A report from Ripple, created with CB Insights and the UK Centre for Blockchain Technologies, has shown that several large financial institutions have backed hundreds of funding rounds in the blockchain industry.
Between 2020 and 2024, traditional banks invested in 345 different blockchain-related companies. Most of these were early-stage rounds, which helped new projects get off the ground.
Citigroup and Goldman Sachs led the group with 18 investments each, followed closely by JPMorgan and Mitsubishi UFJ, which both supported 15 deals.
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The report also highlights 33 funding rounds where banks contributed to investments of $100 million or more. These larger deals focused on companies building payment systems, custody services, token infrastructure, and trading platforms.
For instance, CloudWalk, a Brazilian payments firm, raised more than $750 million in two rounds with support from Banco Itaú. In Germany, Solaris received over $100 million from SBI Group and later became a majority acquisition target.
A group of major institutions known as Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) played a notable role, as they contributed to 106 funding rounds. Fourteen of those were $100 million-plus deals.
While US and Japanese banks led in the number of investments, firms in the UK, France, and Singapore were also active. Overall, more than $100 billion was invested in blockchain companies across over 10,000 deals worldwide during the four-year period.
Meanwhile, Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, recently partnered with a group of tech investors to build a new bank called Erebor. What did he say? Read the full story.
