Ant Financial is building a new platform for selling money market funds online; it is also introducing "Fortune Accounts" which will sell a broad range of investment products to Chinese consumers through its wealth management app; the first companies to partner for the Fortune Accounts are Bosera Funds, Aegon-Industrial Fund, Tianhong Fund, China Southern Fund and CCB Principal Fund with more companies to be added in June when the platform launches; Ant Financial says it plans to only develop technology to improve platforms for financial institutions, branding itself as a techfin company with no plans to develop its own financial services. Source
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On Friday last week Capital Float struck a major deal with Amazon India to provide working capital solutions to Amazon's sellers. Amazon India is tied for largest e-commerce market share in India (with Flipkart) and Amazon relies exclusively on third party merchants in India. This partnership launched in October 2016 and has already successfully disbursed thousands of loans to businesses in the Amazon network. They will provide financing to companies in the smartphone, consumer electronics, consumer durables and fashion verticals to start with and they will add new verticals over time.
We are big fans of Gaurav and Sashank, the founders of Capital Float, and their mission in India. Capital Float is the largest digital lending platform to small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in India with a specific focus on working capital management. They cater to over 5,000 SMEs and they have originated over $120 million in loans since their inception in 2013. They are one of the best funded fintech companies in India having raised over $40 million in venture capital from SAIF, Sequoia, Aspada and Creation Investments Capital Management. Most importantly, the founders come from large enterprises where they managed SME supply chain finance for years, so they know the pain points for SMEs that must deal with working capital cash flow management.
The Indian SME market is about $250 billion and it is ripe for disruption. Companies like Capital Float are well positioned to use technology to solve financial service infrastructure problems and to provide much needed access to capital to high quality companies. The best way to reach these companies is through established digital networks like the one Amazon India provides. We expect to see many similar deals with additional e-commerce marketplaces, travel portals, taxi aggregators and other online marketplaces. Capital Float already has similar deals with other leading Indian e-commerce players including Flipkart, Snapdeal and Shopclues.
For more information on the Indian fintech market you can watch the video from LendIt USA 2017 featuring Capital Float as well as Lendingkart, Finomena, Indifi, IndiaLends (PitchIt China winner 2016) and Quona Capital.