The Venture Codex

Participated · Series D · Aug 2017

Dianrong is a Shanghai, China-based online lending marketplace that provides financial services to small businesses and individuals. The company offers a flexible infrastructure that enables design and customization of lending and borrowing products based on industry-specific data and insights. Its platform is supported by online risk-management and operations tools and provides marketplace lending, lending-related services and fintech solutions. Leadership cited in the article includes Founder and Executive Chairman Soul Htite and CEO Long Hsiang Loh. The company raised an additional US$70m in Series D funding, indicating ongoing capital formation to support its operations and growth. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article. Dianrong operates an online lending marketplace in China that provides loan originations, investment products and marketplace lending solutions for individuals and small and medium-sized enterprises. The platform originates about US$500m in monthly assets for roughly 4 million retail lenders. The company employs approximately 3,500 professionals across 28 offices in China, including about 600 full-time fintech engineers. Recently it acquired the asset-generation operations of Quark Finance, an acquisition the company says tripled its local footprint. Dianrong also launched Chained Finance, a blockchain platform for supply-chain finance developed with FnConn, a Foxconn subsidiary. Concurrent with these expansions, Dianrong completed a US$220m Series D financing to support its growth and product initiatives. Dianrong.com operates an online marketplace lending platform that matches personal and business borrowers with lenders in China. The company also sells banking solutions to large financial institutions, combining technology with risk-management techniques. In June 2014 it launched a wealth-management product, TuanTuanZhuan, which uses backend algorithms and supports millions of micro-transactions daily. TuanTuanZhuan has exceeded RMB 2.7 billion in volume and has earned over RMB 100 million in interest for Dianrong lenders. Founded in 2012 by Soul Htite and Kevin Guo, the company has grown to over 1,700 employees and 18 offices across China. The business appears focused on scaling its lending marketplace and wealth-management offerings while partnering with traditional financial institutions. Dianrong.com is a Shanghai-based P2P lending platform founded in 2012 by CEO Soul Htite. It owns and operates a peer-to-peer lending platform that leverages proprietary technology to lower the costs of underwriting, loan servicing, customer acquisition, account management, regulatory compliance and reporting. The company's technology is presented as central to its operational efficiency and cost reduction strategy. Dianrong.com said it intends to use the new investment to support expansion in the Hong Kong and Mainland China markets. The company is backed by investors including Northern Lights VC and has received additional investment from Sun Hung Kai & Co. Limited. Dianrong.com is a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform based in Shanghai that enables members to borrow and lend money among themselves. Launched in March 2013 by Lending Club co-founder Soul Htite and PE fund partner and lawyer Kevin Guo, the company offers free portfolios tailored to each investor’s appetite for risk. Investors can choose optional investment lifecycles of 6, 12, 18, or 24 months. As of the end of November 2013 the firm had an aggregate trade turnover of more than 100 million Yuan (approximately US$16.5m) with more than 10,000 registered investors. The platform's core offering is facilitating peer-to-peer loans and tailored investment portfolios. The company intends to use the newly raised funds to support daily operations and to provide low-risk, high-return financial planning products for general investors.

Led · Equity · Apr 2017

Ticket Monster (TMON) is a mobile-first e-commerce marketplace in South Korea that launched in 2010 and evolved from a daily-deals site into a broader marketplace. Its platform records 8.5 million unique products purchased, reaching roughly 17% of the population, and its business mix is about 70% general merchandise, 20% travel and roughly 10% groceries. Groceries currently represent around five percent of sales but are the fastest-growing vertical after the launch of Tmon Fresh, which management says has tripled visit frequency. TMON plans to use new funding to double down on grocery and to expand its travel operations. The company competes closely with Coupang and other Korean marketplaces and notes the limited domestic market size (about 50 million people) as a constraint on standalone scale. TMON is not yet profitable: last year it reported $252 million in sales and losses of about $137 million, and management says profitability is still a couple of years away. Ticket Monster is a mobile commerce e‑commerce company offering goods, local and travel services through partnerships with approximately 91,000 merchants and more than 100,000 SKUs. Founded in 2010 and led by CEO Daniel Shin, the company expanded after management and its investment partners acquired a controlling stake from Groupon in April 2015. It is backed by KKR and Anchor Equity Partners. The company focuses on mobile shopping, payments and online transaction solutions. Following the new investment it plans to leverage a strategic partnership to promote NHN Entertainment’s PAYCO payment solution and to research applying technology and data across the shopping process, from ordering to payment and shipping. The recent capital and partnership are framed around driving synergies across core business areas.

Led · Equity · Apr 2017

Ticket Monster (Tmon) is an e-commerce company founded in 2010 and led by CEO Daniel Shin. It operates in Goods, Grocery and Travel, offering over 10 million SKUs through partnerships with approximately 50,000 partners. In 2017, 80% of Tmon’s transactions were completed on mobile devices and its customer base continued to expand into multiple age segments. The company says it will use the new funding to invest in mobile grocery shopping and online travel services. Tmon completed a $115M investment round, reflecting continued investor support as it pushes deeper into mobile commerce. Ticket Monster (TMON) is a South Korean mobile commerce company founded in 2010 that operates three verticals — Goods, Local and Travel — and offers over 100,000 SKUs through roughly 91,000 merchant partnerships. The platform is highly mobile-first: in 2015 about 80% of TMON’s transactions were completed on mobile devices. TMON reported 40% half-on-half growth in total transaction value in the second half of 2015 and recorded KRW 280 billion in total transaction value in December 2015. The company was previously controlled by management and investors following an April 2015 acquisition of the Groupon stake and is backed by KKR and Anchor Equity Partners. TMON is focused on applying advanced technologies and data across ordering, payment and shipping to improve the shopping experience. The recent strategic partnership with NHN Entertainment is intended to accelerate payments integration and platform infrastructure improvements.