Tala, working with Circle and Stellar, raises $145 million

The fintech startup Tala has raised $145 million in funding to expand its financial services and develop a cryptocurrency product for developing markets.

The Series E round for Tala was led by lending platform Upstart. Other participants included the Stellar Development Foundation, IVP, Revolution Growth, PayPal Ventures and Lowercase Capital. New investors included Kindred Ventures and J. Safra Group.

The total funding raised by the startup surpassed $350 million, and its market valuation reached $800 million.

Tala provides financial services to the unbanked through a mobile app for retail lending.

According to the company, more than 6 million people have used the platform. They borrowed over $2.7 billion in Kenya, the Philippines, Mexico and India to start or expand small businesses, as well as for consumer needs.

In May 2021 Tala began a partnership with the payments platform Visa to give customers the ability to pay for goods and services using the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin.

Additional partners included Circle, the issuer of the coin, and the Stellar Development Foundation, which is behind the Stellar blockchain project.

“We are using the investments to accelerate the development of our financial accounts system, which provides tools for saving, compounding, and managing money. We will also work on one of the first mass-market cryptocurrency products for developing-market countries,” Tala said.

Earlier, the crypto-payments startup MoonPay raised $400 million in its first funding round at a $3.4 billion valuation.

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