USDDigital Asset Raises $355M for Canton Expansion
a16z crypto leads new round for institutional blockchain developer
TL;DR
- Digital Asset Holdings raised $355 million in a new funding round led by a16z crypto.
- The Canton Network developer said the capital will support partnerships, M&A and ecosystem expansion.
- Digital Asset CEO Yuval Rooz said many backers are prospective Canton users and received equity rather than tokens.
Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.
Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!
Digital Asset Holdings LLC, the developer behind the Canton Network, raised $355 million in a new funding round led by a16z crypto, adding fresh capital for partnerships, M&A and ecosystem expansion around its institutional blockchain network.
The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s main crypto fund, and one account of the raise said the venture capital firm contributed $100 million.
The funding brought in a broad group of financial and crypto investors, 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.
Digital Asset CEO Yuval Rooz said many of the backers are new investors in Canton and are also prospective users of the network. Rooz said those investors received equity rather than token allocations, making the raise a strategic equity financing round rather than a token-based fundraising event.
We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!
Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.
Digital Asset Positions Canton for Institutional Finance
Canton Network is described as an institutional blockchain network focused on regulated finance, tokenized assets, privacy, interoperability and controlled data sharing between financial institutions. Digital Asset designed Canton as a public, permissionless Layer 1 blockchain with configurable privacy features aimed at institutional finance.
Digital Asset was founded in 2014. Canton supports applications written in Daml, Digital Asset’s open-source smart contract language, and is designed to support tokenized asset workflows across multiple parties while keeping transaction data confidential.
Canton calls it a layer-1 smart-contract blockchain with configurable privacy and controls for Real-World Asset and traditional finance use cases. Canton uses a two-tier consensus mechanism that is said to allow unlimited horizontal scalability while maintaining full smart contract interoperability.
Digital Asset says Canton has supported $6 trillion in tokenized issuance. That figure refers to tokenized issuance, not total value locked, active liquidity or assets under management.
Rooz said Digital Asset is already profitable. He said the new capital gives the company a “really good balance sheet” and allows Digital Asset to invest behind partnerships to accelerate partners moving onchain.
Rooz said the balance sheet gives Digital Asset the “freedom to do M&A,” participate in interesting projects and help partners build onchain businesses. He also said Digital Asset is not interested in strategies such as pledging capital into partners’ funds simply to create the appearance of ecosystem growth.
Rooz said Digital Asset has been intentional with its go-to-market strategy and has been developing institutional relationships “for many years,” framing the raise as the result of a longer enterprise partnership effort rather than a short-term market push.
a16z crypto General Partner Ali Yahya said Digital Asset has built one of the clearest examples of blockchain product-market fit in regulated finance. Yahya also said a16z believes Digital Asset is building foundational infrastructure for the next generation of financial markets.
Institutional Backers and Earlier Funding
JPMorgan and DTCC are named as major institutions building on Canton’s privacy-preserving network. Visa became a Canton Super Validator in March and also added Canton to its stablecoin settlement pilot alongside Base, Polygon, Arc and Tempo.
The latest round follows a series of financings that have steadily expanded Digital Asset’s institutional investor base. The presence of banks, market infrastructure firms, trading firms, venture investors and asset managers also mirrors Canton’s stated focus on regulated financial markets, tokenized assets and privacy-preserving onchain workflows.
The company’s latest financing gives Digital Asset more room to support partners, consider acquisitions and expand the Canton ecosystem while maintaining a focus on institutional adoption. The core distinction in the round is that many new backers are described not only as investors, but also as potential users of Canton.
FAQ
Who led Digital Asset’s latest funding round?
a16z crypto led the $355 million round.
What blockchain does Digital Asset develop?
Digital Asset develops the Canton Network.
What is Canton designed for?
Canton is designed for institutional finance, tokenized assets, privacy and controlled data sharing.
Did investors receive tokens?
Yuval Rooz said many investors received equity rather than token allocations.
This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.
