Japan digital bank Nudge raises $16m Series A
Japanese digital bank Nudge has completed a USD 16m Series A round led by One Capital, a VC firm led by the former head of Salesforce Ventures Japan.
Insignia Venture Partners, Headline Asia, Spiral Capital, DG Daiwa Ventures, DG Ventures, D4V, Finolab, Mind Fund Group, and Apricot Ventures also participated, as did Global Brain via its third fund with KDDI Corporation.
They were joined by several corporate VC investors, including Hakuhodo DY Ventures, Sumisho Venture Partners, Bellsystem24, SMBC Venture Capital, Mizuho Capital, Nobunaga Capital Village, Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsubishi UFJ Innovation Partners, Sony Innovation Fund, Toppan Printing, Seven Bank, Saison Ventures, and Itochu Corporation.
Nudge offers a youth-focused banking app and eponymous credit card that allows users to join fan clubs for sports teams or entertainers. Card use comes with benefits such as images and videos depending on the payment amounts.
The fresh capital will be used to build out the engineering team and develop Web3 projects. Experiments are also underway for offering non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as user rewards, according to a statement.
One Capital was set up in 2020 by Shinji Asada, formerly head of Japan for Salesforce Ventures and an investor at Itochu Technology Ventures, where he backed Mercari, an e-commerce app recognised as the champion of Japan’s early start-up scene. His co-founder, Wataru Sakakuru, was previously a partner at Boston Consulting Group.
The firm, which invests exclusively in software-as-a-service, closed its debut fund last year on JPY 16.5bn with LP support from Mizuho Bank, YJ Capital, Z Venture Capital, and FFG Venture Business Partners among others. It claims strengths in enterprise digital transformation and product development.
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