Online payments company eWise has raised $12.1 million in funding led by Balderton Capital with Total Technology Ventures, and Stanley S. Shuman of Allen & Co. participating in the round.
eWise develops a technology, called Secure Vault Payment, to allow users to automatically deduct a payment from their bank account without disclosing their personal information to online businesses. Payments are processed via a login and password to the bank’s site. eWise expects that this payments technology could reach 400 million uses within 5 years. Clients include Citibank and First Direct (part of HSBC) in the UK, Ping An in China and Westpac in Australia.
The company plans to use the funding to expand to the U.S. as well as for sales and marketing efforts. Of course eWise faces competition from PayPal, which is a giant in the online payments space. While PayPal has a different payments mechanism, the company is growing at a fast clip, adding 1 million new users per month.