Payments company Ripple raised $200 million in Series C funding round.led by investment firm Tetragon with participation from Japanese companies SBI Holdings and Route 66 Ventures.
Thus, the company intends to accelerate the implementation of the XRP cryptocurrency and its own blockchain network, the XRP Ledger. Ripple also plans to hire new employees.
We are in a strong financial position andready to bring our vision to life. While other blockchain projects have slowed down and, in some cases, shut down, we have taken a leading position in the industry in 2019, – said Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple.
As the round closes, the company's valuation fromSan Francisco grew to $10 billion. According to the 2019 list of global unicorns published by research firm Hurun, Ripple's valuation was $5 billion.
Garlinghouse told Fortune that Ripple is notneeds money, but additional finance will provide “balance sheet flexibility.” Indeed, according to The Block, Ripple has already sold $260 million worth of XRP over the past four quarters.
Ripple's current customer basehas more than 300 clients. With the new additions in 2020, Garlinghouse expects the company's customer base to grow 30% to 40% and transaction volume to increase by more than 600%.