Ripple Acquires Metaco For $250 Million

In 2020, Metaco raised $17 million in a Series A investment round. Prior to its acquisition, the business raised a total of $20 million.

In a $250 million acquisition, Swiss digital asset custodian and tokenization provider Metaco was bought by Ripple, the company behind the XRP token and the name-brand payments network, on May 17. According to Ripple, the acquisition will allow it to custody, issue, and settle tokenized assets as part of its enterprise offering. Developers for the company wrote: 

“Access to Ripple’s established base of hundreds of customers, capital to address new demand, and resources to continue delivering on its commitment to banking and institutional clients will dramatically accelerate Metaco’s growth trajectory.”

By 2030, Ripple projects that the institutional cryptocurrency custody industry will be worth $10 trillion. Additionally, according to its analysis, within the next three years “most global finance leaders at financial institutions” intend to employ crypto custody solutions. It uses the plans for crypto custody management by BNY Mellon and the launch of crypto custody services by Nasdaq in the second quarter as examples. Metaco’s founder and CEO, Adrien Treccani, said:

“This deal will make it possible for Metaco to leverage the benefit from Ripple’s strength and market dominance to achieve our objectives and provide value to our clients more quickly. We anticipate continuing to meet the exceptional institutional demand.

The main product from Metaco is Harmonize, which the company claims is used by large financial institutions as an institutional standard for digital asset custody and tokenization infrastructure. According to Crunchbase, Metaco, which was established in 2015, had received $20 million via four rounds prior to the announcement on May 17. According to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, “Ripple will keep pushing our advantage in the areas critical to crypto infrastructure.”