Ripple Partner SBI Holdings Invests in Start-up that Investigates Criminal Activity on Digital Ledgers

Elliptic has raised $23 million in a funding round led by Japan’s SBI Holdings to fuel the company's expansion into Asia. The company’s software is used to investigate criminal activity on the digital ledger for Bitcoin and monitor transactions to prevent money laundering.

With these fresh funds, the company said it would further develop products to support new digital currencies including central bank digital currencies, Libra, and Link, a token developed by Japan’s Line Corporation.

Elliptic can also trace XRP

SBI Holdings is one of Ripple’s leading banking partners. London-based Elliptic also counts Spanish bank Santander (another of Ripple partner) as an investor.

The bank is also invested in Ripple’s XRP digital currency and plans to build an XRP ecosystem in Japan which “has hardcore [group] of fans” in the country. XRP has been one of the reasons that made Elliptic attractive to SBI,

“The good thing about Elliptic is they can trace XRP – unlike some other anti-money-laundering (AML) platforms. We looked into those companies and actually I think Elliptic’s product was the best in terms of AML,” Tomoyuki Nii, executive officer for overseas investment at SBI Investment told CoinDesk.

Pushing into Asia

Elliptic sells blockchain analytic tools to cryptocurrency firms like leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance and Circle as well as banks.

Terrorist funding is another area of illicit activity the platform deals along with tracking people trading drugs, child pornography, and hacks.

Elliptic is looking to open offices in Japan and Singapore as part of its move to push into the Asian market. Also, revenues in Asia, the company said have increased tenfold in the last 12 months. Moreover, “major banks” are examining ways to offer crypto products and services to their customers.