Qupital, a China-headquartered provider of cross-border e-commerce financing, has received $150m in a series B round that included e-commerce firm Alibaba’s Entrepreneurs Fund, DealStreetAsia reported today.
The round consisted of equity funding and a receivables-backed securitisation facility, according to a statement cited by DealStreetAsia, and it was led by the $14.8bn Greater Bay Area (GBA) Homeland Development Fund.
The Hong Kong government’s Innovation and Technology Venture Fund, MindWorks Ventures, Nordstar and Silverhorn Group filled out the equity portion of the round while Citi and Integrated Alternative Credit Fund provided the securitisation facility.
Qupital’s online platform connects private investors with online merchants seeking financing and utilises big data and artificial intelligence-based credit assessment models to assess a borrower’s creditworthiness.
The company has mainly focused on the cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen but intends to use the connections of its series B investors to access businesses in the GBA region, which includes Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
The cash will also help Qupital expand internationally, further develop its machine learning technology and increase its lending to e-commerce sellers.
Online lending platform operator CreditEase’s FinTech Investment Fund had led Qupital’s last round, a $15m series A round in 2019 that included Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund and existing investor MindWorks Ventures, lifting its overall funding to $17m.
Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, CreditEase, MindWorks Ventures and Decacorn Capital subsequently supplied an undisclosed amount of series A-plus funding for the company in December 2020.
