The online lending marketplace Biz2Credit plans to pour $52 million of new venture money into broadening the services it offers banks, expanding overseas, and harnessing emerging technologies, its CEO said Tuesday.
“We’re ramping up the analytical part of our business with data scientists and creating new models that are driven by [artificial intelligence] and machine learning,” Rohit Arora said in an interview after his New York company announced the Series B funding supplied entirely by WestBridge Capital.
Biz2Credit raised $9.4 million in equity financing from Nexus Venture Partners in 2013.
Biz2Credit recently partnered with two more large U.S. banks, Arora said; he declined to name them. An official announcement is pending, he said.
Regional banks, which are trying to win over or recapture small-business borrowers who are using LendingClub and other online lenders, are making more inquiries about Biz2X, too, according to Arora.
Regionals are “starting to realize that they’ll have to go digital as well, and at a very rapid pace. They’ll want to invest to be competitive in this space now.”
Besides the U.S. and Canada, Biz2Credit works with banks in Australia and India, and Arora said the company is eyeing expansion into other Asian markets.
“We’ve seen a lot of interest from other banks both in North America and globally to partner with both on the platform side for loans, as well as using our data and analytics,” he said.
“We have an opportunity to go deeper into these four markets and have large global partners like HSBC who are planning to go with us into other markets where there is a demand for digital solutions,” Arora said.
