CRED to invest ~$10M to buy minority stake in P2P lending partner LiquiLoans

CRED said on Friday it is looking to invest around $10 million in its peer-to-peer lending partner LiquiLoans to "deepen the engagement" between the two companies.

CRED had partnered with Liquiloans when it launched Mint, its P2P lending product, which enables users to pool their unused capital together and on-lend to those seeking personal loans.

The platform promised users lending on CRED a return of 9%, while loans were stipulated to be disbursed at 12%-13% interest, per annum.

"LiquiLoans' work has helped expand access to credit, and we look forward to partnering with them in their next phase of growth and innovation," said Kunal Shah, Founder of CRED, in a press statement.

LiquiLoans was founded by Gautam Adukia and Achal Mittal to provide retail investors a platform to access retail borrowers. The company has raised capital from Matrix Partners in the past.

CRED Mint was launched last year after the startup realised its members, on an average, had around Rs 2 lakh sitting idle in their banks. The company's idea was to encourage people to put that capital to work by lending to others on the platform.

Since CRED is selective about the kind of people who get access to the app, it only lets people with high CIBIL scores or those with good repayment histories join the ecosystem--its proposition was that its borrowers were more likely to repay loans versus most other platforms.