Ripple Invests in Zilo, Licuido in Tokenized Capital Markets Push

Ripple announced two new strategic investments as the blockchain-focused fintech seeks to expand access to tokenized financial assets on its blockchain ledger.

The company said it made strategic investments in Zilo, which provides global transfer agency asset solutions for wealth managers, and in Licuido, a tokenization solutions provider regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority, according to a Monday announcement.

Financial details for the investments were not provided. UK-based Zilo has raised $58.7 million in total equity funding, according to data compiled by Traxcn. Licuido is also based in the UK.

Ripple expects these deals to bring regulated transfer agency, issuance, and collateral mobility to its XRP Ledger (XRPL) infrastructure.

Combining the investments aim to help Ripple address the issues tied to idle collateral by enabling tokenized funds to be used as collateral from the point of issuance. The announcement came a week after London-based asset manager Aviva Investors launched a tokenized share class of its US Dollar Liquidity Fund on XRPL, after receiving approval from the Central Bank of Ireland.

Last month, Ripple launched Ripple Mint, a platform that gives institutions new ways to access, mint, redeem and manage its US dollar-pegged stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD). 

XRPL is the 11th-largest blockchain network with $368 million in tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). Ethereum ranked first with $17.1 billion in tokenized RWAs, according to data provider RWA.xyz. 

Total RWA holders increased by 50% to 1.57 million during the past 30 days, while the total value of tokenized assets rose by 1.5% to $37.3 billion.

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