Ripple hits $15bn valuation amid share buyback
Distributed ledger technology company Ripple has hit a $15bn valuation after it bought back shares from Series C fundraisers.
Ripple today announced it had repurchased shares distributed in a December 2019 Series C funding round which raised $200m and valued the business at $10bn. The move comes after the company’s “most successful year to date” with Ripple insisting it is in a robust financial position despite headwinds from its ongoing legal battle with US financial regulator, the SEC.
“‘Slow down’ is not in our vocabulary. Even with 2021’s headwinds, it was our best year on record, and Ripple’s financial position ($1B in the bank) is the strongest we’ve ever been,” tweeted chief executive Brad Garlinghouse.
The company says that transactions on its RippleNet platform doubled in 2021 while the central banks of Bhutan and Palau were signed as CBDC clients.
“Ripple’s business is booming – last year was not just a year of incredible growth, but our most successful and lucrative year to date, despite the headwinds from the SEC,” the company said in a statement.
The digital payments firm has been embroiled in an SEC lawsuit since late 2020. The SEC tried to sue Ripple and two top executives for issuing and selling unregistered securities in the form of crypto asset XRP. In its defence, the San Francisco-based start up argues that the SEC did not provide “fair notice” that it would treat XRP differently to crypto currencies Bitcoin and Ether.
During the share buy back Ripple snapped up shares sold to UK investor Tetragon Financial group, which attempted to sue Ripple early last year in order to back out of its investment following the SEC suit.
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