Shinhan and Standard Chartered Join Digital Asset's $355m Canton Fundraise

Digital Asset has added Shinhan Financial Group and SC Ventures, the venture arm of Standard Chartered, to a funding round that was already oversubscribed before their participation. The base round, led by a16z crypto, was previously announced at $355 million; the two new entrants expand the investor base without a revised total being disclosed. Yuval Rooz, co-founder and chief executive, framed the additions as reinforcement for Canton‘s positioning as shared, privacy-enabled infrastructure for regulated capital markets rather than experimental blockchain projects.

The strategic logic differs between the two new investors. Shinhan Financial Group, described as South Korea’s largest banking group, is expected to support institutional adoption discussions in the region, extending a footprint that Digital Asset has already begun building through a separately announced partnership with Hanwha. SC Ventures brings what it characterises as a progressive digital assets ecosystem and an institutional network spanning global markets, consistent with Standard Chartered’s broader posture toward digital asset infrastructure.

The investor commentary from both parties centres on the same thesis: that privacy-preserving, compliance-compatible infrastructure is the prerequisite for moving regulated institutions from pilots into production. Seonghun Hong of Shinhan pointed explicitly to Asia as a growth region, while Alex Manson of SC Ventures described institutional-grade market infrastructure as fundamental to scaling digital asset adoption across regulated financial services. The combination of a South Korean banking group and a globally active emerging-markets bank suggests Digital Asset is deliberately thickening its distribution and partnership surface in Asia ahead of what appears to be a broader Canton commercialisation push.