Samsung and Salesforce plough millions into blockchain company

The investment arms of tech heavyweights Samsung and Salesforce have invested millions of dollars into the blockchain company Digital Asset as part of a Series C funding round worth an initial $35 million.

Digital Asset, which has created the open-source smart contract language DAML, will use the funds to accelerate its adoption across several industries, and raise the level of integrations.

The Series C funding was revealed in December, but the particular investors were not disclosed at the time. The $35 million will also be used to fund new products that are designed to improve the developer experience with DAML.

Meanwhile, the company has recruited Susan Hauser, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of its worldwide enterprise and partner group, to its board of directors. Hauser had previously served as an advisor to Digital Asset while working with Microsoft, where she was in charge of partnerships across several industries in the public and private sector.

“Salesforce Ventures and Samsung joining our Series C financing round demonstrates the potential that technology giants see in DAML as the standard for smart contracts,” said Digital Asset co-founder and CEO Yuval Rooz.

“Appointing Susan Hauser to the board will help us capitalize on this vision. She brings us her unparalleled understanding of customer needs and exceptional experience building an enterprise business at Microsoft.”

DAML was open-sourced by the company in 2019, and is used to create smart contracts and software that automates business processes, as well as digitally verify and enforce agreements between several parties.

The company offers integrations of DAML with partner platforms so other companies can develop their own versions of the blockchain-powered technology.

“We strongly believe that Digital Asset’s model to embed DAML in partner platforms fundamentally changes the entire blockchain market,” said a spokesperson from Samsung Venture Investment Corp.

“Digital Asset has positioned itself for success in the blockchain space and we are pleased to help it achieve its vision.”

Salesforce has previously shown a great deal of interest in pursuing blockchain-related ventures. The software company previously connected a low-code blockchain platform with its customer relationship management (CRM) suite in May 2019 to open up a host of new services for its customers.

The firm, together with Microsoft, also hopped onto an open-source blockchain venture run by the Linux Foundation in June. The Hyperledger research initiative expanded its reach with a host of new members, and was working on 13 projects using the Hyperledger blockchain at the time that Salesforce and Microsoft had joined.