The round was led by NEA and Wing Venture Capital; the company works with mobile operators to access consumers in emerging markets, offering pre-paid customers a micro-loan when they are low on data or minutes; through the app, users are also able to build up their credit over time and Juvo hopes to offer users more financial services products in the future; the seven carriers that Juvo works with also benefit by reducing customer churn and increasing revenue. Source
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Originators are beginning to look at launching their own captive funds; at LendIt USA 2017 we hosted a panel featuring Cross River Bank, Freedom Financial, Money360, Credibly, UBS and Clifford Chance to discuss this idea; the originators on the panel talked about their current funds, if they have launched one, size, structure and how they currently view the idea of this vehicle in the long term; the panelists focused on diversification of funding sources; in good times it is never hard to get loan purchasers but when markets tighten how can you make sure you are prepared; they also talked about when setting up this funding vehicle should you manage it yourself or should you find a third party fund manager; how do conflicts of interest come into play when the originating company is then investing in the loan and servicing the loan; there are still many questions when it comes to setting up a fund like this, as more firms look to this option we will better understand how to answer these questions in the future. Source