Mumbai Tala, a global technology company building accessible financial services, has raised $145 million in a Series E funding round led by upstarts with participation from the Stellar Development Foundation. New investors Kindred Ventures and J.J. Safra Group, along with existing investors including IVP, Revolution Growth, Lowercase Capital and PayPal Ventures, also joined the round, bringing Tala’s total funding to over $350 million.
Founded by Shivani Siroya and based in the US, Tala will use Investing to accelerate the rollout of its new financial account experience, which allows customers to borrow, save and manage their money through Tala’s consumer finance app. Provides new tools for Tala will also grow its teams in Kenya, India, the Philippines, Mexico and the United States and pursue plans for both geographic and product expansion, including crypto offerings.
The company entered India in 2020 and has already signed up over half a million users for the platform.
In addition to payments and savings, Tala’s new offerings will include a wide range of personal credit options, including long-term loans and credits that can be configured to match the income cycle of customers. Since launching in Nairobi in 2014, Tala has extended over $2.7 billion in credit to over 6 million customers in Kenya, the Philippines, Mexico and India. Tala leverages mobile technology and data science to serve people that traditional financial institutions are not serving, helping them better use, protect and grow their money.
Tala’s main credit product offers micro-loans ranging from $10 to $300, with an average ticket size of $150.
Tala also plans to use this funding to develop a mass market crypto product for emerging markets.
As part of this fundraising, Upstart co-founder Paul Gu and Stellar Development Foundation CEO and Executive Director Danelle Dixon have joined Tala’s board of directors.
“Tala has over the past seven years provided important and valuable services in markets where the financial system is fundamentally broken,” said Shivani Siroya, Tala’s founder and CEO. “This new investment will accelerate our path to becoming the primary financial account for the global underbanked and helping millions of people progress in their financial lives.”
Siroya said the debt portfolio of the company has not been affected much by the pandemic. “Our portfolio got stronger after the pandemic. Customers were able to navigate the crisis. Our repayment rate is above 94%,” Siroya said.
Siroya said India is the company’s newest market, but India’s business is expected to grow significantly in 2022.
“Under Shivani’s leadership, Tala has begun to tackle the toughest and biggest problem in consumer finance: enabling access to credit in the developing world,” said Paul Gu, Upstart’s co-founder and head of product. “The upstart shares Tala’s belief that technology is the key to unlocking access for the underserved, and we are excited to support them in serving the next 1 billion people entering the financial system. “
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