Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Icap are among a clutch of major financial institutions preparing to invest up to $20 million in blockchain startup Axoni, according to a report by Reuters.
Citing "people familiar with the deal", the newswire says the transaction is expected to be announced later this week.
New York-based Axoni has been at the forefront of a number of major trials of distributed ledger technology in financial markets. These include affirmations and post-trade lifecycle processing for OTC equity swaps in combination with Barclays, Citi, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, IHS Markit and Thomson Reuters.
Citi, HSBC and Credit Suisse also participated in an R3-led test of Axoni’s proprietary distributed ledger software for simplifying reference data processes.
Icap, which already holds a stake in Axoni through its Euclid startup fund, has used the firm's technology to create a private, peer-to-peer, distributed ledger network for the execution of spot/forward foreign exchange block trades.
JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs hit the headlines recently for their indifference to the funding requirements of the R3-led consortium. However, both firms were represented in a February funding round for Digital Asset Holdings.
A similar deal with Axoni would signal an ongoing appetite among Wall Street's big beasts to remain at the forefront of the blockchain craze that is sweeping the financial services industry.