CRED plans to invest around $10 million in its lending partner LiquiLoans as the Indian fintech startup expands its ownership in financial services, TechCrush has learned and confirmed.
The Bengaluru-headquartered investment in Mumbai-headquartered LiquiLoans will increase the lender’s valuation to nearly $200 million, the companies said in a statement.
CRED partnered with LiquiLoans last year to launch CRED Mint, a service that allows CRED customers to lend to each other at interest rates of up to 9% per annum. CRED founder and CEO Kunal Shah said in a statement, “Their work has helped expand credit availability and we look forward to partnering with them in the next phase of growth and innovation.”
The investment will help LiquiLoans, which runs a profitable business, “strengthen its technology capabilities and participate in the credit ecosystem that CRED enables,” the startup said in a statement.
“Our goal has been to build a trusted and credible P2P lending platform. To that end, we will continue to strategically partner with like-minded entities,” said Achal Mittal, founder of LiquorLoans, in a statement. “Our long-term relationship with CRED and this investment accelerate our goal of creating seamless lending and investment efficiency “
Peer-to-peer lending has taken off in India in recent years, but some startups have struggled to keep the service afloat.
LiquiLoans will be the latest in a series of investments CRED has made over the past year. The startup, which lets consumers manage and pay their credit cards and multiple bills on time, as well as access D2C brands and loans, invested in lender CredAvenue earlier this year and expense management platform HapPay in December.
TechCrunch previously reported that the startup, backed by Tiger Global, Sequoia India, Alpha Wave Ventures and Dragoneer and valued at $6.4 billion, engaged with an Amazon-backed small case earlier this year to initially explore investment and later for most acquisitions. The deal fell through after disagreements over the valuation, three people familiar with the matter said.
