Ripple has made strategic investments in two UK-based financial technology firms, Zilo and Licuido, as it works to expand tokenized capital markets infrastructure on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). The company did not disclose the size of either investment, though Zilo has previously raised $58.7 million in total equity funding, according to data from Traxcn.
Zilo provides transfer agency solutions for wealth managers globally, handling the record-keeping and administrative functions tied to fund ownership. Licuido is a tokenization solutions provider regulated by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority, giving it a compliance framework for issuing digital representations of financial assets.
Solving the Idle Collateral Problem
The core aim of the investments is to let tokenized funds function as usable collateral from the moment they are issued, rather than sitting idle while traditional settlement and registration processes catch up. By pairing Zilo's transfer agency capabilities with Licuido's regulated tokenization infrastructure on XRPL, Ripple is positioning the ledger as a venue where regulated funds can be issued, transferred and immediately pledged as collateral — addressing what the companies describe as persistent inefficiencies from capital sitting unused between issuance and deployment.
Part of a Broader Push Onto XRPL
The announcement follows Aviva Investors' launch of a tokenized share class on XRPL the previous week, a fund structure approved by the Central Bank of Ireland. Taken together, the moves suggest asset managers and infrastructure providers are increasingly treating XRPL as a viable settlement layer for regulated fund products, not just a venue for retail token transfers.
XRPL currently hosts roughly $368 million in tokenized real-world assets, a fraction of the $17.1 billion tracked on Ethereum, underscoring how early this segment of Ripple's strategy remains relative to competitors. Still, the broader tokenized real-world asset market has been expanding quickly: total holders across the sector have reached 1.57 million, up 50% over the past 30 days, while the total value of tokenized assets industry-wide stands at $37.3 billion. Ripple's bet is that regulated transfer agency and collateral mobility — rather than raw token issuance volume — will be what draws institutional capital onto XRPL over time.
