Ripple $500M raise at $40B led by Fortress and Citadel join global

Ripple has closed a large strategic equity infusion, securing $500 million from a consortium of institutional investors at a post-money valuation of $40 billion. The capital comes amid the company’s strongest growth phase to date and follows a recent large tender offer executed at the same valuation.

The $500 million funding round was spearheaded by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group and Citadel Securities, signaling deepening ties between Ripple and major players in traditional finance. Other participants in the round include Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital, Brevan Howard, and Marshall Wace—a diverse mix of crypto-native and global hedge funds. Their involvement underscores a growing institutional appetite for regulated blockchain infrastructure and highlights Ripple’s expanding role in bridging traditional financial markets with digital asset ecosystems.

Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple’s chief executive, framed the transaction as validation from sophisticated investors of the firm’s product roadmap. Executives point to a rapid expansion from a single payments use case in 2012 to a diversified financial infrastructure provider today — now offering custody, stablecoin rails and an institutional prime business.

Behind the headlines, the company’s traction is measurable: Ripple reports its cross-border payments volumes have topped $95 billion, and it operates under roughly 75 regulatory authorisations globally. Its stablecoin, RLUSD, surpassed a $1 billion market capitalisation less than a year after launch, and the firm has integrated RLUSD into institutional workflows including collateral for trading and treasury purposes.

Ripple has been active on the strategic acquisition front, completing multiple buys in recent years to build out payments and custody capabilities and to enter prime brokerage and treasury management for corporate and institutional clients. One such deal converted Hidden Road into Ripple Prime, which management says has seen client collateral and daily transaction counts expand significantly since integration.

For shareholders and employees, liquidity has been a stated priority: the company says it has repurchased a substantial portion of outstanding equity in recent years and held a prior tender offer that attracted institutional interest at the same valuation. The $500 million transaction complements those moves by adding new long-term investors to the cap table rather than serving as purely secondary sales.

Looking ahead, Ripple’s management says the fresh proceeds will support product development, geographic expansion and partnerships with financial counterparties. With global cross-border flows remaining a multi‑trillion-dollar opportunity, Ripple’s bet is that narrowing the frictions in corporate treasury and institutional trading with digital-asset rails will drive the next phase of growth.