We.trade, a Dublin-headquartered blockchain banking consortium whose members includes HSBC, Santander, KBC and Deutsche Bank, has raised €5.5 million.
The joint venture, which comprises of 12 banks and IBM, has developed a blockchain-enabled digital trading platform based for global transactions across trade finance, insurance and logistics.
Founded in 2017, the consortium also includes CaixaBank, Erste Group, Nordea, Rabobank, Societé Generale, UBS and Unicredit as members. Overall, the group’s technology is currently licensed by 16 banks across 15 countries.
We.trade ‘s solution is based on the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric and runs on the IBM Blockchain Platform
CRIF, the Italian provider of credit information that acquired Irish business data provider Vision-Net in early 2018, has come on board as a backer in the latest funding round, putting in €2.5 million.
Six of the platform’s existing backers including HSBC, La Caixa, Nordea and Santander, invested a further €3.3 million.
The funds are to be used for product development and sales activity, the company said.
Alliance
CRIF, has formed a strategic alliance with We.trade as part of its investment in the company.
The Bologna-based company provides information on over 230 million companies globally with its customers including over 10,500 financial institutions, 1,000 insurance companies, 82,000 business clients and 1 million consumers.
“CRIF’s market leading business information and ratings services perfectly complement We.trade’s vision to make it easier for buyers and sellers to trade goods and services. We are excited to work with CRIF to develop the next phase of our journey.” said Omer Ahsan, chairman of We.trade.
We.trade’s future was reportedly in doubt last year after it slashed jobs and struggled to secure funding from some member companies even as IBM took a 7 per cent stake in the venture.
The company had been hoping to raise some €15 million last year, according to media reports.
Company documents filed in Dublin show We.trade had previously raised close to €12 million from backers prior to the recent fundraise.