The R3 blockchain consortium has amassed $107 million in a blockchain funding round that has been marked the largest of its kind in the history of distributed ledger technology.
Having already raised record funds, R3 has said that this figure was accrued from two parts of three within its Series A funding round. Major banks were the top contributors, with HSBC and Bank of America Merrill Lynch providing the biggest injection.
Other important participants in the round included UBS and Barclays; these contributors are among forty participants in total in the blockchain funding round. The last part of the funding round will be available for both members and non-members.
Investment expectations were hit hard by the recent news that JP Morgan, a long standing participant, was leaving the consortium, placing its allegianc
e with the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance instead. The Ethereum consortium also has high profile members, including Microsoft and Accenture.
JP Morgan followed major financial organisation Goldman Sachs in leaving the R3 consortium, and others than included Morgan Stanley and Santander. The withdrawal of these members contributed to the consortium falling a long way short of a $150m funding target, raising only $59m.
The R3 consortium is based around an open source platform as an approach to the development of the distributed ledger technology, while the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is rooted in corporate-grade technology. This approach by Ethereum may have gained confidence from investors given the security benefits that the technology provides.
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This latest funding round for R3 is reflective of strong support in spite of the mass exodus of influential organisations from the consortium.
Meanwhile however, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance has continued to gain high profile members, as news earlier this week saw Deloitte and Infosys join the ranks of the consortium, making it a formidable contender for R3.
