Aiming at tens of millions of users in small cities and towns in India, True Balance, a South Korean startup has raised $28 million in a new financing round and expects to turn a profit next year. 

Naver, BonAngels, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Daesung Private Equity, and Shinhan Capital were seen as the companies that have financed the five-year-old startup’s Series D financing round. Till date, the startup that is headquartered in Seoul and Gurgaon has raised about USD 90 million. 

“Before the coronavirus, our business was growing very fast,” said Lee. “The coronavirus and moratorium (enforced by the nation’s central bank) hit us. We utilized this time to improve our collection process and other aspects of the business.” “We will continue focusing on non-online payment users, non-credit score users, people who deserve our help, but need a way to get to it,” he said.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Charlie Lee, founder and chief executive of True Balance, said “The startup has disbursed over $13.5 million in small loans to over 6.7 million consumers. The size of these loans vary from $6.75 to $675.” 

Experimenting with alternative data such as a phone a consumer owns and the transactions he/she makes and hundreds of other data points to determine these users’ credit worthiness, Scores of startups in India and Southeast Asia are trying to enable people to avail a range of services from banks who don’t have proper/required credit score.