In the largest funding round in the history of distributed ledger technology, the R3 consortium has raised $107 million from around half of its members as well as Intel and Temasek Holdings.
SBI Group, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and HSBC were top investors in the round, which included over 40 participants, including R3 members such as ING, Barclays and UBS. And, R3 says that this is just the first two of three tranches in its Series A round, with the third being opened up to members and non-members later this year.
The news comes after several months of negotiations, during which time some major backers - including Goldman Sachs, Santander and JPMorgan Chase - have jumped ship. The group was initially understood to be seeking to raise $200 million before cutting this to $150 million.
R3 has grown rapidly since launching in late 2015, from nine members and eight staff to more than 80 members and 110 employees. The money will be used to "accelerate technology development and expand strategic partnerships for product deployment", with the focus on R3's DLT platform, Corda, and its infrastructure network.
David Rutter, CEO, R3, say: "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."