JD Digits and Tencent injected capital to the auto finance company.
Auto. Image credit: JD Digits
Chinese auto finance company Linkfin Technology closed Series B round of financing on July 26. JD Digits and Tencent jointly led the fundraising, and Bertelsmann Asia Investment (BAI) participated. Funds raised will be used to improve the big data and artificial intelligence platform, upgrade the operating system and lure more talents.
Before this round, BAI solely invested in Linkfin in January 2018. Founded in June 2017, Linkfin provides auto finance-related products, information and technology platform services and financial technology solutions for microenterprises, financial institutions and vehicle dealers based on its expertise in risk control, marketing and operation.
Zhao Chuncheng (赵春城), founder of Linkfin, said the company was initiated to offer more convenient loan services to customers, and investment from JD Digits and Tencent enhanced its confidence in future development.
Data from WIND show that the issuing size of vehicle-based securities has reached USD 15.43 billion (CNY 106.2 billion) since the beginning of 2019. By contrast, the sizes of 2017 and 2018 are around USD 15.85 billion and USD 17.68 billion, which indicates skyrocketing growth of auto finance.
JD Digits's vice president Qu Li (区力) said that collaboration of two parties would enhance big data capacity of Linkfin and help to construct digital intelligence scenarios of auto finance, whereas the retail network of JD Digits would benefit as well.
The management is also an important issue attracting investment. Most members of the management have worked in auto finance for more than 10 years and accumulated massive experience and expertise.
BAI’s director of finance industry Zhao Penglan (赵鹏岚) admitted that their recognition of Linkfin’s management team prompted the second investment in the auto finance company.