Ripple, the leader in enterprise blockchain and crypto solutions, announced today it has agreed to acquire Fortress Trust. Fortress Trust is a financial institution that provides licensed Web3 financial, regulatory and technology infrastructure for blockchain innovators.
Through its technology and licensing, Fortress Trust provides critical infrastructure to address the growing enterprise crypto market that complements Ripple’s business and product roadmap. This news follows Ripple’s recent acquisition of crypto custody provider Metaco for $250M - one of the largest deals in the space in 2023.
“As an early investor in Fortress Trust, we’ve had a chance to get to know the team, its vision and technology. Since their launch in 2021, they’ve built an impressive business with recurring revenue and a strong roster of both crypto-native and new-to-crypto customers,” says Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple. “We’re excited to bring on this team and its technology to accelerate our business and continue pressing our advantage in the areas critical to crypto infrastructure.”
With this acquisition, Ripple’s growing portfolio of regulatory licenses expands, as Fortress Trust holds a Nevada Trust license. Ripple and its other subsidiaries collectively hold a NY BitLicense, more than 30 Money Transmitter Licenses across the U.S., and an in-principle Major Payment Institution License from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the country’s Central Bank.
“Licenses are a powerful enabler to build and deliver best-in-class customer experiences for enterprises using Ripple’s crypto infrastructure across our payments and liquidity solutions,” said Monica Long, President at Ripple. “Acquiring Fortress Trust affords us a lot of optionality to both improve the current customer experience in our existing products and explore new, complementary products – all in service of becoming the one-stop shop for enterprises looking to convert, store, and move value on blockchain around the world.”
Best known for its flagship payments products, Ripple was the first company to address the multi-trillion dollar pain points in cross-border payments utilizing blockchain and cryptocurrency. The company focused on building blockchain-enabled payments infrastructure from the ground up, before expanding its product offerings to address new use cases like liquidity management, tokenization and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Today, Ripple serves hundreds of customers in over 55 countries and 6 continents with payout capabilities in 70+ markets.
“We’re extremely pleased that Fortress Trust will be acquired by Ripple, one of the largest and most innovative companies in the industry - it’s a testament to the team and business that we’ve built in a short period of time. Furthermore, we look forward to continuing to collaborate and deepening our partnership with our Web3 payments solution,” said Scott Purcell, CEO of Fortress Blockchain Technologies.
Ripple became a minority investor in Fortress Blockchain Technologies in 2022 as part of its seed funding. Following the closure of the deal, Ripple will also invest in parent company, Fortress Blockchain Technologies and its FortressPay services, which will leverage the global technology and regulatory framework Ripple has built to deliver new and innovative payment solutions to B2B customers around the world. The deal closure is subject to due diligence and regulatory approvals.