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Indo-Korean True Balance Part Of Korean Government’s ‘K-Unicorn Project’

To receive debt funding under The Ministry of SMEs and Startups 'Pre-Unicorn Special Guarantee'. Funding to be used towards developing proprietary Alternative Credit Scoring System and service enhancement.

Balancehero India, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Balancehero Co. Ltd. Korea and the parent company of the True Balance fintech app, has been selected as one of the ‘Preliminary Unicorns’ under the Korean Government’s ‘K-Unicorn project’. The project aims to help Korean startups evolve into global business unicorns. The selected preliminary unicorn companies get special funding guarantees from the Government to help them expand.

True Balance has done more than 1.9 million transactions across India in June 2020 and has given close to 7 million loans to the Indian unbanked and uncredited in Tier II, III & IV towns and cities in the last six months, ranging from INR 500 to INR 7,000. These loans have been used by a wide variety of people, ranging from migrant workers to rural business(wo)men to the urban poor, to run their households.

The selected start-ups, each of which is looking to reach unicorn status in the next 3-5 years, were shortlisted by a jury of 15 experts from the venture capital and private equity space as well as 60 public representatives. The 60-people public representative group was led by Byung Gyu Chang (Chairman of Krafton which created global craze PUBG).

Committed to solving the last mile issue of Indian credit, Balance Hero is the only Fintech player among the category of businesses nominated under the ‘K-Unicorn project’. The start-up will receive debt funding of INR 30 crore which will be used towards strengthening the business’ alternative credit scoring system and enhancing the service offerings.

On this achievement, Charlie Lee, Co-founder & CEO, True Balance mentioned, “To be recognized as a pre-unicorn by the Government of Korea is a proud moment for us. This acts as a shot in the arm for us, especially at a point in time when there is a major liquidity issue for our loan beneficiaries in the market. With this funding, we aim to strengthen our alternative credit scoring strategy to target the next billion Indian users coming out of the rural and small towns of India. This strategy will help achieve our goal to be a unicorn in the next 2-3 years.”

True Balance has seen rapid growth in loan numbers, both in loan count, as well as loan size. Within less than a year of service launch, the growth rate for the loan service has reached nearly 30% month-on-month.

True Balance’s lending arm, TrueCredits received its NBFC license in October 2019, and renewal of PPI license for 3 years from Reserve Bank of India. True Balance has also been recognized as a Top Payments Tech Minicorn by Tracxn at the Tracxn Emerging Awards 2020. True Balance is currently raising the Series C extension to expedite the growth of the lending business across India.



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