The first institutional funding round was led by financial technology venture capital firm Route 66 Ventures.

Also announced today is KFC as the latest restaurant to invest in Judo's technology to simplify online payments. Last year Judo partnered with coffee chain Harris + Hoole to produce an award-winning app, "Retailer of the Year" at Payments Awards 2014, that allows customers to pay without having to touch, tap or scan at the counter.

The £6M extra investment will be used primarily to increase the resources of the team as Judo looks to expand its existing business and products in Europe and enter into new geographic territories later this year.

Judo's patent pending technology is built specifically for mobile and allows for faster transactions, higher completion rates and lower checkout abandonment.

Through its award-winning API, the Judo platform helps merchants deliver a seamless, intuitive customer experience on mobile that boosts revenues and increases customer loyalty. Businesses using judo's platform further benefit from mobile-specific fraud prevention and API level transaction routing, overcoming a key barrier to mobile payments adoption: security and fraud concerns.

Chris Matthews, Applications Development Manager at KFC, said, "Judo works with KFC's existing infrastructure and acquiring bank to provide a cost effective mobile-first payment gateway. KFC's payment experience simplifies card data entry and speeds up the end-to-end process, significantly reducing the average time to pay. By reducing the friction at the point of payment, KFC expects to enjoy higher transaction completion and increased loyal customer satisfaction."

Nick Tolley, CEO at Harris + Hoole, said, "We partnered with Judo over their competitors because their payments platform integrates seamlessly with our existing app ecosystem. Judo's platform does away with the pain points of some other payment facilitators, whereby consumers are taken away from the app to a third party environment. It can be needlessly frustrating and complicated for our loyal customers. Partnering with judo has made it even quicker and easier for our regulars to get their usual order on-the-move."

Dennis Jones, founder and CEO at Judo, said, "This fresh £6M investment enables us to drive growth in our core European markets and expand our business into new territories. Consumers are deterred from using apps with a clunky experience, we're looking to make this seamless. We believe judo is genuinely providing the opportunity to change the way we pay for goods. We're incredibly proud of our work with our merchant partners and continue to find innovative ways to enable these businesses to capture and serve their loyal customers on mobile channels. Our expertise in managing risk from mobile-initiated transactions helps these businesses protect their margins without sacrificing conversion rates while our flexible business models minimise their risk and cost."