Digital Asset raised $355 million in a funding round led by a16z crypto, giving the Canton creator fresh capital as major financial institutions push deeper into tokenized assets and onchain settlement.

The round included backing from a long list of traditional finance and crypto firms, including ABN Amro, Apollo Funds, BNP Paribas, Broadridge, Citadel Securities, CME Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, HSBC, Polychain, S&P Global, SBI Group, SoFi, Tradeweb, and others. FT Partners advised Digital Asset on the transaction.

Digital Asset said the capital will be used to expand offerings across the Canton ecosystem, deepen work with developers and financial institutions, and support continued network growth. The company is working with more than 700 ecosystem participants as it tries to make Canton core infrastructure for regulated finance.

Canton is designed to solve a problem that has slowed blockchain adoption in capital markets: letting institutions use shared infrastructure without giving up privacy, compliance controls, or control over regulated workflows.

That matters because banks, asset managers, trading firms, and market infrastructure providers have been moving more real world asset activity onchain, but most public blockchains were not built around the privacy and operating requirements of regulated finance.

Digital Asset said Canton will focus on areas such as tokenization, collateral mobility, settlement, payments, and other regulated financial workflows. The network has also been used in industry work around tokenized collateral, including tests involving tokenized US Treasuries and onchain settlement.

The a16z led round also follows earlier reports that Digital Asset was seeking roughly $300 million at a valuation near $2 billion. The final raise came in larger, at $355 million.

The bigger picture is simple: institutional crypto is moving away from vague blockchain pilots and toward specific market plumbing. Canton is trying to become the rail for that shift.