Digital Asset, the company developing the Canton Network, has raised $355 million in a new funding round led by a16z crypto.
The round was supported by a range of institutions across TradFi and DeFi, including an Abu Dhabi Investment Authority subsidiary, Apollo Funds, BNP Paribas, Broadridge, Citadel Securities, CME Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Greenwulf Asset Management, Hanwha Investment & Securities, HSBC, Liberty City Ventures, Optiver, Polychain, S&P Global, SBI Group, SoFi, Tradeweb, and William Blair, among others.
Many of these backers are new investors in Canton, Digital Asset CEO Yuval Rooz told The Block in an interview, noting they received equity rather than token allocations. Moreover, many of the backers are also prospective users of Canton, he said.
“When you look at these partners, there are quite significant opportunities that are going to be revealed later as a result of these partnerships,” Rooz said. “Now that we have a really good balance sheet, we can actually invest in these relationships to actually accelerate them moving onchain.”
Rooz said that Digital Asset is already profitable. Expanding the firm’s balance sheet gives it the “freedom to do M&A, to participate in interesting projects,” and to help its partners build onchain businesses, Rooz said, noting that he’s not interested in pursuing the type of circular investment strategies that “you see in crypto,” like pledging capital for their partners’ funds.
