In Brief:
- Two new Ripple investments — ZILO and Licuido — are aimed at strengthening tokenized finance on the company’s blockchain.
- The goal is better regulated transfer agency services and greater collateral mobility across the XRP Ledger.
- Both deals sit squarely within Ripple’s continuing push into institutional capital markets.
Ripple widens its tokenized finance push with two new stakes
On August 3, Ripple drew attention with investments in a pair of UK companies: ZILO, which operates in transfer agency, and Licuido, an FCA-regulated tokenization platform. Neither deal’s financial terms were disclosed, but both are expected to strengthen regulated transfer agency, issuance and collateral mobility across the infrastructure Ripple runs on the XRP Ledger.
The move extends a strategy Ripple has been building around institutional capital markets. Each firm played a part in Ripple’s first live tokenized fund, and together they illustrate a central premise: the real payoff is not tokenizing an asset, but what institutions can actually do with it once it exists onchain.
What ZILO and Licuido bring
ZILO’s work sits in digital transfer agency — keeping the official record of who owns which shares in a fund. Its platform is built to handle tokenized share classes, so funds shifting toward blockchain rails can make that transition cleanly. To date the company has raised roughly 58.7 million USD in equity funding.
Licuido approaches the problem from another angle. Its FCA-regulated platform handles issuance and distribution for traditional assets and lets them function as digital collateral through onchain atomic settlement — meaning institutions can pledge tokenized fund shares rather than sell them off.
Putting idle collateral to work
Idle collateral is the specific pain point Ripple is going after, with tokenized funds usable as collateral from the moment they are issued. Nigel Khakoo, a senior executive at Ripple, put it this way: “Tokenization of assets is only the starting point,” noting that what matters is being able to transact, settle trades, or use tokens for borrowing and lending.
Issuance, custody, collateral utility and multi-currency transactions all sit within the same Ripple stack. The RLUSD stablecoin plays a central role in settled delivery-versus-payment transactions, so the cash leg of a tokenized trade moves in a dollar stablecoin. Ripple has pointed to work with names such as Aviva Investors and Franklin Templeton as a sign that institutions are engaging with tokenized fund structures.
A live fund makes it concrete
None of this is confined to slideware. Both ZILO and Licuido contributed to the Aviva Investors fund that went live on the XRP Ledger on July 29, converting an earlier partnership into something operational.
One detail stands out: the underlying portfolio stays with a custodial bank, so traditional regulatory frameworks remain untouched while XRP Ledger tokens represent share ownership. Ripple set the token standard while ZILO and Licuido delivered the services underneath it — a reminder of how central both are to Ripple’s tokenized fund ecosystem.
Building rails in a difficult market
These deals broaden what the XRP Ledger can offer, but they do not automatically create demand for the XRP token itself, because settlement runs through RLUSD. Nothing has been shared about transaction volumes or new clients either, which makes the near-term story one of infrastructure being laid rather than adoption being proven.
XRP is trading near 1.07 USD, well down year-to-date, and against that backdrop the investments read as part of Ripple’s continued build-out of the XRP Ledger through regulatory headwinds, with institutional-grade infrastructure as the objective.
Why web3 gaming should pay attention
Capital markets are the immediate target, but the plumbing matters for onchain gaming too. As web3 titles lean harder on tokenized assets and stablecoin settlement, the frameworks Ripple is assembling will make moving real-world value through game economies more practical. Guilds have already experimented with using in-game NFTs as collateral, a sign that structured systems like these are where things are heading.
If tokenization keeps maturing on finance-oriented ledgers, game studios could gain compliant routes for handling onchain value. Ripple’s bets on ZILO and Licuido are aimed at institutional finance today, but the groundwork they establish is likely to end up supporting web3 gaming as it evolves.