Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas lead Fnality's £77.7M funding round

Fnality, a London-based startup working on distributed Financial Market Infrastructures (dFMIs), specifically blockchain-based payments, has raised £77.7 million in a Series B funding round.

The growth round investment was led by Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas and saw participation from DTCC, Euroclear, Nomura, and WisdomTree. Existing investors Banco Santander, BNY Mellon, Barclays, CIBC, Commerzbank, ING, Lloyds Banking Group, Nasdaq Ventures, State Street, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and UBS also contributed to the round.

The builders of a digital cash system that uses blockchain technology to settle financial transactions have raised £132.7 million to date, all prior to Bank of England approval.

24/7 DLT

The new round of capital is slated to be used to further develop what the company is terming a “world-first global liquidity management ecosystem”, one that seeks to bridge the divide between mainstream and digital finance. 

According to Fnality, leveraging distributed ledger technology (DLT), its network for digital payments for both wholesale financial markets and emerging tokenised asset markets will streamline processes, reduce costs, and ensure regulatory compliance, all the while offering new products and access to new markets.

Fnality CEO Rhomaios Ram elaborates:

“Our Series B funding round represents the financial sector’s desire for a central bank money backed blockchain-based settlement solution that bridges the gap between traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralised finance (DeFi) in wholesale markets. 

“Each Fnality Payment System utilises DLT to provide a 24/7 payment rail with the ability to reduce settlement cycles to real-time, while significantly improving intraday liquidity management and marking significant innovation in the speed, functionality, and resilience of wholesale payments.” 

On the investment, global head of digital assets at Goldman Sachs, Mathew McDermott commented:

“Fnality’s solution is a key enabler for the digital asset ecosystem and the company is well-positioned to be at the forefront of payment innovations and institutional adoption of DLT. 

“Fnality’s application of blockchain technology offers a resilient way for institutions to use central bank funds across a wide set of potential use cases, including instantaneous, cross-border, cross-currency payments, collateral mobility, and security transactions.”

Lead image by liuzishan