South Korea-based PeopleFund, a P2P loan platform, has raised $11m in its Series B round of funding.
This investment marks the largest Series B into a Korean P2P lender, according to the company.
Kakaopay corp, a payments subsidiary of mobile messaging company Kakao, led the new funding line. Other contributions to the round came from previous backers included DAYLI Financial Group, 500 Startups, and D3 Jubilee.
Following the close of the round, the company has raised a total of $17m. Last year, PeopleFund bagged $5.7m in its Series A with commitments from 500 Startups, Wooshin Venture Investment Corp., D3 Jubilee, and DAYLI Financial Group.
The company aims to connect investors and borrowers to improve access to both personal and business loans. There is an automated proprietary credit scoring model, ‘P-Score’, which gives an instant credit score when applying for a loan.
Over the past year, the company has witnessed an 823 per cent growth compared to 2017.
Through the equity injection, the company will look to increase its customer base and increase funding into its technology and team. Currently, it is upgrading its automation processes and credit analysis models to improve the customer experience.
In the future, the company has plans to partner with other FinTechs and share their capabilities and utilise each other’s customer base to grow its investor and borrower pools.
DAYLI Financial Group CEO Sean Shin said, “We continue to support PeopleFund as we are confident that it will maintain its strong momentum and remain one of the most prominent and transparent financial technology companies amid consolidation of the Korean P2P financial market.
“PeopleFund’s growth performance, unique business model that fully integrates with a top-tier commercial bank to process loans, and calibre of people have positioned the company to continue to gain market share in Korea as it grows its existing base of users.”
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