Ripple raises $275 million to fund prime brokerage expansion

Ripple has raised $275 million through an upsized senior note offering by Ripple Prime to fund the brokerage unit’s expansion across financing, clearing, and other financial services in the United States.

Ripple said Tuesday that the senior unsecured notes were issued through Ripple Prime, its non-bank prime brokerage unit, in a private placement that drew participation from institutional investors across financial markets.

Proceeds from the offering will support Ripple Prime as the company adds capacity across its financing, clearing and brokerage operations in the United States. Ripple did not disclose the maturity, coupon, or identities of investors participating in the placement.

Ripple Prime President Noel Kimmel said investor participation represented “confidence in our long-term vision for the growing intersection of traditional and digital asset financial infrastructure.”

The financing adds another source of capital for a brokerage operation Ripple acquired through its $1.25 billion purchase of Hidden Road, followed by a separate $200 million credit facility secured earlier this year.

Ripple Prime gets fresh capital for U.S. expansion

Ripple Prime operates across digital assets and traditional markets, giving institutional clients access to clearing, financing and trading services covering crypto, foreign exchange, derivatives, swaps and fixed income.

The business came under Ripple through its acquisition of Hidden Road, which was announced in April 2025 and completed in October. Ripple subsequently renamed the operation Ripple Prime, creating an institutional brokerage arm alongside its payments, custody and stablecoin businesses.

Hidden Road was already handling roughly $3 trillion in annual clearing volume across more than 300 institutional clients before the business was integrated with Ripple. The brokerage serves hedge funds, proprietary trading firms and liquidity providers that need financing, clearing and settlement services across multiple asset classes.

As part of the transaction, Ripple completed the Hidden Road acquisition in October 2025 after agreeing to pay $1.25 billion for the company earlier that year. The deal gave Ripple ownership of a global multi-asset prime broker and expanded its operations beyond its existing payments and digital asset infrastructure.

Ripple has since integrated some of its blockchain products into the brokerage. Ripple USD, or RLUSD, can be used as collateral within Ripple Prime, while the company has also disclosed plans to move some post-trade activity onto the XRP Ledger.

The brokerage’s U.S. presence had started expanding before Ripple completed the acquisition. Hidden Road received a broker-dealer license from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in April 2025, allowing it to provide additional prime brokerage, clearing and financing services for fixed-income assets to institutional clients.

A month later, the firm launched over-the-counter cash-settled crypto swaps for U.S. institutional investors through its Financial Conduct Authority-regulated U.K. entity.

Ripple Prime financing has reached $475 million since May

Tuesday’s $275 million note placement follows another financing transaction completed three months earlier.

Ripple Prime secured a $200 million facility in May from funds managed by Neuberger Berman, giving the brokerage additional lending capacity for institutional customers.

The facility was arranged through Neuberger Berman’s specialty finance group and can be drawn according to client borrowing demand. Ripple said at the time that the funding would support margin services spanning digital assets, equities, fixed income and foreign exchange.

Combined with the latest note offering, the two transactions have provided Ripple Prime with access to as much as $475 million in new financing since May, although the structures serve different purposes. The Neuberger Berman agreement provides lending capacity tied to client demand, while Tuesday’s transaction involved Ripple Prime issuing senior unsecured debt to institutional investors.

Prime brokerage businesses require access to capital because clients can borrow against positions, finance trades, and use collateral across several markets. Ripple Prime also offers cross-margining, which allows qualifying institutional clients to offset exposures across positions rather than funding each trade separately.

The brokerage has continued building connections to traditional market infrastructure as its business expands. A July review of Ripple Prime found that the operation had entered the National Securities Clearing Corporation participant directory in March and had a place in a Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation tokenization working group.

Its NSCC participation gives the brokerage access to U.S. securities clearing infrastructure, although the listing itself does not mean trades are settled using XRP or the XRP Ledger.

RLUSD becomes part of Ripple’s institutional finance stack

Ripple has also expanded RLUSD alongside the buildout of its brokerage operation, positioning the dollar-backed stablecoin for institutional payments, trading and collateral use.

In July, the company introduced Ripple Mint, a platform designed to give institutions tools to mint, redeem and manage RLUSD. Ripple said the product provides businesses with infrastructure for incorporating the stablecoin into treasury, payment and other financial operations.

RLUSD’s circulation has increased considerably since its December 2024 launch. The stablecoin had a market capitalization of roughly $1.76 billion at the last check, according to CoinGecko data.

On-chain activity has also increased. A June 30 report from Ripple-backed Evernorth found that RLUSD trading volume had exceeded $2.5 billion across XRP Ledger pairs since the stablecoin’s public launch.

Evernorth said RLUSD’s share of XRP Ledger trading increased from less than 1% to roughly 12% during 2026. The RLUSD/XRP pair alone had processed roughly $900 million over six months, according to the firm’s report.

Ripple Prime represents one institutional use case for the stablecoin because clients can use RLUSD as collateral within the brokerage. Ripple has said that integrating the stablecoin with prime brokerage services can allow clients to manage collateral across digital and traditional assets from the same platform.

The company has been adding other distribution channels for RLUSD at the same time. In July, Ripple joined the x402 Foundation as a Premier Member, supporting the use of XRP and RLUSD for payments made through the open x402 protocol.

Ripple has built out financial services through acquisitions

The note offering also comes after several large acquisitions that moved Ripple into businesses outside its original blockchain payments operations.

Hidden Road was the largest of the transactions when the $1.25 billion deal was announced in April 2025. Ripple also acquired treasury management software provider GTreasury for $1 billion in October 2025 and payments infrastructure company Rail for $200 million in August of that year.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in January that the company was focusing on integrating its acquisitions after the dealmaking completed during 2025.

For Ripple Prime, the Hidden Road purchase gave the company an established brokerage with institutional clients and existing access to traditional financial markets. Ripple has since added its stablecoin and blockchain infrastructure to parts of that operation while providing additional capital for client financing.

The latest $275 million private placement leaves Ripple Prime with another source of funding for that business. Ripple said proceeds will be used for its continued expansion into prime brokerage, financing and multi-asset clearing services in the United States.