Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO at American fintech Ripple Labs, is reportedly planning to make several strategic investments and acquisitions.
A few deals are already being negotiated. This, after the San Francisco-based company released its Q2 2019 report, which revealed that Ripple had sold $251 million worth of its native digital asset XRP, a 48% increase (in total sales) from the previous quarter.
While speaking to Yahoo Finance, Garlinghouse stated:
“We’re in a very strong position, our business is growing strongly, we have a strong balance sheet, and I intend to press our advantage.”
Ripple Invests $30 Million into MoneyGram Shares
In June 2019, Ripple committed to investing $30 million in Dallas, Texas-based international money transfer firm MoneyGram. According to the agreement between the two companies, Ripple acquired a 10% share in MoneyGram by purchasing the company’s shares at $4.10 (per share).
As part of the deal, MoneyGram could make Ripple invest an additional $20 million in the next two years by acquiring more shares for $4.10 (per share).
On August 2, 2019, MoneyGram’s management revealed during an earnings call that the company was using Ripple’s XRP-based cross-border transaction solution, xRapid, to make remittance payments.
Explaining the importance of upgrading international payment systems to keep pace with the rapidly evolving fintech industry, Alex Holmes, the CEO at MoneyGram said:
“It’s imperative that we continue to improve our platform and provide the most effective solution to get funds from point A to point B. Through Ripple’s xRapid product, we will have the ability to instantly settle funds from US dollars to destination currencies on a 24/7 basis, which has the potential to revolutionize our operations and dramatically streamline our global liquidity management.”
Garlinghouse confirmed that MoneyGram is using Ripple’s proprietary payments technology to conduct transactions involving conversions from the US dollar to the Mexican peso and from the USD to Philippine peso. The Harvard Business School graduate noted that Ripple will “ramp” up its cross-border payments services in 2020.
Commenting on Ripple’s investment and overall business strategy, Garlinghouse remarked:
“Anything we can do to accelerate our growth and give us more capabilities that serve customer needs is a good place to be.
Ripple, the Largest Blockchain Investor?
He also claims:
“[Ripple Labs is] probably the largest investor in blockchain and crypto on the planet. We’ve publicly announced we’ve made about $500m [of investments] in the space over the last 18 months.
During the first half of this year, Ripple has released 1.6 billion XRP from its escrow accounts in order to build various projects on RippleNet, a decentralized network of institutional payment providers (banks and money transfer services) that use Ripple’s tech to conduct transactions.
Notably, Ripple currently owns 55% of the total XRP supply, valued at around $13.7 billion at current market prices.