Boro, a lending platform for students, has closed its Series A round on $12m as it looks to reach more states in the US.
The investment was led by China-based online financing company LexinFintech. In conjunction with the deal, Boro will leverage LexinFintech’s expertise to help it serve the underbanked Generation-Z users in China.
With the fresh line of capital, the company is looking to expand its presence to hit more colleges and universities across the US, which includes entering more states. Furthermore the company is looking to continue the growth of its BoroCash service which has seen its customer base grow by more than 300% in the first six months of operation.
Boro aims to help students which are in financial hardship and have no credit history. This makes it hard for them to cope when bills pile up and they cannot access a loan. The FinTech claims over half of college dropouts say they stopped attending due to money issues and 70% of students claim to feel financial stress.
US-based Boro provides students with access to microloans which help them cover costs for expenses such as textbooks, class fees, groceries and more. It assesses applicants on non-traditional data sources such as educational background, utility bills and bank transactions.
Boro co-founder and CEO Hao Liu said, “Our goal is to create meaningful opportunities for students to build healthy borrowing habits that will serve them well beyond their time in college.
“Students today are overserved by unethical lenders. Boro breaks that pattern by helping users get access to stress-free financing that helps them grow their financial confidence, and protects them from high-interest rates and hidden fees.”
The company received a $100m line of credit from Arcadia funds in 2018 and secured a $2m angel round back in 2017.
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