Online lending startup ID Finance plans to raise $100 million in the next year

The Barcelona-headquartered startup is an online lending business that targets people shut out by traditional lenders, using alternative data sources to assess their creditworthiness. The business, founded in 2012, lends across Russia, Spain, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Poland, Brazil, and Mexico. It has lent around $300 million to date.

ID Finance will use the proceeds from its planned bond issuances to growth in Brazil and Mexico, markets where it has only recently launched.

“You need fuel to drive the car,” Batin told Business Insider.

The business also plans to launch in Columbia and Peru, and hopes to launch into the US by the end of next year. Batin says ID Finance will target Hispanic communities in the US, many of whom are locked out of mainstream finance because of the lack of credit data. The idea is that ID Finance’s work in Latin America will help it build up data to help score them.

ID Finance lent $19 million (£14.4 million) last year, Batin said, but is growing fast and hopes to lend $250 million (£190.4 million) this year. The company, which lends using credit facilities from banks and from its own balance sheet, is growing at a rate of 10-15% per month. Much of the growth is coming from Spain and Poland, Batin said, but he expects the majority of growth to come from Latin America within three years.