Ripple Backs ZILO and Licuido to Build Out Tokenisation Infrastructure on the XRP Ledger

Ripple has put money behind two companies building the plumbing for tokenised financial products — transfer agency and fund administration specialist ZILO, and tokenised-asset platform Licuido. The announcement, made in a company blog post on Monday, marks another step in Ripple’s push to position the XRP Ledger as infrastructure for institutional-grade digital assets, not just cross-border payments.

Ripple framed the investments as a way to strengthen relationships it already had with both firms while adding capabilities around token issuance, ownership record-keeping, and collateral management directly onto the ledger. The timing lines up with a broader trend: banks, asset managers, and other financial institutions are increasingly testing tokenised versions of assets that used to live entirely in traditional systems — fund shares, government bonds, and private market instruments among them.

Why Ripple Is Betting on the “Boring” Parts of Tokenisation

Putting an asset on a blockchain is, by itself, only a small part of the job. Ripple’s own framing makes that point explicit: tokenised products moving into regulated markets need supporting infrastructure for issuance, custody, settlement, ownership tracking, and collateral use — not just a token that technically exists on-chain.

Nigel Khakoo, Ripple’s Senior Vice President of Trading and Markets, put it this way:

“Tokenization of assets is only the starting point. The real value lies in what can be done with a token, including buying, selling and settling trades instantly, or using it as collateral.”

Ripple also noted that its stablecoin, RLUSD, is meant to handle the cash side of delivery-versus-payment trades executed on the XRP Ledger — effectively acting as the settlement currency once a tokenised asset trade is agreed.

ZILO’s Role: Keeping Ownership Records Straight

ZILO’s business is transfer agency and fund administration — the systems asset managers and custodians rely on to track who owns what and to administer investment funds day to day. As tokenised share classes become more common, that record-keeping infrastructure has to keep pace.

Phil Goffin, ZILO’s founder and CEO, addressed that shift directly:

“Transfer agents and asset managers need infrastructure that can support tokenized share classes without increasing operational complexity.”

Licuido’s Role: Getting Tokens Moving

Where ZILO handles the record-keeping side, Licuido focuses on the mechanics of issuing, distributing, and trading tokenised financial assets — including making sure those tokens can actually flow through collateral and liquidity markets once they exist.

Brian Lynch, Licuido’s CEO and co-founder, noted that tokenisation on its own doesn’t solve the deeper liquidity challenges that markets still face — underscoring why infrastructure like his firm’s matters beyond simply minting a token.

Not a Standalone Move

This isn’t Ripple’s first collaboration with either company. Both ZILO and Licuido were already involved in supporting transfer agency, issuance, custody, and settlement work for an earlier XRP Ledger initiative: Aviva Investors’ tokenised USD Liquidity Fund, which launched on the ledger last week, giving investors regulated, blockchain-based access to one of Aviva’s liquidity products.

Taken together, the pattern points to a consistent strategy — Ripple building out the surrounding infrastructure that institutional tokenisation actually requires, rather than treating the XRP Ledger purely as a payments rail.

A Crowded and Fast-Moving Race

Tokenisation has become one of the fastest-expanding segments of digital asset infrastructure, as institutions look at blockchain rails for funds, bonds, money market products, and other traditional instruments. But the competitive battleground has shifted. It’s no longer just about who can issue a token — it’s about who can support everything that has to happen after issuance: accurate ownership records, regulatory compliance, settlement, collateral management, and functioning secondary markets.

By backing ZILO and Licuido, Ripple is positioning itself on that second front — betting that the firms controlling the operational infrastructure around tokenised assets, not just the tokens themselves, will end up holding the more durable advantage.