VC-backed 51 Credit Card completes $129m HK IPO

The company sold 118.7 million shares at HK$8.50 apiece, the bottom end of the indicative range, according to a filing. The stock ended its first day of trading on July 13 at HK$9.14. As of early trading on June 16, it was at HK$8.55. Tiantu has an 12.68% interest in 51 Credit Card following the offering, while smart phone maker Xiaomi has 2.1%, e-commerce giant JD.com has 4.2%.

The company describes itself as China’s largest peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform that targets credit card users. It launched in 2012 as a personal credit card management app, helping users track multiple cards across different issuing banks and facilitating bill repayment. 51 Credit Card then launched a credit card application platform, working with banks to offer co-branded cards, and leveraged its accumulated data to provide consumer loans and wealth management products.

As of December 2017, the company had 81 million users across all its app, including 62 million registered users on its credit card management platform. Average monthly active users for the year came to 5.9 million. It has managed 106.3 million credit cards since inception and facilitated RMB108.5 billion ($16.2 billion) in card repayment transactions in 2017, the prospectus shows.

The company also facilitated RMB33.9 billion in consumer loans, which are unsecured and funded primarily by individual investors on the P2P platform. Nearly three-quarters of borrowers are credit card management app users.

51 Credit Card generated RMB2.27 billion in revenue for the year, up from RMB571 million in 2016. More than half of it came from fees for facilitating loans and sales of wealth management products. Over the same period, the company’s net loss narrowed from RMB2.23 billion to RMB1.38 billion.

The company secured a seed round in 2012, and then a RMB32 million Series A round from investors including Crystal Stream Capital, Meridian Capital China and SIG China in 2013. In 2015, it raised a $77 million Series B round across two tranches. VC investors GGV, SIG and Shunwei participated in the round alongside Xiaomi, and JD.com.

In late 2016, 51 Credit Card received RMB2.57 billion in Series C funding from a group domestic investors, including Tiantu, Qianhai Equity Investment Fund, and Harvest Investment Management. Last year, it closed an extended Series C round worth $84 million with contributions from Harvest, Tiantu, and Intime Retail Group.  

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• Topics
• Greater China
• IPO
• Financials
• Technology
• China
• TMT
• Tiantu Capital
• Shunwei Capital Partners
• Susquehanna Asia Investment
• GGV Capital