, the company revealed. Now available on the likes of Microsoft’s cloud computing Azure, Corda notably went open source with code contributed to the Linux Foundation-led Hyperledger Project.
“You are going to begin to see the rollout of the enterprise grade Corda platform,” CNBC quotes R3 managing director Charley Cooper as saying. “You will see the beginning of the network standing up – connecting investors and members on nodes on the software.”
R3 chief executive Rutter bullishly added:
"We are on our way to becoming the new operating system for financial services."
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