Founded in 2012 and based in San Francisco, California, Ripple Labs has created a cross-border payments solution for financial institutions seeking to process and settle payments across country lines. By using Ripple’s flagship XRP Ledger, XRP digital currency, and proprietary blockchain technology, these enterprises can complete financial transactions swiftly and securely. Let’s dive into Ripple Labs’ history and milestones to shed insight on what might make this company stand out from other crypto companies.
Ripple Labs’ History
In 2011, three developers were fascinated by newly emerging Bitcoin: David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto. However, they recognized there was a substantial amount of waste inherent to mining the cryptocurrency. In a May 2011 forum post, McCaleb outlined ideas for a more sustainable system, “Bitcoin without mining”, asking for community input. While forum members held conflicting opinions on the topic, the trio continued their work to improve what they saw as the fundamental limitations of Bitcoin. In June 2012 under the name NewCoin, which quickly became OpenCoin, the three launched their native currency. Using Bitcoin’s “BTC” naming convention, they named their nascent currency Ripple “XRP”.
OpenCoin → Ripple Labs
When approaching customers in the early stages of the project, there seemed to be some confusion differentiating between the Ripple XRP project and OpenCoin as a company. As the community started referring to the digital currency as XRP, the team decide to rebrand the company to Ripple Labs in 2013, maintaining that early identity.
Growth of Ripple Labs
As the company developed, XRP transactions were tracked on the XRP ledger. Use cases emerged to help businesses manage liquidity in cross-border transactions where currency conversions might muddy the transparency of the transactions. XRP started to act as a “global currency” that could be exchanged freely across borders and then converted into a country’s native fiat currency like dollars, pounds, or euros. As the company has grown, Ripple’s identity and mission has stayed true to find a more sustainable Bitcoin alternative with the inherent benefits of a digital currency.[1]
Ripple Labs Milestones
Ripple has achieved numerous milestones within the past few years, including net XRP coin sales of $361.06M in Q1 2023, an increase of 60% from Q4 2022[2]. Ripple’s current CEO since 2015, Brad Garlinghouse, stated in January 2024 that the company currently holds over $1 billion in cash and over $25 billion worth of crypto, mostly XRP coins, on its balance sheet.[3]
Currently used by more than 300 organizations[4], including RocketFuel, Modulr, Induslnd Bank, and Travelex Bank[5], Ripple holds partnerships with Mastercard[6], the National Bank of Georgia[7], and was approved by the Dubai Financial Services Authority[8].
Ripple Labs Funding Rounds
Ripple has raised $293.91M over 14 funding rounds[9]. The following is a breakdown of the larger named funding rounds.
Seed
Already backed by Google Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, Ripple secured $3.5M in seed funding in November 2013. New investors at this round included Core Innovation Capital, Venture 51, and Camp One Ventures. This brought Ripple’s funding thus far to $9M[10].
Series A
In May 2015, Ripple announced that it has closed $28M in Series A funding. It drew funding from the venture arms of U.S. futures and options exchange CME Group and the data storage firm SeaGate Technology along with a mixture of new and existing investors. The funds aimed to fuel international expansion efforts, particularly in Asia. Current CEO at the time, Chris Larsen, stated it would also facilitate access to liquidity, enabling new customers to come onboard[11]. Ripple extended its Series A round in October 2015 with an additional $4M in Series A funding, bring the total for the Series A to $32M[12].
Series B
Just over a year after securing Series A funding, Ripple closed $55M in Series B financing. Aimed to help accelerate rapid customer growth, pursue strategic partnerships, and grow the team internationally, new investors included Standard Chartered, Accenture Ventures, SCB Digital Ventures, and SBI Holdings[13].
Series C
Its most recent named funding round came in December 2019. Ripple secured $200M in Series C funding and Tetragon lead the round with participation from SBI Holdings and Route 66 Ventures. This brought Ripple’s valuation to $10B. At the time of funding, Ripple had topped 300 customers and had sold $66.24M in XRP tokens in the third quarter of 2019[14].
Ripple Labs Awards
The following are some notable awards that Ripple has been given in the recent past:
- Named the best cross-border payment platform and the best defi infrastructure platform at the 2024 Fintech Breakthrough Awards[15]
- Awarded the “Sustainability in Fintech Innovation of the Year” and the “CBDC Innovation” award at Juniper Research’s Future Digital Awards for Fintech & Payments 2023
Final Thoughts
Ripple Labs has had an interesting journey from its founding in 2012 but through the years, it has remained true to its original mission of removing negative mining impacts from its cryptocurrency to let the benefits prevail. Going through multiple funding rounds and receiving notable awards, Ripple’s cross-border payments solution has been pivotal in helping businesses conduct transactions across country lines. It will be interesting to see what’s next for Ripple.
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[1] https://xrpl.org/about/history/
[2] https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/ripples-xrp-sales-soar-to-142-million-in-record-breaking-december/
[3] https://www.reuters.com/technology/ripple-buy-back-285-million-its-shares-valuing-company-11-bln-sources-2024-01-10/
[4] https://www.linkedin.com/company/rippleofficial/
[5] https://ripple.com/customers/
[6] https://www.theblock.co/post/246140/mastercard-cbdc-ripple-consensys
[7] https://coinjournal.net/news/georgia-selects-ripple-as-key-partner-for-its-digital-lari-pilot-project/
[8] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231102179532/en/DIFC-Champions-Dubai-as-a-Global-Crypto-Hub-with-Approval-of-XRP-Under-its-Virtual-Assets-Regime
[9] https://www.cbinsights.com/company/ripple-labs/financials
[10] https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2013/11/12/online-payment-network-ripple-labs-receives-35-million-in-new-funding/
[11] https://ripple.com/ripple-press/ripple-labs-closes-28-million-series-a-funding-round/
[12] https://www.finsmes.com/2015/10/ripple-raises-4m-in-series-a-funding.html#google_vignette
[13] https://ripple.com/ripple-press/ripple-raises-55-million-series-b-funding/
[14] https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/20/ripple-raises-200-million-to-improve-global-payments/
[15] https://u.today/ripple-labs-hits-rare-win-in-payments-technology
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