Kreditech, an online consumer finance startup that loans money to unbanked borrowers with little or no credit rating, is mining $110 million in a Series C round of funding. About $44 million of it is financed by Peter Thiel, famed entrepreneur and venture capitalist who discovered Facebook, Palantir and many others.
Similar such buoyed fintech startups like WorldRemit, Funding Circle, and TransferWise are raising large rounds of fundings, and increasing mergers and acquisitions pointing toward an imminent disruption of the traditional banking models. Earlier this month, PayPal acquired online-money transfer company Xoom for $890 million.
It’s not yet confirmed on who else might be involved in the funding round, however, it is known that the round took place at a pre-money valuation of $750 million. The story was first reported by TechCrunch.
Since Kreditech positions itself as an online-consumer finance company, it could be possible that the firm might spread its tentacles towards offering a range of services such as offering alternative financing options. As a matter of fact, Rene Griemens, CFO at Kreditech, fondly refers to the company as the “Amazon of consumer funding”, hinting that the company is eventually going to be a one-stop shops for all of consumer’s online financing needs.
The $750 million valuation is an indication of significant growth for the company. In 2014, the company raised a $40 million Series B when it was valued at $190 million.
Kreditech is in many ways similar to any other e-commerce company, and keeps a small percentage of commission for itself. In 2014, it made €21 million in revenues and expects to hit €55 million in 2015. It claims fundamental profitability in its most mature markets, however, it has also been reinvesting into growth and customer acquisitions, as it intends to with the recently raised amount.
Instead of circumventing the U.S. market, Kreditech is focusing on scaling up in developing economies. It’s active in seven markets already – Peru, Mexico, Spain, Poland, Australia, Kazakhstan and Germany – and will soon be coming to Brazil and Romania.
Kreditech is trying to build tech-centric solutions in financing loans and helping customers build a credit history. It uses roughly 20,000 data points using big data to measure an individual’s suitability as a loan applicant. These data points include bank account statements, behavioral information, as well as an individual’s interaction with web sites. These data points are then accumulated into segmented clusters that help determine the probability of when a specific individual would pay back a loan.
Kreditech has a better default rate compared to traditional banks, this is because it has a comparatively low acceptance rate where nearly 80% of applicant get rejected. The finance company, just like all other online lending companies in the market, claims to have a much faster turnaround rate on applications.
So far, Kreditech has secured over $260 million, with around $48 million in equity. Its previous investors include Blumberg Capital, Point Nine, Global Founders Capital, Kreos and Värde Capital.
