Homegrown P2P lending platform Funding Societies raised US$25m

Its Series B funding round was led by Softbank Ventures Korea and Sequoia India.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform Funding Societies has raised US$25m in its oversubscribed Series B funding round, which was led by Softbank Ventures Korea, along with Sequoia India, Alpha JWC Ventures (Indonesia), and Golden Gate Ventures. Qualgro and LINE Ventures also participated.

According to an announcement, the platform has raised credit lines from banks and financial institutions to further support SMEs. "This fundraiser, largest by a P2P lending platform in Southeast Asia, will help realize Funding Societies’ vision of financial inclusion for Southeast Asia," it said.

The company said that in January 2018, the platform crossed the $100m mark in crowdfunded SME loans, which marked a 300% growth of its loan book since the same period in 2016. This, while maintaining a default rate of less than 1.5%. The platform has also increased its lender base beyond 60,000 in less than 3 years of operation.

The platform offers e-signing of contracts, auto investment algorithm for lenders, and a mobile app for borrowers and lenders.

Funding Societies, founded in 2015 by Kelvin Teo and Reynold Wijaya, is Singapore Business Review's hottest startup in 2017. The platform covers small to medium sized enterprises in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia with retail and institutional lenders. 

Golden Gate Ventures managing partner Vinnie Lauria said, “We invest in disruptive technologies. Funding Societies uses machine learning on a large number of data points to identify opportunities that traditional banks would overlook. This leads to smarter financing decisions and higher-quality SMEs on their platform. Their loans are crowd-funded within minutes.”