VCs in $146m Series A round for China's Black Fish
Black Fish, a Chinese online consumer finance platform, has raised a RMB950 million ($146 million) Series A round from Lightspeed China Partners, Morningside Venture Capital, Jafco Asia, and Gobi Partners.
Domestic conglomerate Nanjing Fullshare Industrial Holdings also participated in the round, in conjunction with Tao Zhang, Meituan-Dianping's chairman and CEO, and Black Fish's management team.
Black Fish was set up by three former executives at US-listed Chinese travel site Tuniu – including co-founder Haifeng Yan and CFO Jiahong Yang – and a co-founder of Quark Finance, a personal finance platform. The company provides a variety of financial solutions to individuals and small to medium-sized enterprises, covering consumer loans, installment payments, and wealth management. It claims to have more than 500,000 registered users on its platform.
"Black Fish's founders are serial entrepreneurs – they have operated a number of successful tech companies before in the consumer, financial services, and entertainment fields. They have strong capability in product development, risk control and sales and marketing, and we believe they can grow the company rapidly but in a balanced manner," Herry Han, a partner at Lightspeed China, told local media.
Several Chinese financial technology companies completed IPOs in the US last year. They include micro-lending services providers Qudian and LexinFintech, consumer finance marketplace PPDai, and Jianpu Technology, a subsidiary of financial products search and recommendation platform Rong360. Lightspeed is an investor in PPDai and Rong360.
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