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Bengaluru-based fintech start-up SmartCoin, on Wednesday, said it has raised US $2 million (₹13 crore) in pre-Series A funding from a top Chinese venture capital fund and Accion Venture Lab.
Unicorn India Ventures, which is an existing investor in the company, also participated in the round, along with ISME ACE, a leading fin-tech accelerator.
SmartCoin lends small-to-mid-sized ticket loans to mobile phone users after building a SmartCoin credit score, which is backed by data science and machine learning. The company raised seed funding from Unicorn India Ventures last year, said Rohit Garg, Co-founder and CEO, SmartCoin.
The company saw a sharp uptick in growth over the past year and disbursed over 50,000 micro loans, opening credit access for people unable to able to tap the formal channels and dependent on personal networks and loan sharks. “With this round, we expect to grow the momentum and further scale ten times over the next 6–12 months.”
SmartCoin was started by IIT/IIM alumni Rohit Garg, Amit Chandel, Vinay Kumar Singh, and Jayant Upadhyay in 2016.
It is a consumer micro lending platform focussed on the underserved middle/lower-income segments in India. “We are aiming to bring greater financial inclusion, as a significant population in India does not have sufficient credit histories, and thus no access to credit.”
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