Last year, True Balance had raised $23 Mn in a Series C funding round
The company claims that it saw 100% growth month on month after it introduced the lending feature in November 2019
True Balance’s saw revenue increased by 49.8% from INR 5.97 Cr in FY18 to INR 8.95 Cr in FY19
Gurugram and Korea-based mobile balance management service startup True Balance is set to close its Series D funding round soon as the company has received a commitment from Japanese, Korean and Indian investors.
Last year, True Balance had raised $23 Mn in a Series C funding round.
The investments reportedly came in from Korean investors which include NH Investment & Securities, IMM Investment, HB Investment, IBK Capital, D3 Jubilee Partners, SB Partners and Shinhan Capital. The company has raised $65 Mn from investors such as SoftBank Ventures Asia among others.
True Balance (introduced by Balance Hero) was launched in 2014 by Charlie Lee. It converts a text message with an available balance to infographics so that the users can easily check the balance, purchase a prepaid account, recharge their balance and track data usage.
True Balance had received an RBI license to operate its wallet service in India and began its operation in December 2017. True Balance wallet lets users pay in advance for mobile recharges, much like Paytm and Mobikwik. Users can also send money to each other using UPI. Since then, it has evolved into a financial services company.
True Balance’s FY 19 report showed that the company’s revenue increased by 49.8% from INR 5.97 Cr in FY18 to INR 8.95 Cr in FY19, while the loss stood at INR 46 Cr.
“Last year, we extended to other financial services like commerce, insurance and also lending. Lending is at the core of all financial services and is the money-making business and that’s why we are concentrating on it,” Charlie Lee, founder and CEO of True Balance told Business Insider in an interview.
The company claimed that it saw 100% growth month on month after it introduced the lending feature in November 2019 but the business was affected by the pandemic. “Only August onwards the business started recovering and now has a 200-300% month on month growth rate,” Lee said.
According to the Global Fintech Report Q1 2019, more than one million borrowers and two million lenders have transacted with lending platforms, with the overall exposure remaining at INR 350 Cr. Further, between 2015 and Q1 2019, the total investment in Indian fintech startups was $7.62 Bn, out of which 25.49% ($1.94 Bn) was for lending tech startups, according to Inc42 Plus.
India’s digital lending market has the potential to become a $1 Tn (INR 71 Lakh Cr) opportunity in the next five years, according to a 2018 BCG report. Of this, personal lending is estimated to grow to a $50 Bn market, growing at a rate of 30% every year.
