SYNQA – the parent company of the OMG Network – have raised $80 million in a Series C Funding Round with investment coming from the venture capital arm of Siam Commercial Bank (SCB 10X) and a number of Japan-based companies including Toyota Financial Services (TFS) and the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and SMBC Venture Capital.
Other lead investors in the payment service provider included Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Corporation (ADI) and SPARX Group.
Accessible Finance
SYNQA’s founder and CEO Jun Hasegawa said the new “…funding will accelerate the development of quality products and services by our subsidiaries to better connect people, business and society. I strongly believe technologies and innovation are crucial to building a more accessible financial infrastructure.”
The companies backing SYNQA share the same vision and Dr. Arak Sutivong, CEO of SCB 10X, believes “…that together we will bring forward innovations and new services to help enterprises transform and thrive in the digital future.”
TFS, who manage the sales finance business of Toyota Motor Corporation and operate a smartphone payment app called TOYOTA wallet, are looking to “…utilise SYNQA’s payment service and blockchain technology to accelerate TOYOTA wallet service content expansion…”
The Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and their investment division SMBCVC are seeking to “…co-create the digital shift of business models for corporate customers…[and]… will focus on Asia by fusing advanced IT and financial solutions, including blockchain technology owned by SYNQA.”
SYNQA’s development of blockchain technology comes through their subsidiary, the OMG Network, who originally came to market through an initial coin offering (ICO) when branded as OmiseGo.
The OMG Network has a far reaching goal that includes a “…blockchain-based system that would allow for universal value transfer…” which could include the “…transfer of other things: converting loyalty points from one app to another, or trade one cryptocurrency for another, or convert yen to dollars.”
As such, “The medium doesn’t matter; you’d be able to pay for Starbucks using Thai Airways loyalty points – as long as both of those companies were on the network, digital denominations of value could be instantaneously converted from the medium you owned, into the medium the receiver wanted, at an appropriate conversion rate, and could even happen seamlessly and instantly at the point of sale (no added step of converting).”
