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Qupital, a fintech start-up that claims to be Hong Kong's largest foreign trade finance platform for SMEs, has closed a $ 15 million Series A fund led by 39 CreditEase FinTech Investment (CEFIF), with the participation of confirmed investors Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs and MindWorks Ventures. participants in his turn of seed. To date, Qupital raised $ 17 million, including a launch two years ago, and will use its latest funding to expand its supply chain finance products, get into mainland China's cities and hire more staff to its technology development and risk management teams.
CreditEase, which provides loans and other financial services to Chinese SMEs, will act as a strategic investor in Qupital's geographic expansion. Current investor Alibaba has already helped Qupital reach small businesses through its platform. Qupital will open branches in Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and set up a new technology center in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau region to develop talent and technology. In total, he will be hiring around 100 people for his Hong Kong office this year.
Founded in 2016, Qupital offers loans to SMEs that often have cash flow problems, as they have long been waiting for their bills to be paid. Qupital loans cover most of the value of an invoice, and are then compared to those of investors and lenders who hedge liquidity and hope for a return. The company earns money by charging small businesses a service fee of a fixed percentage of the total value of the bill, then a discount fee, as well as a percentage of the net profits made by the company. Investors.
Qupital has now processed 8,000 transactions for a total value of HK $ 2 billion. He will not disclose the number of SMEs he has worked with, but co – founder and chairman Andy Chan says that number is in the order of hundreds.
Chan told TechCrunch that in China, Qupital would not compete directly with traditional financial institutions, as it focuses on financing Hong Kong-based Hong Kong-based companies trading in Hong Kong-denominated Chinese companies instead of the renminbi. onshore. It will also target SMEs underserved by traditional lenders, using other sources of data to determine their creditworthiness.
In a statement, CEFIF Executive Director Dennis Cong said: "The growing volume of SMEs and cross-border trade is generating a high demand for alternative financing for underserved SMEs in the market and offers investors the opportunity to obtain a decent return adjusted for risk. We look forward to working with Qupital to expand its capital base and create unprecedented investment opportunities for CreditEase. "
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