Japan-based customer experience platform developer Plaid has raised ¥2.7bn ($25m) in funding from investors including diversified conglomerate Mitsui.
The round also featured Eight Roads Ventures Japan, SMBC Venture Capital, Mizuho Capital and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, respective investment units of financial services firms Fidelity, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Mizuho Bank and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital, the corporate venturing arm of insurance provider Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, and venture capital firm Femto Partners also contributed to the round.
Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation also supplied an undisclosed amount in debt financing in addition to the equity funding.
Plaid has developed a customer experience platform called Karte that analyses the behaviour of website visitors, visualising the data in real time and helping marketing staff make informed decisions on how best to engage with potential customers.
The company will use the cash to bolster its marketing activities, to drive recruitment across all teams with a particular focus on areas such as mobile apps integration, and to develop a scalable framework to cope with increasing amounts of data flowing through its platform.
Additional capital will go to research and development for new platforms such as Kart3 Garden, which visualises customer interactions in a virtual reality environment. Plaid has also begun expanding overseas, starting with Singapore, Taiwan and North America.
The company had previously raised $4m in 2015 from Femto and Eight Roads, after Femto had supplied $1.5m in 2014. It is unrelated to the US-based online financial technology provider of the same name.