Mines, a digital platform designed to help financial institutions in emerging markets offer customers credit products, has raised $13m in its Series A.
The round was led by TPG Growth The Rise Fund, a global impact investment vehicle focused on seven sectors including financial services, education and healthcare.
Participation to the round also came from Velocity Capital, Western Technology Investments, First Ally Capital, X/Seed Capital, NYCA Partners, Persistent Capital, Singularity Investments, Trans Sahara Investments, and the Bank of Industry.
Founded in 2014, Mines is a credit-as-a-service platform to help financial institutions operating in emerging markets to provide credit lines to their customer that have been missed by current credit systems.
By mining data points such as phone records, bank records and payment transactions in real-time, Mines can access credit risk in markets where there is not stable credit bureau infrastructure. It then combines its risk models with identity, origination, payments, loan lifecycle management and customer service to give institutions a platform to deliver credit.
Mines launched its services in Nigeria in 2017, and has been used by more than one million customers.
With this line of funding, the company hopes to hire more talent, further expansion across Africa, and move into the South American and Southeast Asian markets.
Mines chief scientist Kunle Olukotun said, ?What we have done differently is take Silicon Valley technology and built it into a product that is robust enough for emerging markets like Nigeria, Brazil, or Indonesia. We can extend credit to all types of customers, including customers without smartphones or even bank accounts as these are the people who need credit the most.p>
As part of the deal, the TPG Growth managing partner Yemi Lalude and Velocity Capital CEO Willem Willemstein will join Mines board of directors.
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