Google Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of Google, and IDG Capital Partners, which invests on behalf of publisher International Data Group, have joined existing seed backers in OpenCoin, a US company developing the Ripple protocol, an open source payments system and a math-based virtual currency that together power the world’s first distributed currency exchange.
The amount of the investment was undisclosed.
The main selling point of Ripple is that it enables fast, secure and essentially free transactions of any size, in any currency, anywhere in the world, with no chargebacks for merchants. The company is still a work in progress and is catching the eye of both large corporate venturing units as well as angel investors.
Feng Li of IDG Capital Partners said: “The OpenCoin team has an incredible track record and presents a compelling vision for the future of money.
“We are excited about the prospect for a global payments system that powers instant, free, and secure transactions in any currency.”
“Ripple will change the way money moves, removing many of the costs and delays we accept as normal today,” said OpenCoin CEO Chris Larsen. “With Ripple, sending money to anyone, anywhere in the world will be as easy as sending an email.”
Feng Li of IDG Capital Partners in a prepared statement added: “We are excited about the prospect for a global payments system that powers instant, free, and secure transactions in any currency.”
In April of this year OpenCoin closed an angel round of funding from Andreessen Horowitz, FF Angel IV, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Vast Ventures, and Bitcoin Opportunity Fund, an investment vehicle for Bitcoins and Bitcoin-related companies.
The undisclosed investment is being used to expand the Ripple protocol.