A consortium led by Standard Chartered has invested $207m in Chinese peer-to-peer online lender Dianrong.com.
This is also believed to be the biggest equity investment in a Chinese P2P finance venture to date.
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The C-round financing was co-led by Standard Chartered Private Equity (SCPE) and China Fintech Fund (CFF), and Bohai Leasing, Dianrong.com said in a statement.
However, the amounts invested separately by the firms have not been disclosed.
Dianrong.com chairman of the board and CEO Soul Htite said: "The success of this new round of funding is not signified by the amount of money received but more importantly who the investors are. While Dianrong did raise the largest funding round in China’s Internet finance industry, it is more important that our new investors are companies who have been doing finance for hundreds of years. We’re very glad to become partners with these institutions."
SCPE managing director and global co-head Wei Zhu said: "Standard Chartered Private Equity (SCPE) rarely invests in early-stage companies; we typically focus on growth and late-stage companies. Dianrong is quite an exceptional case.
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By GlobalData"Standard Chartered has a different investment strategy than typical VC funds. We do not invest in a lot of companies, but emphasize on high quality investments and overall success rate; we would only like to invest in the best and most differentiated company in the industry."
In January 2015, American investment firm Tiger Global invested in Dianrong.com in January, but the size of the investment was not disclosed.
