Digital Asset Nabs More Than $50 Million in Funding from 13 Firms

ABN Amro, Accenture, ASX Limited, BNP Paribas, Broadridge Financial Solutions, Citi, CME Ventures, Deutsche Börse Group, Icap, JPMorgan, Santander InnoVentures, Depository and Clearing Corp. (DTCC) and the PNC Financial Services Group have all invested in the blockchain specialist.

A spokesperson for Digital Asset says the funding will be used to hire support staff to assist with the rapidly expanding list of applications for technology.

Digital Asset is also expanding its board of directors to nine members. Catherine Flax, head of commodity derivatives, foreign exchange and local markets in the Americas for BNP Paribas; Ashwin Kumar, group head of product development at Deutsche Börse Group; Sanoke Viswanathan, chief administrative officer at JPMorgan's corporate and investment bank; and Mike Bodson, president and CEO of DTCC, will join Blythe Masters, Donald Wilson, Sunil Hirani, Cristóbal Conde and an additional director still to be named.

Exchange Partnership

In addition to an investment into the firm, ASX has picked Digital Asset to help develop distributed ledger technology for the Australian market. Initially, the focus will be on post-trade services in the cash equities market.

The news is part of an announcement the exchange made in February 2015 that it would be replacing or upgrading all of its main trading and post-trade platforms. Phase one of the program will last until the end of 2016 and focus on ASX's trading and risk management systems.

Phase two will look at ASX's post-trade services. Currently, Clearing House Electronic Sub-register System (Chess) handles all of ASX's clearing and settlement services.

A solution will be developed during the first six to 12 months that demonstrates the benefits of distributed ledger technology.

The Digital Asset spokesperson declined to comment on the ASX announcement.

"Distributed ledger technology could provide a once in a generation opportunity to reduce cost, time and complexity in the post-trade environment of Australia's equity market," said Elmer Funke Kupper, managing director and CEO of ASX, in a statement. "Moreover, it could stimulate greater innovation by ASX and other providers of services to issuers, investors and intermediaries. ASX and Digital Asset will work together to design a solution and share the potential benefits with clients and regulators."

Eight of the new investors made statements in the press release:

Sanoke Viswanathan, JPMorgan

"We are proud to be a lead investor in this round of financing. Distributed ledger technology has the potential to transform the way our industry does business, and we believe Digital Asset has the right talent and technology to make it a reality."

Elmer Funke Kupper, ASX

"ASX believes that Australia can be a world leader in the development of innovative post-trade solutions. Our investment in Digital Asset represents a commitment to sizing the potential of distributed ledger technology to reduce cost, risk and complexity for ASX's broad stakeholder base, including issuers, investors, intermediaries and regulators."

Olivier Osty, global head of sales and trading for global markets at BNP Paribas

"In today's digital economy improving efficiency, security, compliance and settlement speed are key. BNP Paribas is excited to be partnering with Digital Asset and we look forward to working together to explore how this technology can help shape the future for financial services."

Carsten Kengeter, CEO of Deutsche Börse Group

"We look forward to working closely with Digital Asset and other stakeholders in this innovative technology. This relationship will leverage our ambitions to utilize distributed ledger technology to bring effective solutions to our clients."

Owen Jelf, global managing director of Accenture's capital markets business

"Early on, Accenture recognized the potential benefits that blockchain-enabled distributed ledgers could offer to the capital markets and wider financial services industry. By investing in Digital Asset, we're working to help banks and other leading financial institutions around the world bring more efficiency to their front-, middle- and back-office trading operations and unlock new revenue opportunities. We believe this is a technology that has the potential to dramatically change the financial services landscape."

Tim Gokey, COO of Broadridge Financial Solutions

"The financial services industry is undergoing significant transformation and innovative technologies like Distributed ledger technology have the potential to usher in a new era of automation, efficiency, process reengineering and operational excellence across the financial ecosystem. We are delighted to be a strategic investor in Digital Asset and we look forward to continuing to build differentiated solutions that will help our global clients achieve their growth and operational goals."

Mike Bodson, President and CEO of DTCC

"Distributed ledger technology offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to re-imagine and modernize the industry's infrastructure to address long-standing operational challenges. This investment positions DTCC to play a leading role in fostering industry-wide adoption and helping to introduce the standards, governance and technology to support distributed ledger implementations. We look forward to working with our partners at Digital Asset to explore opportunities to improve upon the existing infrastructure in certain defined areas where automation is limited or non-existent and where the technology provides a clear benefit over existing processes."

Johan van Hall, member of the ABN Amro managing board

"The participation of ABN Amro in Digital Asset demonstrates our belief that new technology will play an important role in innovations in the financial system. It will be key to develop new products and services and to make global financial markets operate more efficiently in the interest of our clients. Digital Asset is uniquely positioned in this emerging technology."