Small business lender Taralite scores $6.3m from Japanese investor
Photo credit: missbossy.
Taralite, an Indonesian startup that lets individuals and institutions lend money to small businesses, raised US$6.3 million from Japanese financial services conglomerate SBI Group.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed in today’s press release, but the startup says the amount “includes funds for Taralite’s lending services.” That means parts of the money will directly flow to borrowers and is not used to finance Taralite itself.
Taralite was established in 2015. In its first iteration, it was known as Wedlite, giving loans for one specific purpose: wedding parties.
Led by CEO Abraham Viktor, the startup soon pivoted its way into online lending for small businesses, specifically online sellers. It’s not the only one addressing that opportunity.
Similar to Modalku, Crowdo, and Koinworks, it works with ecommerce platforms like Lazada and Tokopedia. It offers sellers on those sites the chance to scale up their business by taking on a loan.
See: 7 crowdlending sites in Indonesia
Working with ecommerce sellers has the advantage that it’s relatively easy to gauge the health of those businesses. Their data footprint, including things like the number of transactions, customer ratings, and product listings, can flow into assessing credit risk.
Parts of the new investment will be used to expand Taralite’s research and development team. Spinning out additional loan and credit products is on the horizon.
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