Turkey’s first authorized alternative investment fund management company Re-Pie, continues to grow its portfolio volume with its new investments. The firm which has reached TRY 3.8bn total portfolio volume, continues to invest in technological and innovation-oriented business models. Re-Pie invested USD 12m in the fintech platform Colendi, which has the potential to become the new unicorn, under the roof of the Colendi Private Equity Investment Fund.
Colendi will be stronger in the global market by enhancing its existing finance and platform partner portfolio by expanding abroad with a Series A investment of USD 30m over a USD 120m valuation, Colendi Board Member Ian Hannam said in a statement.
Ian Hannam, who has more than 30 years of experience in JP Morgan and Salomon Brothers and was the head of the Global Debt and Capital Markets units for a period, was appointed as the Chairman of the Board of Colendi following the investment round. The company plans to use USD 30m investment to make its products ready for competition in the global arena, to maximize the service quality it offers, and to accelerate its growth by expanding into new markets, according to the statement by the company.
Has reached 2.4 million customers
The company, which has a strong team including Ian Hannam, Martin Gilbert, Bulent Tekmen and Mihriban Ersin, aims to provide the world’s most accessible consumer micro-credit infrastructure to low-risk customers outside the financial system, using modern scoring algorithm consisting of artificial intelligence and big data.
With a modern scoring algorithm that can evaluate many data such as social, mobile, demographic, bill payment data and shopping historical data in real time and an advanced technological infrastructure, Colendi Inc. has reached 2.4 million customers access over 1.6 million transactions and 350,000 financial active users in eight months with its 10 financial partners and four platform partners consisting of Moneypay, Paycell, Oldubil and Paratech.
Believed to be the first unicorn in fintech
“We invested in a company that we trust with everything from its entrepreneur to its business plan, from its competent team to its growth potential,” said Mehmet Ali Ergin, Vice Chairman of Re-Pie Asset Management. “There was no Unicorn in the field of fintech in Turkey, we believe that Colendi will be the first.”
Re-Pie invests with its funds in companies in the start-up, scale-up and pre-IPO stages as a business model. Re-Pie, which announced that it will make partial exits from some of the companies it invested in, plans to continue to invest in both venture capital and private equity scales. The company has recently made a partial exit from Getir and distributed TRY 275m dividend to its investors.
