American digital microlender Tala has raised $145m in a Series E funding round to offer financial services to the underbanked globally.
The round was led by Upstart with participation from the Stellar Development Foundation.
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The round was also joined by new investors such as Kindred Ventures and the J. Safra Group, along with returning investors IVP, Revolution Growth, PayPal Ventures, and Lowercase Capital.
Tala will use the funds to improve its existing services and accelerate the launch of its new financial account offering.
The fintech also plans to develop a mass-market crypto offering for emerging markets.
Tala has raised over $350m in funding so far. In August 2019, Tala secured $110m in a Series D funding round.
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By GlobalDataTala noted that over six million people across Kenya, the Philippines, Mexico, and India have borrowed more than $2.7bn using its app.
Due to Covid-19 pandemic induced lockdowns, Tala users faced problems leaving their homes to collect the remittances.
Tala CEO Shivani Siroya told Forbes that “because of the severity of the lockdown in the Philippines, people were physically not even able to go and get their cash.”
This is what instilled her with the idea of offering her customers “a digital account where they could access their money whenever they needed to.”
In May this year, Tala joined forces with Visa and Circle to allow customers to convert, store, and use cryptocurrencies.
