Micro-loan lender, Tala, Raises $110m for new products and global expansion

PayPal backed Micro-loan lender, Tala, announced that it has raised $110 million in funding.

Founded in 2011 by Indian American CEO and founder, Shivani Siroya, Tala aims to close the credit gap in emerging markets by using mobile data to overcome traditional barriers to financial access. It collects thousands of data points per customer to build financial identities, dynamically price risk and disburse loans in less than a minute.

Venture Capital firm RPS Ventures led the round and it was backed PayPal, billionaire Steve Case’s VC firm Revolution, Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital and Data Collective, among others. With the new funding, Tal is now valued at nearly $800 million.

With this new capital, Tala intends to expand into India and enter into newer countries, possibly in West Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Tala is already present in Africa, specifically Tanzania and Kenya. It launched in Kenya 2014. Currently, it has more than 4 million customers who take out 3 to 6 loans a year at a 10% average monthly interest rate.

Tala also intends to introduce a micro-insurance product in the next 12 months. It is also said to have piloted a financial education and coaching program, and it plans to test additional products over the next year.

Tala is currently available Kenya, Tanzania, Mexico, Phillipines and India.