Wecash Completes US$80 Million Series C Financing Led by China Merchants Group, Forebright Capital and SIG Ventures

SINGAPORE, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Technology company Wecash announces the completion of its Series C financing with a capital infusion of US$80 million led by China Merchants Venture Capital, Forebright Capital and SIG Ventures, with Joinhope Capital and Lingfeng Capital also joining the round as co-investors. To date, Wecash has raised over US$100 million as it leveraged upon the potential of smartphone ubiquity and artificial intelligence to power its global expansion.

Wecash founder and CEO Zhi Zhengchun said, "Since founding, Wecash has experienced break-neck growth through the application of big data and machine learning to the financial sector, providing tens of millions of consumers with next- generation credit evaluation and lower-friction access to partnering financial institutions' products. I am excited to welcome our new investors China Merchants Group, Forebright Capital, Joinhope Capital and Lingfeng Capital, and firmly believe that their value-add and support alongside our existing investors', can surely propel Wecash to greater heights as we look to go beyond finance and apply our technology to other sectors."

Founded in Beijing in early 2014, Wecash is the first Chinese technology company to apply big data and machine learning to prevent fraud and determine credit worthiness in the financial sector. With over 80 million users and 30 financial institution partners, Wecash's technology has been successfully applied to evaluate consumer credit for loans in 3C, agriculture, aesthetic medicine, home rental, cars, insurance and travel, facilitating more than US$2.2 billion in loans. Since 2017, Wecash has also expanded beyond China through the establishment of offices and operations in Brazil, Singapore and Indonesia.

Wecash Chief Risk Officer Tang Xuewei shared, "Our core risk-pricing engine is a dynamic risk model combined with artificial intelligence system. This engine collects and processes up to 12,000 data points which are then classified into 9 categories of key user behaviours to evaluate the credit of each loan applicant. From these data points, tens of thousands of indicators are generated and cross-checked in evaluating the repayment willingness and ability of each applicant. In merely 3 seconds, our engine can compute an applicant's credit and risk scoring, reducing non-performing loans for partner financial institutions by 70% or higher."

According to Zhi, Wecash will use its latest round of capital to expand in 4 key areas, namely:

1. Improve its "lending AI" to provide banks, insurance and consumer finance companies with bleeding-edge fintech services;
2. Extend and improve upon its offerings for online and offline consumption and bring about greater convenience and financial inclusion for consumers;
3. Expand upon its hardware R&D team to leverage upon Wecash's technology and develop new machine learning solutions for the financial sector to improve productivity and reduce risk; and
4. Accelerate its overseas expansion; from a R&D centre in Silicon Valley since 2015, to new markets in Brazil, Indonesia and throughout Latin America and Southeast Asia in 2017.

For more information, please contact:

Chan Lianghong James (陈亮宏)
Chief Strategy Officer, Wecash
Managing Director, Wecash (Southeast Asia) Pte. Ltd.
Director and CEO, PT. Digital Tunai Kita
[email protected]

About China Merchants Venture Capital

China Merchants Venture Capital is a subsidiary of a leading state-owned conglomerate China Merchants Group. Started in Dec 2015 with a US$735 million fund from China Merchants Group, China Merchants Venture Capital adopts a combination of fund-of-funds and direct investment strategy to align with the group's "Industry 4.0" and "Internet+" strategy, with a focus on the future of transport, finance and real estate. Apart from providing growth capital, China Merchants Venture Capital also brings the might of parent China Merchants Group's operations to provide strategic value.

About Forebright Capital

Forebright Capital, which was spun off in 2015 from Hong Kong-listed financial conglomerate China Everbright Limited, currently manages US$1 billion in assets across four funds. As one of the earliest teams investing in China, Forebright is committed to partnering with business leaders, providing value-added services and driving long-term growth and returns for investors through discipline and rigorous process.

About SIG Ventures

SIG Ventures is the venture arm of Susquehanna International Group, one of the largest privately held financial institutions in the world, which invests in cutting-edge high-technology companies. With US$950 million under management, SIG Ventures is known for teaming with leading serial entrepreneurs and innovators on disruptive technologies that define and dominate high-growth markets.

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SOURCE Wecash