Santander InnoVentures, the corporate venture fund of Spanish lender Banco Santander, has invested in American fintech startup PayJoy.
The investment was part of a $6m fundraising for PayJoy. The fundraising also saw the participation of Japanese trading firm ITOCHU and takes the total capital raised by the startup since its inception two years back to $30m.
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PayJoy will use the recently raised funds to expand across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The startup is based in California and also has offices in Mexico.
PayJoy facilitates credit approval to buy smartphones for under-banked people by using their mobile number, photo ID and Facebook.
Santander InnoVentures head of investments Manuel Silva said: “Investing in PayJoy shows Santander InnoVentures’s constant search for great teams pushing the boundaries of fintech. It also shows our increasing interest in models that are relevant to emerging markets and the underbanked.”
PayJoy CEO Doug Ricket added: “PayJoy’s approach is to partner with the major players in the mobile industry to achieve scale. These strategic investors have offered to introduce PayJoy through their long-standing deep regional business networks, which I believe will be tremendously beneficial in accelerating our business partnerships and getting millions of customers onto smartphones in 2018.”
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