China credit services specialist WeShare gets $90m Series B

Other participants include ICBC International, DT Capital Partners, Bertelsmann Asia Investments, Mangrove Capital, CCB Trust, and Welight Capital. Tencent Holdings, which is a strategic investor in the company, re-upped in this round, without disclosing the specific amount.

The one-year-old company was established by Tencent and CEO Lesi Zuo, formerly a managing director at Standard Chartered. WeShare primarily works with institutional clients, such as commercial banks, automotive finance providers, and e-commerce platforms. Using artificial intelligence and big data-driven processes, it helps improve the efficiency of asset generation, transaction execution, and project risk monitoring.

“Consumption and consumer finance have become the two growth engines for China’s economy. At the core of the consumer finance industry, it is necessary to match customers with the institutions that suit them the best, as well as to do better risk-based pricing,” Zuo said in a statement.

Consumer finance has expanded rapidly in China in recent years as the government seeks to diversify the banking system and support domestic consumption. This has spawned PE and VC investments in companies that help financial institutions manage consumer credit processes and assess credit risk – such as Dashu Finance, Wecash, and 100Credit – as well as in peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms.

However, efforts to crack down on fraud and broader restrictions on the flow of liquidity to the country’s informal banking market have curtailed the activities of P2P players. This has resulted in a wave of defaults as platforms go bust, inciting protests across the nation.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Early-stage
• Financials
• China
• Venture
• China Renaissance
• CITIC Capital
• Bertelsmann Asia Investments
• Tencent