Blockchain consortium R3 has raised a $107m series A round of funding from top banks like HSBC, Barclays, UBS and Wells Fargo
One of the biggest consortium’s working on blockchain technology has raised $107m from the world’s top banks and other big name investors, it’s been revealed.
R3 founder and chief executive David Rutter announced the huge figure for its series A round on stage at a blockchain conference in New York, calling the investment “unprecedented”.
Investors include HSBC, Barclays, UBS, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Nomura and more financial institutions, numbering more than 40.
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And that figure is set to rise as R3 plans to raise a third tranche of cash in the round later in the year from more investors who are not members of the consortium or institutional investors.
Intel and Singapore’s state private equity investment firm Temasek Holdings are among the few investors to take part which are not part of the group.
The group is working on a smart contracts platform called Corda which uses blockchain’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) to speed up the cost of settling transactions and reduce costs.
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“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,” said Rutter.
R3 has more than 80 members, including banks, clearing houses, exchanges, market infrastructure providers, asset managers, central banks, regulators, and professional service firms.
Missing from the huge line-up of banks, however, are high profile former members Goldman Sachs and Santander which left earlier this year and JP Morgan which quit last month.
Who invested in R3?
Banco Bradesco
Bangkok Bank
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Bank of Montreal
BNYMellon
Barclays
BBVA
BNP Paribas
B3
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
Citi
Commerzbank
Commonwealth Bank of America
Credit Suisse
CTBC FInancial Holding
Daiwa Securities Group
Danske Bank
Deutsche Bank
HSBC
ING
Intel Capital
Intesa Sanpaolo
Itau Unibanco
Mitsubishi FInancial Group
Mizuho
Natixis
Nomura
Nordea Bank
Northern Trust
OP Cooperative
Ping An
Royal Bank of Canada
SBI Group
SEB
Societe Generale
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation
TD Bank Group
Temasek
The Bank of Novia ScotIa
The Royal Bank of Scotland
US Bank
UBS
Wells Fargo
Westpac