By: David E. Rutter

Last week a negative and inaccurate news article about R3 was published. We were saddened that any of our previous employees saw fit to spread false, malicious rumors about the company, and were very disappointed that unsubstantiated figures and comments were taken seriously by a reporter, who then subsequently chose to ignore our factual response.

We are happy to set the record straight. Firstly, R3 is in a very strong financial position. We have the widest and largest funding base in the enterprise blockchain space, having raised more than USD 120 million from more than 45 institutions and brought in over USD 20 million in revenue.

We are investing in our future – people and technology – to deliver the vision we share with our members: to build a robust, new blockchain-based system to enhance the way global business is conducted. Corda is that system.

We’ve always been very sensitive of operating as cost-efficiently as possible, and in fact our average operating expenses per employee has declined each year since launch. We pride ourselves on continuously monitoring, evaluating and trimming expenditures to deliver maximum value for our shareholders.

As such, R3 has more than sufficient funding and continues to see inbound investment interest. If we decide to take on additional funding it will be because we see the strategic value of the investor, or because it will help accelerate our growth to meet demand.

In 2015 we were a team of eight people working out of a borrowed conference room in midtown Manhattan. Fast forward three years, and we’ve hit all of our development milestones and we are now focused on the roll out of Corda Enterprise. Our team of over 180 staff spread across 13 countries, works with an ecosystem of more than 200 different companies from a huge range of industries. Global partners like Microsoft, HPE, Accenture; leading software firms like Finastra, Gemalto, Guardtime; nimble startups like TradeIX, Tradewind Markets and GuildOne.

R3 is like nowhere I’ve ever worked. We have experienced financial services professionals working with some of the finest blockchain and enterprise engineers of their generation to deliver a very real technology solution. We go out of our way to create the best possible working environment for all our employees, and this is reflected in the level and quality of work I see from them each and every day.

Support for Corda is coming from the financial services community and a cross-section of other industries in countries across the globe.

Corda is a unique, open source platform designed in part to help small entrepreneurs succeed in building solutions for their customer base. Each week we see new and innovative CorDapps being released into different industries.

Firms like Finastra and Tradewind Markets have built apps that are already live on the platform. Just the other week, Maersk deployed a CorDapp for marine insurance built by EY, Guardtime and others.

Blockchain platforms such as Corda that modify the traditional bitcoin model have always faced harsh criticism from the cryptocurrency community. Corda was recently described by a competitor as “compelling but strange,” and I happen to agree.

It’s certainly compelling: the only platform designed to allow businesses to transact with each other, directly, with finality, in total privacy and built within the huge Java ecosystem.

And perhaps a bit strange. When so many other firms have blindly tried to clone Ethereum or apply traditional blockchain technology to inappropriate scenarios, we’ve harnessed the real-world pragmatism of our financial services roots and the no-nonsense expertise of our engineering team to build something utterly unique.

Corda does look strange to people who only know cryptocurrency, and that’s fine: we’re trying to solve a different problem. But I can tell you: every single engineer who’s trying to synchronise their firm’s transactions with their counterparts takes one look at Corda and can’t believe their luck. It is the platform the enterprise world has been waiting on for over a decade.

This is a highly competitive space, and the ultimate end users of this technology will benefit most if each of the platforms being built by different players for different use cases succeed alongside one another. That’s why we continue to grow the number of companies we’re working with, driving innovation by collaborating across multiple industries.

We are partnering with new institutions on an almost weekly basis, and as with any project of this scale and scope, the make-up changes over time.

We are now working with a total of nearly 100 banks, and a broader ecosystem of more than 200 members and partners across multiple industries from both the private and public sectors – more than any other enterprise blockchain software firm.

Corda is already being used in industries we never even imagined at the outset – from healthcare to shipping, insurance and more.

Corda is 100% open source. The reason for this is simple: the only platforms that will thrive in the long term will be the open ones. Who in their right mind would choose a closed source platform in an industry with such network effects? But don’t just take my word for it. Head over to GitHub.com/Corda/Corda and see the code for yourselves. See the huge level of attention to detail. Subscribe to Corda-dev and see our engineers debating passionately with each other and with other developers.

I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve built with our members and partners in such a short space of time and it’s really just down to two factors – the technology that we, along with our ecosystem, had the expertise to conceptualize and design; and the hard work, dedication and skill of our people in delivering it.

We’re always happy to answer questions about our business and would encourage you to reach out to us here. We have a number of exciting announcements coming in the next couple weeks, so stay tuned. In the meantime, it’s business as usual at R3.