Global Brain leads round for SE Asia's Omise
Thailand-based financial technology company Omise has raised a funding round of undisclosed size led by Japanese venture capital investor Global Brain.
31 Ventures, the corporate VC arm of Mitsui Fudosan, also participated in the round, according to a statement, as did existing investor Sinar Mas Digital Ventures (SMDV), the VC arm of Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas Group. The investors plan to help Omise penetrate Japan, Southeast Asia, and other high-growth markets.
Omise was founded in 2013 and makes tools for third-party merchants to accept digital payments through a platform focused on security and fraud detection. Its flagship product Omise is a payments acceptance interface that incorporates multiple payment methods including credit cards and mobile wallets, and can also be integrated with reward programs.
Other products, such as blockchain value storage software OmiseGo and digital currency conversion tool Go.Exchange, are designed to supplement the customer-facing Omise platform. The company wants to create a financial infrastructure that can be accessed globally without relying on legacy platforms, thereby removing a key bottleneck to the growth of global online businesses.
Omise was founded in 2013 and has raised several rounds of funding, most with participation by SMDV. The 2015 Series A round saw SMDV join East Ventures, Thai mobile network operator True, and 500 Startups to commit $2.6 million, while a $17.5 million Series B the following year saw SMDV joined by Golden Gate Ventures and Japan’s SBI Investment. Omise raised a further $25 million in a token sale last year.
Global Brain targets seed to middle-stage IT start-ups with a focus on leveraging pan-Asian and US-connected networks. Its sixth fund was launched in 2016 with a target of JPY20 billion ($174 million).
The firm also manages several VC funds on behalf of Japanese corporate clients. 31 Ventures is among these. The firm joined Global Brain in 2016 to launch a JPY5 billion fund to invest in Series A and pre-Series A rounds for start-ups in the US, Europe, Israel, and Asia.
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