Crediwatch Information Analytics Pvt. Ltd, a financial technology firm, has raised $3.2 million (approximately Rs 22.69 crore at current exchange rates) in its Series A funding round led by Artis Labs, a venture capital firm based in California.
Other investors that participated in the round include Abstract Ventures, a San Francisco-based seed investor.
The Bengaluru-based startup will use the funds for research and development, and commercialisation of its platform, the company said in a statement.
The latest round takes the total money Crediwatch has raised to about $5 million.
The startup said it had previously raised $1.6 million from investors such as Modern India Ltd, Contrarian Vriddhi Fund, Better Capital, Vijay Kumar Jatia, former Flipkart chief people officer Mekin Maheshwari and Pithambar Gona, the former managing director of Blackstone Private Equity Asia.
Meghna Suryakumar, founder and chief executive officer at Crediwatch, said the firm was aiming to judge the creditworthiness of small and medium-sized enterprises by measuring trust through factors such as verifiable data, insights and good behaviour.
“The ecosystem needs a dynamic business information exchange to create transparency and a continuous monitoring of borrowers to weed out bad cases early,” Suryakumar said.
Separately, Artis general partner Stuart Peterson said the firm was confident in its investment because of Crediwatch’s commitment to addressing the gaps in the digital lending space, adding that the firm was positioned to leverage the failure of conventional credit rating and underwriting methods through their technology.
Crediwatch, which was founded in 2013, is a data insights-as-a-service company that provides businesses and lenders with credit intelligence that allows them to increase and improve their trading activity. It provides its solutions for financial institutions, enterprises as well as legal and private equity firms, according to its website.
Deals in the fintech segment
The financial technology segment and startups providing services that fall under this category have been the subject of heavy investor attention, even as the larger financial services sector continues to face the fallout of the liquidity crunch caused by the collapse of IL&FS last year.
Last month, the US-based investment firm Tiger Global Management invested $25 million in online stock brokerage Upstox and Silicon Valley-based VC firm Ribbit Capital led a $21.4 million Series B funding round in online investment platform Groww.
Similarly, NeoGrowth Credit Pvt. Ltd, a small and medium-enterprises-focused fintech lender, raised $17 million in debt financing from France’s Proparco SA. Online peer-to-peer lending platform LenDenClub raised $1 million in a pre-Series A round led by Artha Venture Fund.