Sequoia leads $9m Series A for India's MoneyTap

Existing investors New Enterprise Associates and Prime Venture Partners also participated in the round, according to media reports linked from MoneyTap’s Twitter feed. With the latest investment, the company has raised $12.3 million in all.

MoneyTap partners with banks to provide lines of credit for consumers who may need to borrow money quickly at some future date and do not qualify for credit cards or traditional bank loans. The company evaluates borrowers’ creditworthiness, and if they are approved they are given access to an unsecured loan when they need it. There is no fee for the customers until they transfer the money into their bank accounts.

The company aims to grow its loan book to INR3 billion ($46.7 million) by March 2018. It will use the new capital to expand to 50 cities from the 14 that it serves currently, to add six more partner banks, and to improve its technology offering by integrating the government-sponsored India Stack software initiative aimed at creating a universal framework for fintech in India.

A number of fintech start-ups are aiming at India’s large unbanked population, using technology to develop improved methods of credit assessment. MoneyTap’s competitors include EarlySalary, which raised a $4 million funding round from IDG Ventures and Dewan Housing Finance last month, and IndiaLends, backed by American Express Ventures and DSG Consumer Partners.

Sequoia is currently investing its fifth India fund, which closed in 2016 at $920 million; in addition, it recently topped up its fourth India fund, growing the corpus to $695 million. 

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Financials
• Technology
• Early-stage
• India
• Sequoia Capital
• Financial Services
• TMT
• New Enterprise Associates