Digital Asset Funding Tops $60 Million With IBM, Goldman Sachs Investments

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2 February 2016

New York-based blockchain startup Digital Asset Holdings announced today that Goldman Sachs and IBM have joined its recent funding round, pushing the total amount raised above $60m.

The firm, which as reported earlier this week, is conducting a distributed ledger trial with JPMorgan Chase, has now garnered support from a total of fourteen financial institutions.

Other parties in the round include ABN AMRO; Accenture; ASX Limited; BNP Paribas; Broadridge Financial Solutions; Citi; CME Ventures; Deutsche Börse Group; ICAP; Santander InnoVentures; The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC); and The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc.

The round marks the second publicly disclosed investment in the bitcoin and blockchain space for Goldman Sachs, which last year took part in bitcoin services provider Circle’s $50m funding round.

Paul Walker, global co-head of technology for Goldman Sachs, said in a statement:

“We believe that distributed ledger technology will play a transformative role in the way financial institutions transact globally and we look forward to working with Digital Asset and the broader financial and technical community to engage this emerging technology.”

IBM is making its first publicly disclosed investment a company focused on technology, a move that follows months of internal testing and development of proofs-of-concepts. The firm is now playing a leading role in the Open Ledger Project, an open-source initiative that also involves Digital Asset.

“We are excited to jointly develop distributed ledger technologies that will allow our clients to transform their business, and further strengthen our partnership with Digital Asset,” said Jerry Cuomo, the IBM Fellow leading the firm’s blockchain efforts, adding:

“Blockchain holds real potential to transform a wide range of industries and IBM is committed to making it ready for business.”

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