The round was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with participation from existing investors including Accel Partners and take's the firm's total funding to $70 million.

Founded in 2007, Braintree claims to have "democratised" payments for start-ups and developers, enabling them to tap features such as single click checkout, credit card storage without additional PCI compliance burden, international payments in over 130 currencies, recurring billing and mobile commerce.

It now processes more than $5 billion in payments annually for over 3000 mobile and online merchants, including Github, Shopify and Angry Birds creator Rovio

Having acquired mobile payments specialist Venmo in August, the company says it will use the funding to launch new capabilities this year and continue its aggressive international expansion beyond the 31 countries it already operates in.

Bill Ready, CEO, Braintree, says: "We are working to do for payments and e-commerce what Apple did for mobile: providing a developer-friendly platform that sparks a new wave of innovation and company-building."

Ravi Viswanathan, general partner, NEA, adds: "We believe Braintree has the strengths to challenge all the incumbents in the payment space. This investment reflects our confidence in the technology, team and international capabilities Braintree has built."