Ripple has received an estimated $4m in funding from Santander InnoVentures, bringing its Series A total to $32m.
The Spanish banking group’s FinTech fund joins a combination of new and existing investors, including VC funds of US futures and options exchange CME Group and data storage firm Seagate Technology.
Ripple, now being tested by a number of banks, has bought in $41m to date. Speaking about the additional investment, CEO and co-founder Chris Larsen said in a statement:
“Santander InnoVentures is a natural fit in this round because of their demonstrated support for real-time international payments and their commitment to new technologies that enable Santander to empower its customers.
He continued: “We are excited to work closely with them in building the Internet of Value and accelerating adoption among financial institutions, market makers and businesses worldwide.”
The investment comes after Mariano Belinky, managing partner at Santander InnoVentures told CoinDesk that distributed ledger technology could transform the banking industry.
Belinky said: “We believe Ripple possesses the talent, technology, and momentum to address many of these scenarios, and are actively exploring where and how to best apply Ripple technology inside the bank. Ripple and Santander share a common vision of the future of the industry, and we intend to jointly advocate it in the community.”
Back in June, Santander also commissioned The FinTech 2.0 Paper which found that blockchain technologies could reduce banks’ infrastructural costs by $15–$20bn a year by 2022 through eradicating central authorities and bypassing slow, expensive payment networks.
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