LAHORE: Finja, Pakistan’s leading digital lending platform, announced today that it has closed $9 Million of a $10 Million Series A1 financing round.
This latest round brings in new investor ICU Ventures, with all previous institutional investors participating again including BeeNext, Vostok Emerging Finance, Quona Capital and Gray MacKenzie Engineering Services (a Descon company).
Under the terms of the financing, the company has the flexibility to raise an additional $1 Million as a part of this round.
Finja subsidiaries operate under dual licensing regimes of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) for its lending and digital payments businesses. With this first-of-its-kind support from both regulators, Finja has forged digital partnerships with banks, FMCGs, distributors, kiryana stores and small businesses. The company has clocked over Rs. 100 Billion in transactional volume with its assets under management growing in excess of 110% during the pandemic year.
Supported by the credit books of its partner banks, Finja has disbursed over 50,000 unsecured digitally scored Islamic and conventional loans to businesses and salaried individuals. Small business and consumer lending represents a Rs10 Trillion (USD $60 Billion) market in Pakistan of which less than 4% is currently penetrated. As a result of this sector being neglected, small businesses have largely struggled to grow due to unavailability of capital.
‘‘With this new capital injection along with our strong partnerships with SECP, SBP, banks, FMCGs, distributors and so many other parts of the supply chain and payment ecosystem, we are fully equipped and supported by the industry to rapidly scale to create unprecedented impact,” said Qasif Shahid, Finja’s Co-Founder and CEO. Qasif previously launched mobile banking products in Singapore, East Africa, UAE and Pakistan.
Finja’s Co-Founder and Chairman Monis Rahman added, “We are excited to scale our efforts to help small businesses and consumers reach their goals with dignity. We are grateful for the support of some of the world’s best fintech funds which have invested in Pakistan for the first time through Finja.” Monis is one of Pakistan’s digital pioneers and runs Rozee.pk, Pakistan’s largest jobs platform.
About Finja
Finja was founded in 2016 by Qasif Shahid, Monis Rahman, and Umer Munawar. Its wholly-owned subsidiary Finja (Pvt) Limited became the first fintech in Pakistan to receive an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license pilot approval from the SBP while its other subsidiary, Finja Lending Services has a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) license from the SECP. Its institutional investors include Vostok Emerging Finance, BeeNext, Quona Capital, Gray MacKenzie Engineering Services (a Descon company), and ICU Ventures.
