Ripple, the blockchain payments firm behind XRP, the third biggest altcoin by market cap, has raised $200 million in a new funding round.

Led by closed-ended investment company Tetragon, the new Series C funding round was also joined by Ripple’s major Japanese partner SBI Holdings and venture capital firm Route 66 Ventures, the firm announced on Dec. 20.

The new funding will reportedly help Ripple to continue improving its global payments network and the broader utility of the digital asset XRP and the XRP Ledger, the announcement reads.

Despite 73% sales drop in Q3, Ripples sees strong yearly growth

The new investment is claimed to mark a record year for the business as Ripple reportedly saw its “strongest year of growth to date in 2019.”

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that the company has continued to gain momentum and accelerate industry leadership, while “others in the blockchain space have slowed their growth or even shut down.”

To date, Ripple is claimed to have customers in over 45 countries and six continents, with payout capabilities in more than 70 countries. The company has reportedly seen a 10-fold year-over-year growth in transactions, while the firm’s global payments network RippleNet grew to more than 300 customers worldwide.

While Ripple claims that 2019 has become its strongest year so far, the company has seen a significant drop in sales in the third quarter of 2019. As Cointelegraph reported in mid-October, Ripple’s Q3 2019 sales were down over 73% compared to the record sale of $251.51 million in Q2.

Earlier this year, Ripple entered a partnership with the world’s second-largest remittances firm, MoneyGram, with Garlinghouse claiming that MoneyGram using Ripple’s xRapid liquidity product is a bigger deal than Facebook’s stablecoin project Libra. In late November, MoneyGram secured a $20 million equity investment from Ripple as part of its original $50 million equity investment commitment.