Ripple Invests Half a Billion Dollars to Drive Growth of XRP Ecosystem

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Ripple is investing in blockchain and crypto-related companies through its fundraising arm Xpring at a rapid rate.

The San Francisco payments startup says it just crossed half a billion dollars in total investments.

Ripple created Xpring in May of last year, with the mission of providing investments and grants to entrepreneurs who utilize the XRP token and the XRP ledger.

“As a major contributor to the XRP Ledger codebase and large holder of XRP, we often hear from entrepreneurs and developers that they’d like support in one form or another to help them with their XRP-related projects. As one of the few blockchain companies with traction for a non-speculative use case, we feel we’re uniquely positioned to support entrepreneurs in a meaningful way.”

Xpring recently created a $100-million fund with the blockchain gaming company Forte, which will be used to bring digital assets like XRP to thriving mainstream video games with large numbers of daily active users.

This follows an investment in Kava Labs, which is developing an open payment system for cryptocurrencies, and funding for Dharma Protocol, which aims to create a crypto-based decentralized loan platform.

Ripple is also backing Raised in Space Enterprises, a startup that plans to use digital assets like XRP to revitalize the music industry. Xpring has also invested in XRPL Labs, a new company created by the avid XRP developer Wietse Wind, and backed Robot Ventures in March, an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in fintech and crypto companies.

In addition, Xpring contributed to a new round of fundraising at SendFriend, which will use Ripple’s XRP-based payment solution xRapid to lower the cost of sending money overseas. SendFriend will start the initiative by giving expatriates in the US a new way to send money to the Philippines.

Xpring has also funded the micropayments startup Coil, digital goods marketplace Omni, artist monetization platform SB Projects, investment firm Blockchain Capital, Lightning Network privacy company Bolt Labs, security token company Securitize and the Interledger Protocol studio Strata Labs.