Itochu leads $55m Series C for Japan's Paidy

Goldman Sachs also participated in the round. The company, which provides e-payment services, said it plans to expand into the offline market and grow its customer base to about 11 million accounts by 2020.

“[W]e expect to launch new merchants in order to deliver Paidy’s frictionless and intuitive financial solution to a much broader audience,” Russell Cummer, founder of Paidy, said in a statement. “Furthermore, by adding new payment functions and diverse financial services, thereby making our customer attachments much more robust, we aim to promote our vision of removing barriers and creating unique consumer experiences to as many people as possible.”

Paidy provides secure, real-time credit accounts that allow consumers in Japan to shop online and settle a single monthly bill using only a mobile phone number and email address. The company claims the service increases merchant revenues by reducing incomplete transactions, increasing conversion rates, boosting average order values, and facilitating easy repeat buying. It requires no pre-registration or credit card and is said to be in use by more than 1.4 million accounts.

Eight Roads Ventures led a $15 million Series B round for the company, then known as Exchange Corporation, in 2016 with participation from Itochu, Arbor Ventures, SIG Asia, and SBI Investment’s FinTech Business Innovation Fund. This followed $8.3 million in Series A funding led by Arbor across two tranches in 2014 and 2015. Other previous investors include CyberAgent Ventures, 500 Startups, Cherubic Ventures, MS Capital, CSM Capital, and Recruit Incubation Partners. 

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Financials
• Technology
• Expansion
• Japan
• Goldman Sachs
• Financial Services