Led by a16z crypto, the new funding will support the adoption of Canton across regulated financial markets

Digital Asset (DA), the creator of Canton, announced a $355 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto fund, a16z crypto, with participation from leading institutions across traditional and decentralized finance, including 7RIDGE, ABN Amro, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (through a wholly owned subsidiary), Alumni Ventures, Apollo Funds, BNP Paribas, Broadridge, Citadel Securities, CME Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Greenwulf Asset Management, Hanwha Investment & Securities, HSBC, iCapital, Liberty City Ventures, Optiver, Polychain, R136 Ventures, S&P Global, SBI Group, Smash Capital, SoFi, Tradeweb, and William Blair. Financial Technology Partners (FT Partners) served as the exclusive strategic and financial advisor to DA on this transaction.

The funding will support DA’s next phase of growth as more institutions bring assets, applications, and regulated workflows onto Canton. DA plans to use the capital to expand offerings across the Canton ecosystem, deepen engagement with developers and financial institutions, and support continued network growth.

While much of the blockchain sector continues to search for durable real-world use cases, DA has designed Canton to address one of the central barriers to blockchain adoption in financial markets: enabling institutions to use shared infrastructure while preserving the privacy, compliance, control, and interoperability required in regulated finance.

The round also marks the start of a partnership between Digital Asset and a16z crypto, giving DA access to a16z crypto’s expertise across company building, crypto, policy, and research as Canton scales and the ecosystem expands.

“Blockchain adoption will be defined by practical, production-grade applications in the world’s largest markets,” said Yuval Rooz, Co-Founder and CEO of Digital Asset. “For capital markets to move onchain, institutions need infrastructure that reflects how they actually operate– with privacy, compliance, scale, and interoperability built in from the start. Canton was purpose-built for this, and Digital Asset is working with more than 700 ecosystem participants to make Canton the core infrastructure for global finance. This investment brings additional expertise, reach, and ecosystem support at an important moment for both Digital Asset and Canton’s growth.”

“One of the most compelling blockchain opportunities is no longer theoretical; it is emerging as real-world assets and institutional workflows move onchain,” said Ali Yahya, General Partner at a16z crypto. “Digital Asset has built one of the clearest examples of blockchain product-market fit in regulated finance. We believe that Digital Asset is building foundational infrastructure for the next generation of financial markets.”

With support from existing ecosystem participants and new entrants, DA will continue expanding the assets, applications, and participants on Canton. The company will focus on use cases where shared, privacy-enabled infrastructure can reduce friction and improve capital efficiency– including tokenization, collateral mobility, settlement, payments, and other regulated financial workflows.

Source: Digital Asset