Pintec raises $103m, partners with Sina to tap fintech sector

Pintec, an independent technology platform enabling financial services in China, announced on Tuesday the company has raised $103 million in financing led by Mandra Capital and Sina Corp.

The other investors include STI Financial Group, Shunwei Capital Partners and Zhong Capital Holding Group.

The Beijing-based Pintec also established a strategic partnership with Sina to jointly tap the huge fintech opportunities being created by the expansion of China's consumer economy. The two sides will cooperate in online traffic, user data and product development to effectively enable financial institutions with advanced digital and artificial intelligent technologies.

"The funding proceeds will be used to strengthen Pintec's innovation capabilities," said William Wei, founder and CEO of Pintec. "We will increase our investment in R&D, traffic integration, risk management and operations to better serve small and medium-sized financial institutions."

Fintech has become one of the most promising industries in China, with enormous potential to grow. The digital transformation of traditional financial institutions is expected to create huge opportunities for technology enablement platforms.

As an independent fintech solutions provider, Pintec offers advanced end-to-end solutions for installment payments, individual credit loans, SME loans, wealth management and online insurance based on artificial intelligence, big data and blockchain.

The company analyzes key elements in retail financial services, including user cases, traffic, data, risk management, capital and products, and turns the complicated process into standardized and modularized solutions that can enable small and medium-sized financial institutions and businesses to offer online financial services efficiently and effectively.

By the end of 2017, Pintec had about 200 financial and business partners, including Xiaomi Corp, an innovative tech company dedicated to developing a smart home ecosystem, and China's leading online travel agencies Qunar and Ctrip.

Global investment in financial technology ventures reached another all-time high in 2017, buoyed by a surge in funding for startups in the United States, United Kingdom and India, according to Accenture analysis of data from CB Insights, a global venture-finance data and analytics firm.

Fintech financing rose 18 percent in 2017 to $27.4 billion, with the value of deals in the US jumping 31 percent to $11.3 billion. Deal values almost quadrupled in the UK to $3.4 billion, and soared nearly fivefold in India to $2.4 billion. The number of fintech deals also rose sharply, from just over 1,800 in 2016 to nearly 2,700 in 2017.

"Much of the growth, particularly in the US and UK, has been driven by big new investment flows from China, Russia, the Middle East and other emerging economies," said Julian Skan, senior managing director in Accenture's Financial Services practice.

Fintech funding in China declined 72 percent in 2017 to $2.8 billion, from a record $10 billion in 2016, when several companies - including Ant Financial and wealth management platform Lufax - had multi-billion-dollar financing rounds. The average deal size in China last year was $19 million, down from $186 million in 2016, though the country still had large transactions, such as the 1.8 billion yuan ($281 million) that online finance firm Tuandai raised in June 2017, according to Accenture.