Japan-based internet services provider GMO Internet, which has a corporate venturing unit itself, has secured a ¥8bn ($65m) investment from conglomerate Mitsui’s banking subsidiary Mitsui Sumitomo, Tech in Asia reported earlier today.
The funding will support GMO’s e-commerce payment service GMO Payment Gateway, and give startups using the service access to Mitsui’s 27 million customers – nearly a fifth of Japan’s population.
The investment will also enable GMO to compete with a range of rivals, including payment services providers PayPal and Stripe as well as e-commerce company Rakuten’s offering, messaging app Line’s Line Pay, app monetisation platform Metaps’ Spike, and e-commerce company Base’s Pay.jp.
Ryu Muramatsu, founding partner of GMO’s corporate venturing division GMO Venture Partners, said: “It is a big step to move into a megabank’s customer base – it is huge. We will use most of this funding to help startups – our merchants – grow.”