Ripple has announced the launch of a new investment initiative for companies that use its XRP token.
The programme is called Xpring, pronounced 'spring'. According to a press release, it will "invest in, incubate, acquire and provide grants to companies and projects run by proven entrepreneurs."
One condition for acceptance is that the companies use the XRP ledger in their structure. The XRP ledger is the Blockchain behind the Ripple token. According to the official website: "XRP is a digital asset native to the XRP Ledger. Anyone with a cryptographic key and an internet connection can receive, hold, and send XRP to anyone else. XRP's creators have developed it to be a desirable bridge currency that can facilitate trades in any other currency."
Last week the company announced a successful test of a US to Mexico money transfer using its xRapid service. The money passed through the ledger as part of the transfer process.
A person called Ethan Beard has been hired to the role of senior vice president of the new development programme. Beard worked at Facebook as a network developer from 2009 to 2012.
Beard said: "I love helping startups leverage new technologies and developments to grow. At Facebook, we saw companies in areas like gaming, music, and news use our platform to become big businesses. Blockchain and digital assets have the ability to solve important problems and XRP - with it's speed, scalability and demonstrated real-world use case - is a great tool for startups and entrepreneurs to build businesses around.”
According to Ripple, Xspring is already vetting hundreds of projects. It names a few which have already been approved: SP Projects, which aims to allow artists of several disciplines to profit from their work through XRP; Coil, which was created by the ex-CTO of Ripple and will use XRP to facilitate "micro-Payments "; Omni, an XRP-powered rental and storage company; and Blockchain Capital, a venture capital firm.
There is a current trend of blockchain companies establishing investment arms - Ripple is following in the footsteps of OKEx and Trade.io.
