Ripple has a spring in its step with the launch of Xpring (pronounced “spring”) to invest in, incubate, acquire and provide grants to companies and projects, reports Antony Peyton of Fintech Futures, Finovate’s sister publication.

Self-promotion is naturally part of its logic, as “every entrepreneur” will use Ripple’s digital asset XRP and the XRP Ledger, the open-source, decentralized technology behind XRP, to solve their customers’ problems.

Ripple said it wants to act as a “proverbial spring” to let people “grow their businesses and prosper”.

Ethan Beard will be SVP and lead Xpring and Ripple’s developer programme. Before moving into an advisor role at several technology companies, Beard served as director of the Facebook Developer Network from 2009-2012.

“Blockchain and digital assets have the ability to solve important problems and XRP – with its speed, scalability and demonstrated real-world use case – is a great tool for start-ups and entrepreneurs to build businesses around,” Beard said.

According to Ripple, Xpring has already offered support. People and firms include:

• Stefan Thomas, inventor of the Interledger Protocol (ILP), creator of BitcoinJS, co-founder of TxtBear, who just launched a new venture Coil to use XRP and ILP for various micropayments applications;
• Bart and Brad Stephens, co-founders of Blockchain Capital, who have the first fund to accept capital calls in digital assets.

In a separate development, Mitsubishi Corporation, MUFG Bank, Bank of Ayudhya (Krungsri), a Thailand-based subsidiary of MUFG, and Standard Chartered have started a pilot test for moving real funds over RippleNet, Ripple’s network.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in San Francisco, Ripple made its Finovate debut (as OpenCoin) at FinovateSpring 2013. The company has raised more than $93 million in funding and includes SBI Investment, Santander InnoVentures, IDG Capital Partners, and Core Innovation Partners among its investors. Brad Garlinghouse is CEO.

Enterprise blockchain solution Ripple has joined the likes of 231 organizations who belong to the Hyperledger blockchain consortium.

Hosted by The Linux Foundation, Hyperledger is an open source group consisting of leaders in finance, banking, IoT, manufacturing, and technology that seeks to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. Other Finovate alum members of the group, which launched in 2015, include Tradeshift, AlphaPoint, BBVA, Blockchain, PWC, Sberbank, SecureKey, and Wipro.

After teaming up with NTT Data last year, Ripple and the Japanese system integration company submitted Hyperledger Quilt, a Java-based Interledger Protocol (ILP), to Hyperledger. Through the partnership with Hyperledger, said Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas, “developers will be able to access Interledger Protocol in Java for enterprise use.” Thomas added that Hyperledger Quilt “connects Hyperledger blockchains with other ILP-capable payment systems such as XRP Ledger, Ethereum, Bitcoin (Lightning), Litecoin, Mojaloop, and RippleNet, helping us to deliver on our vision for an internet of value – where money moves as information does today.”

Ripple was among 14 companies to join the consortium last week. Hyperledger Executive Director Brian Behlendorf explained that this growth is beneficial to the future of the blockchain. “The accelerating pace of growth and adoption of Hyperledger across industries and geographies underscores the power of our community and the technologies it is building,” he said. “It also reflects a global awakening to the impact of blockchain for business.”

With more than 100 customers across the globe, Ripple has offices in San Francisco, New York, London, Luxembourg, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney. At FinovateSpring 2013, company co-founder Chris Larsen debuted Ripple (originally known as OpenCoin).

Last week, the company funded every project on DonorsChoose.org, a platform where school teachers crowdfund classroom needs and special projects. Ripple fulfilled all 35,647 open campaigns with a $29 million donation. Earlier in March, Ripple began piloting blockchain-based payments with FLEETCOR. The company was founded in 2012 and has since raised $93 million.