Fresh from ICO, payment gateway Omise raises more funding to go regional

(L-R) Jun Hasegawa, CEO and founder of Omise, Sam Tanskul, managing director of Krungsri Finnovate, and Ezra Don Harinsut, COO and co-founder of Omise. Photo credit: Omise.

Omise, a payment gateway and blockchain tech startup from Thailand, has raised yet more funding. This time it’s from Thai financial institution Krungsri Finnovate, a subsidiary of the Bank of Ayudhya.

Omise is used by the likes of McDonald’s in Thailand to facilitate digital purchases through the fast food chain’s website and app. Outside of Thailand, Omise operates in Singapore and Japan.

In previous rounds, the startup has locked in about US$25 million in venture capital and US$25 million in an ICO since launching in 2014. Its market cap post-ICO has already soared to above US$1 billion.

The startup says Krungsri’s is a “series B plus round” but didn’t disclose the amount. It’s a strategic investment that will let the bank make use of some of Omise’s products, including OmiseGo, a suite of blockchain-powered real-time money transfers and payments tools that’s currently still under development.

Krungsri plans to “potentially support the development of our digital products and services such as KMA, Di-wallet, and U-Choose,” Krungsri’s Sam Tanskul says in a company statement.

KMA is Krungsri’s mobile application that allows users to manage their savings accounts, make transfers, pay bills, and use other Krungsri products. The Di Wallet is used for payments through QR codes, for example, in canteens for purchasing food and drinks.Meanwhile, U-Choose is a credit card manager app which summarizes transactions and the latest promotions.

Omise’s payment gateway currently supports card payments (both credit and debit), internet banking, and Alipay.

It’s similar to other regional payment gateways such as 2C2P from Singapore, as well as Midtrans, Doku, and Xendit in Indonesia. It also faces competition from global players such as Stripe.

One of Omise’s strengths, according to the firm, is that its payment platform is white-labeled, which means that end users do not get redirected to a third-party page when making payments.

Clients range from businesses just starting out like startups and SMEs to large-scale enterprises. Typical client segments are quick restaurant services, property management, and insurers, says the firm, with “thousands of merchants” currently using the system.

Omise also plans to bring out a type of bill payments product soon in Thailand, where a merchant can generate a barcode and the customer uses that to present at the payment points in supported stores and pay by cash.

So far, plans to launch in Southeast Asia’s largest economy, Indonesia, have not yet materialized, but that’s “on the horizon,” according to the firm.

Omise actually started as an ecommerce platform in 2013, but its founders Jun Hasegawa and Donnie Harinsut had a hard time looking for a payment provider. So the team decided to create one themselves, from then on focusing on building the payment gateway instead.