Softbank invests in Chinese P2P site Edai

The size of the investment amounts to tens of millions of dollars.

Established in 2009, the Chengdu-based company offers online loan consulting and P2P financing, connecting over 200,000 micro-lenders with prospective borrowers, chiefly small to medium-sized enterprises.

Haihua Ren, Edai's CEO, said in a statement that the company took on SBCVC as an investor because of its previous experience backing internet start-ups such as Alibaba Group. He wants the platform to become more efficient and provide a safer channel through which people can lend and borrow money.

A portion of the new capital will go towards building security and risk control systems.

There were at least 800 online lending platforms operating in China in 2013, up from just 50 two years earlier, according to market research firm Reportstack. Total transaction volume came to RMB100 billion ($16.1 billion). It estimates that 71 platforms went bankrupt last year, including 54 in the fourth quarter alone.

Leading players continue to attract VC funding, with Lightspeed China Partners leading a Series B round of funding for PPDai last month. The company claims to be China's first and largest online P2P lending platform.

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• Topics
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• TMT
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• Softbank China Venture Capital
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