Fintech lending startup Helicap on Tuesday announced a strategic partnership with Japanese financial services group Credit Saison. The group will be deploying USD 10 million in impact debt financing in selected Southeast Asian alternative lending platforms and non-bank financial institutions.
Credit Saison will use Helicap’s credit analytics tool, which is able to process large amounts of loan data, providing real-time credit insights, according to the company. Co-founder and CEO David Z. Wang told KrASIA that the collaboration will especially help low-income borrowers and micro-entrepreneurs in Vietnam and Indonesia.
Wang said that they have so far, as a group and via its subsidiaries, facilitated around USD 40 million in alternative lending, enabling debt access to more than 150,000 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and individuals. The company also evaluated over 300 alternative lending platforms and invested in 15 through its subsidiaries.
Helicap closed a USD 10 million funding round in April led by Saison Capital, the corporate venture capital subsidiary of Credit Saison. “We have been focused over the past year on developing and refining our tech, specifically, our credit analytics platform and risk management frameworks on the back end, as well as our investor onboarding and investment management interfaces on the front end,” Wang said.