Crowdsourced microlending platform Milaap raises $1.1M from Jungle Ventures, Skype co-founder & others

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Singapore- and Bangalore-based online microlending platform Milaap Social Ventures has raised $1.1 million (around Rs 6.6 crore) from Singapore-based Jungle Ventures and others for development of the platform and scale up its operations with more marketing and engineering, according to a company statement.

Other investors include Toivo Annus (co-founder and former head of engineering, Skype), LionRock Capital (a Singapore-based family investment office), Jayesh Parekh (managing partner, Jungle Ventures; also co-founder, Sony Entertainment Television) and existing investor Unitus Seed Fund (USF).

As part of the investment, Hari Kumar, partner, LionRock Capital and Parekh, who was also a board member of Song Investment Management Company (a fund owned by Soros Economic Development Fund, Omidyar Network and Google) have joined the board of the company.

Prior to this funding, Milaap raised $250,000 in seed investments from USF, First Light Ventures, Vijay Shekhar Sharma (founder, One97) and Rajiv Madhok (founder, Oorja). The company was started in June 2010 and to date, the platform has facilitated loans worth $800,000.

“I have known the founding team of Milaap for the past few years. Enabling crowd funding in Asia comes with its own set of challenges and they have shown good traction early on,” said Parekh.

Source: Techcircle.in (link opens in a new window)

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microfinance