Ripple announces $200M share buyback and expresses optimism for 2022

Blockchain payments firm Ripple has announced a $200 million Series C share buyback, a decision that will take the San Francisco-based tech firm to a record-high valuation of $15 billion.

Back in December 2019, Ripple raised $200 million in a Series C funding round with Tetragon Financial Group, a United Kingdom-based investment firm, acting as the lead investor alongside other participants SBI Holdings and Route 66 Ventures.

However, in December 2020, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a $1.3 billion-dollar financial lawsuit against Ripple Labs, as well as co-founder Chris Larsen and CEO Brad Garlinghouse; accusing the parties of using the native XRP token as an unlicensed digital asset security.

Intent on disassociating themselves with Ripple amid their high-profile and openly public lawsuit, Tetragon sued Ripple in early January 2021 in the Delaware Chancery Court, seeking to enact their contractual obligation of a buyback clause to the value of their undisclosed investment sum.

However, just three months later in April, the court ruled in favor of Ripple and against the plaintiff, Tetragon, putting an end to the financial dispute.

In choosing to willingly purchasing the shares from Tetragon, SBI Holdings and Route 66 Ventures, it implies that Ripple is seeking to enhance their financial strength, a sentiment which Garlinghouse eluded to in a recent tweet thread.

“Even with 2021’s headwinds, it was our best year on record”, he stated, alongside revealing that their $1 billion bank balance position places them in the “strongest we’ve ever been.”

RippleX - full speed ahead on establishing a multitude of capabilities to the XRP Ledger - NFTs, CBDCs, interoperability bridges, sidechains and so much more – working hand in hand with devs and partners around the world. It’s a multichain world after all 4/4

Alongside the news of buyback and valuation, Garlinghouse also shared optimism for the future of RippleNet and Ripple X, the latter of which is posed to enhance the utility of the XRP Ledger in an array of emerging sectors, including nonfungible tokens, central bank digital currencies, as well as interoperable, multi-chain functionalities, among others.

Cointelegraph reached out to Ripple for comment but did not receive a response at publishing time.