US-based micro-loan company Inventure has raised $10m in its series A round from a consortium including Google Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of internet company Google.
Google Ventures was joined in the round by venture capital firms Collaborative Fund, Lowercase Capital and Mesa Ventures.
Previously, the company raised $1.2m in seed funding in 2013, according to a regulatory filing. Crunchbase lists the India Internet Fund has having made an undisclosed inevstment in January 2015, though the claim is unsourced.
Inventure uses mobile technology to provide credit scores to its users that update in real-time. This information is then used to offer credit in the form of micro-loans. Funds are deposited quickly in the customer’s account, reaching users in Africa in less than an hour.
The funding from this round will be used by Inventure to expand its operations in Africa and to better compete with other micro-loan platforms.
Shivani Siroya, founder of Inventure, said: “There is an urgent need for convenient, affordable credit in emerging markets that is not being met. The overwhelming demand for our product has proven that we can use mobile technology to begin closing this gap.”