Wells Fargo leads funding round for blockchain startup

By Tanaya Macheel for Payments Source

The blockchain startup Axoni has raised $18 million in a Series A funding round led by Wells Fargo and Euclid Opportunities, the fintech investment business of the interdealer brokerage ICAP.

The raise, which brings Axoni’s funding above $20 million, comes as corporate venture capital sources of funding for fintech companies are increasing, while venture capital funding is waning.

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Thomson Reuters also participated in the round, along with venture capitalists Andreessen Horowitz, FinTech Collective, F-Prime Capital Partners, and Digital Currency Group, Axoni announced Thursday. Reuters had reported the participation of Goldman and JPMorgan earlier this week, citing anonymous sources, but the full roster of investors was not previously revealed, nor Wells Fargo’s lead role.

The New York-based Axoni is a capital markets technology firm that specializes in distributed ledger infrastructure. It has spent most of this year collaborating with large financial institutions testing its blockchain and smart contract technology for various use cases.

Axoni “has successfully validated this technology in a variety of capital markets use cases,” C. Thomas Richardson, head of market structure and electronic trading services at Wells Fargo Securities, said in a press release.

First appeared at Payments Source