Ripple announces $200M share buyback and reaches $15B valuation

Ripple, a blockchain payments company, based in San Francisco, has announced a $200 million Series C share buyback, bringing the company’s valuation to a new high of $15 billion.

The company raised $200 million in a Series C funding round in December 2019, with Tetragon Financial Group, a UK-based investment firm, leading the way alongside SBI Holdings and Route 66 Ventures.

Ripple and its legal battles

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a $1.3 billion financial lawsuit against XRP or Ripple Labs, co-founder Chris Larsen, and CEO Brad Garlinghouse in December 2020, alleging the defendants of misusing the native XRP coin as unregulated digital asset security. As TheCoinRise reported, the CEO in November said that Ripple is making good progress in the case.

Tetragon sued Ripple in Delaware Chancery Court in early January 2021, seeking to enforce its contractual requirement of a buyback clause to the value of its undisclosed investment sum in order to distance themselves from Ripple between their high-profile and publicly open case.

However, the court found in favor of Ripple and against the plaintiff, Tetragon, barely three months later in April, putting an end to the financial conflict.

CEO expresses optimism for 2022

Ripple’s willingness to purchase shares from Tetragon, SBI Holdings, and Route 66 Ventures suggests that the company is trying to boost its financial position, a stance that Garlinghouse hinted at in a recent tweet thread.

“Even with 2021’s headwinds, it was our best year on record,” he stated, revealing that the company’s $1-billion bank balance makes it the “strongest we’ve ever been.”

RippleNet is much more than cross-border payments – it’s bringing crypto-native services such as liquidity to enterprises. Today, the network has a volume run rate >$10B. Huge props to the team for continuously upping their game & leaning into new capabilities every year. 3/4

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) January 26, 2022

Along with the news of the buyback and valuation, Garlinghouse expressed optimism for the future of RippleNet and Ripple X, the latter of which is expected to expand the functionality of the XRP Ledger in a number of new sectors, including NFTs, CBDCs, and interoperable, multichain functionalities, among others.