Eight Roads leads $15m round for Japan payments provider

According to a statement, the round also included participation from SBI Investment's JPY 30 billion ($286 million) FinTech Business Innovation fund, Itochu Corporation and existing backers Arbor Ventures and SIG Asia. The capital is expected to be used for accelerating product development as the company moves into new verticals and introduces features such as subscription billing.

"With 40% of e-commerce shopping in Japan settled through non-credit card methods such as cash on delivery or convenience store payments, Paidy addresses a Japan-unique market opportunity with a user friendly and intuitive solution," said David Milstein, Eight Roads' Japan head, who will join the Paidy board alongside an SBI nominee.

Paidy provides secure, real-time credit accounts that allow more than 100 million consumers in Japan to shop online and settle a single monthly bill using only a mobile phone number and email address. It claims to have expanded to more than 600,000 online stores and seen its checkout share grow to 20-30% with major merchants. Clients include Adidas, Reebok, Dean & Deluca, Stores.jp and Shoplist.

Eight Roads is an investment arm of Fidelity International that targets fintech, consumer and enterprise technology, healthcare and biosciences, education and skills development. It was active in the financial services space earlier this year with participation in a $30 million round for Chinese accounting software provider QuanCheng.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Financials
• Technology
• Japan
• Eight Roads
• SBI Holdings
• Arbor Ventures
• Financial Services