BBVA participates in the R3’s $107 million fundraising round
BBVA is one of the 40 institutions that invested in the financial technology innovator R3, which just completed two of three tranches in its Series A fundraising round. It raised a total of 107 million. With this investment, BBVA seeks to reinforce its commitment to R3, the largest consortium of global financial institutions collaborating to develop an industry platform and commercial applications for DLT.
SBI Group, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, HSBC, Intel & Temasek, ING, Banco Bradesco, Itaú Unibanco S.A., Natixis, Barclays, UBS, & Wells Fargo are the main investor in this round. BBVA, which was one of the first partners to join the consortium in September 2015, also participated.
R3 will use the funds to accelerate the development of technology and expand strategic partnerships for product deployment. The company’s efforts will focus on Corda, R3’s DLT platform for regulated financial institutions, and its infrastructure network, which will support a vast range of partner-built financial applications that seamlessly operate with each other, and with existing systems and networks.
Since the launch of its DLT initiative, R3 has grown from a staff of eight finance and technology veterans and nine bank members to a global team of over 110 professionals serving over 80 global financial institutions and regulators on six continents. The company’s work is further supported by over 2,000 technology, financial, and legal experts drawn from its global member base. This base includes banks, clearing houses, exchanges, market infrastructure providers, asset managers, central banks, conduct regulators, trade associations, professional services firms and technology companies.
“This massive investment is unprecedented. 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 foundational industry solutions that will be the building blocks of the new financial services infrastructure. R3 has proven that the collaborative model can successfully drive innovation in financial services to a degree never before seen,” said David Rutter, the CEO of R3.
BBVA is exploring the potential of blockchain and DLT technologies that could possibly play a key role in transforming the financial sector. BBVA is member of the R3 consortium, the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance and Hyperledger. These alliances seek to develop common standards and build efficient and secure platforms that allow companies to capitalize on the advantages of DLT in the corporate world.