Axoni, a blockchain startup, was able to raise $32 million dollars in order to offer better technology that interoperates with Ethereum’s blockchain. Different important companies participated in the Series B investment, including Goldman Sachs, Nyca Partners, JP Morgan, Citigroup, and many others.
With the funds received, the startup will be completing some projects such as the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation’s effort to build a custom-built blockchain platform.
But this is not just another company working in the blockchain and virtual currency space. Indeed, several investors in the New York-based fim are also clients that turn blockchain technology into real distributed ledger apps.
“There are very strategic investors,” explained Greg Schvey, co-founder and CEO of Axoni. “We have deep strategic and commercial engagements with most of them.”
The investment brings total capital raised to $55 million dollars.
Goldman Sachs decided to invest in the company through the bank’s Principal Strategic Investments division, that makes investments with a focus on the bank’s business interests. Before, Goldman Sachs was an indirect investor in Axoni and other projects in the space as well.
The company said that it wants to keep investing and help existing clients integrate their own users into three platforms nearing completion. Moreover, they plan to increase the number of employees working at Axoni.
In less than a month after Axoni closed the $18 million dollars Serias A, which was led by Wells Fargo and NEX Group, the firm announced a new partnership with the largest financial infrastructure in the world, DTCC, processing over $1.6 quadrillion dollars in securities every single year.
Nyca Capital founder and former Visa president Hans Morris, said:
“What’s really tough, is getting a large group of these big organizations to agree. And he’s really effective at it. He’s young enough to be close to the evolving technology, but he also has a rare combination of resilience, prudence and aggressiveness.”
At the moment, the biggest project that the company has in mind will be performed side by side with DTCC, the New Jersey-based clearing company. With blockchain technology it could be possible to send and receive money without having to depend on a middlemen.
IBM is currently participating with these companies as well, after being designated to lead the initiative. DTCC announced in January 2017 that it was working with Axoni’s blockchain technology to re-platform the Trade Information Warehouse that serves every global derivatives dealer in the world.
However, DTCC did not participate in the investment round. Indeed, DTCC decided to invest in Digital Asset, Axoni’s competitor, that is working in order to improve the platform of the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).
Axoni is also working to open source the Axcore blockchain protocol to further link the world’s financial infrastructure using blockchain technology. In addition to it, the Axlang smart contract language can be compiled using Ethereum’s Virtual Machine (EVM).
“The notion of public and private being separate, really creates a false-dichotomy,” says Schvey. “The line between them is blurring substantially, particularly if you look at it as a technologist. You really don’t have to come at it with the religious fervor that people have had, which is really coming down quite a bit.”
