Leading online payment transaction platform PayPal has made its first-ever investment in a blockchain technology company known as Cambridge Blockchain.
Cambridge Blockchain helps financial institutions and other companies manage sensitive data using shared ledgers. The company has raised Series A funding.
Neither PayPal nor Cambridge Blockchain answer the mail sent by Pixr8 team during the publishing of this article.
In a recent filings with the SEC Cambridge Blockchain mention that it has raised $7 million close of its Series A in May of 2018 from HCM Capital, the VC arm of Foxconn, which manufactures the iPhone for Apple, as well as Digital Currency Group.
The total capital raised by the Cambridge Blockchain is $10.5 million. The subsequent $3.5 million came from PayPal as well as Omidyar Network,.
In an article of CoinDesk platform, PayPal spokesperson confirmed this news,
“We made an investment in Cambridge Blockchain because it is applying blockchain for digital identity in a way that we believe could benefit financial services companies including PayPal. Our investment will allow us to explore potential collaborations to leverage blockchain technology.”
Cambridge Blockchain CEO Matthew Commons said PayPal has been involved one way or another with his Massachussets-based identity startup for the past year or so. For instance, Cambridge was one of a small cohort of startups in the “Fintech Europe 2018” accelerator program, which was sponsored by PayPal.
“We can’t talk specifically about anything commercially that we are doing because it’s all sort of exploratory now, but I think the fact that we are deployed in Luxembourg and they [PayPal] have a major presence there also helped to get things moving.”
Indeed, toward the end of 2018, Cambridge started working directly with PayPal’s corporate venture group out of San Jose which ultimately led to the investment, said Commons.