According to Bloomberg, New York-based Digital Asset Holdings, the developer behind the Canton Network, is in advanced negotiations with a16z Crypto (Andreessen Horowitz's crypto arm) to raise approximately $300 million at a valuation of around $2 billion. The deal, if finalized, would mark the largest funding round in the company's history.
A Decade of Building Institutional-Grade Blockchain
Founded in October 2014 by Yuval Rooz, Eric Saraniecki, Shaul Kfir, Sunil Hirani, and Don R. Wilson of DRW, Digital Asset has spent over a decade developing distributed ledger technology for institutional capital markets. Its flagship products include Daml, an open-source smart contract language tailored for financial applications, and the Canton Network, a public Layer 1 blockchain launched in 2023 alongside Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Börse, BNP Paribas, and other partners. Unlike fully transparent chains like Ethereum or Solana, Canton offers protocol-level customizable privacy—participants only share data necessary to settle transactions.
Ecosystem Growth: Over $6 Trillion Tokenized, Industry Giants Onboard
As of 2026, the Canton Network has processed or issued more than $6 trillion in tokenized assets. Visa joined as the first payment company to act as a Super Validator in March 2026 and added Canton to its stablecoin payment pilot. DTCC announced a partnership with Digital Asset to tokenize U.S. Treasury bonds held at DTC, targeting completion by 2026. HSBC, S&P Global, BNY Mellon, Citadel Securities, Nasdaq, and Euroclear are among the firms participating as validators.
Funding History and Strategic Use
Digital Asset previously closed a ~$135 million strategic round in June 2025 led by DRW Venture Capital and Tradeweb Markets, with participation from Goldman Sachs, Citadel Securities, DTCC, and BNP Paribas. This was followed by a ~$50 million expansion round in December 2025 from BNY Mellon, Nasdaq, S&P Global, and iCapital. The new $300 million from a16z Crypto will fuel the expansion of developer tools, addition of subnets, ecosystem integrations, and cross-border pilot programs. a16z Crypto closed its $2.2 billion Crypto Fund V earlier this year, bringing its total crypto investments to ~$10 billion across five funds. The firm has publicly identified protocol-level privacy as a missing capability slowing blockchain adoption in regulated financial markets—directly aligning with Canton's value proposition.
Positioning for the RWA Tokenization Wave
In 2026, the tokenization market has attracted significant institutional attention, with banks, custodians, and index providers actively moving assets on-chain. Digital Asset is positioning Canton as the compliant, privacy-preserving infrastructure that regulated institutions can actually use. The funding round has not yet closed; additional details are expected in the coming weeks.