Intel and major banks pour $107 million into Blockchain

Intel, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, HSBC and dozens of other institutions have invested $107 million into R3, a group developing blockchain-like technology for financial companies.

R3 is a group of major banks that are working together on blockchain – technology that underpins the cryptocurrency bitcoin.

Banks are trying to apply this same principle to many of their processes from asset trading to money transfers. The promise is that distributed ledger technologycan drive down costs and increase the speed of several transactions.

The $107 million funding round for R3 marks the first two tranches of a three tranche financing process, with the final installment likely to be raised later this year.

R3 members could all get a piece of the action with three tiers of investment available. The first tier was open to all investors. The second tier required investors to put in more money but gave them governance responsibilities such as sitting on certain committees. The third tier meant investors had to put a larger sum in but got a board seat.

SBI Group, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, HSBC, Intel and Temasek, were among the top tier investors.

Source: Bloomberg Pro Terminal

Junior Trader Stefan Panteleev

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