Taplend is a microcredit platform aiming to provide money fast and cheaper. The unique feature of Taplend is combining a p2p (peer-to-peer) lending model and payday lending. In the first case, the user borrows the needed amount from other users, let it be friends or relatives, at zero interest rate. In the second case, we are talking about a short-term borrowing at high rates from financial institutions. So when you enter in Taplend app the amount you want to borrow and the repay date, the service sends out requests to your friends and relatives registered on the platform, and get the money. If they cannot lend you as much as you want, Taplend will send a request to credit companies. Thus, Ukrainian startup allows the user to consolidate his loan borrowing from friends and financial institutions making the final rate lower than in classic payday loans.
The company makes money on the lead generation for institutional lenders (up to 80 pounds per loan), and is also planning to charge a 1% commission from friend-to-friend loans soon, but now p2p loans are free. Taplend’s vision is to turn the platform into international Booking.com for short-term borrowing, and to step into B2B market as well.
The team has been testing the platform for two months, and they reached the mark of 1,020 active users and processed 1,075 loan applications (more than 1 application per user).
Taplend’s office in Kiev
The CEO and co-founder of Taplend Victor Ihnatiuk used to run a p2p lending startup, which he sold to a group of investors and invested the profits (undisclosed amount) into the new venture - Taplend. The software development is done in Ukraine with the effort of three engineers using the following technology stack: Angular.js , PHP, Java, Swift. To extend the development team, the startup is looking for an experienced mobile (iOS/Android) developer and one more back-end developer.
In 2015 the company raised a seed round from a Ukrainian business-angel, and in summer 2016 they snagged more funds from the Italian banking group – Gruppo Banca Sella. In 2016 alone, the team took part in 3 acceleration programs: in Silicon Valley (Technation), Polamd Poland (Hub:Raum by Deutsche Telekom) and Italy (SELLALAB). Currently they are finishing the acceleration program at Level39, one of the best global fintech accelerators, and is raising a new round.
