China-based peer-to-peer lending platform WeLab has raised $14m in series A funding from media company TOM Group and venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, the New York Times reported on Monday.
Founded in early 2013, WeLab aims to bring big data to finance, utilising large amounts of information to help businesses evaluate and price credit risk. The Hong Kong-headquartered company plans to use the funding to support a push into the rest of China.
TOM Group CEO Ken Yeung said in a statement: “We are very excited about WeLab’s cutting-edge risk and fraud control technology, which has the ability to leverage big data, a massive untapped opportunity in the region.”
WeLab’s core business is its P2P lending platform WeLend, but as it moves further into China the company intends to focus more on financial technology, partly to avoid the fierce competition in China’s microlending sector.