SoftBank Ventures Asia co-leads $45m round of Korean fintech startup

Chai, a South Korea-based payments solution platform, has raised US$45 million in a series B top-up round co-led by SoftBank Ventures Asia and Nyca Partners.

Chai aims to bridge the payments gap in Asian markets by providing a unified payments solution for local merchants through a single application programming interface called Chai Port. Through this, merchants can activate and offer over 30 payment options – which includes credit cards, digital wallets, bank transfers, and cross-border payments – to their customers within an hour.

The platform currently processes more than US$6 billion in transactions on behalf of over 2,200 merchants. It was recently launched in Vietnam and Thailand.

The company will use the fresh funds to expand its footprint in Southeast Asia and develop a fully automated end-to-end payment infrastructure for digital merchants throughout Asia.

With the rise of the digital economy, the gross merchandise value of online transactions in Southeast Asia is expected to hit US$1 trillion by 2030.

Chai was founded in 2019 by Daniel Shin, who is also the co-founder of global blockchain firm Terraform Labs.

“We are excited to continue our partnership with Chai as they grow in Korea and expand across Southeast Asia, which is ripe for digital innovation in the payments space,” said JP Lee, CEO of SoftBank Ventures Asia.

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This marks the second investment of SoftBank’s early-stage venture capital arm in Chai. In December 2020, the VC joined the South Korean startup’s US$60 million fundraise.

Other investors that participated in the current round include:

• KT Investment
• Conductive Ventures
• Nordstar Capital
• Samsung Next
• B Capital