04 December 2017, India:
Bennett, Coleman and Co Ltd (BCCL) has acquired an undisclosed stake in online lending platform FinREQ. The investment was made through BCCL’s private treaty arm Brand Capital.
According to reports, this investment is an ads-for-equity deal. After this deal, FinREQ will focus on enhancing the deal flow with better brand recognition and market awareness in India.
Bhavik Mehta, Co-founder and Director of FinREQ said, “Online portal always needs more media and advertising support than others in order to build a brand for its products, thereby enhancing their market potential. The brand capital model is an innovative way of funding for growing companies like ours and by having BCCL as an investor in our company we get tremendous benefits. With this association, we will now focus on enhancing the deal flow with better brand recognition and market awareness in India.”
BCCL has made investments in online classifieds firm Quikr, Taxi Operator Meru and in Haptik. The company does private treaties business which involves taking equity in companies in exchange for marketing inventory. BCCL is the publisher of The Times Of India and parent of Times Internet.
FinREQ was founded in 2011 by Bhavik Mehta and Bipin Mehta. It has tie-ups with nationalized, co-operative, foreign, private banks, NBFCs and Housing Finance Companies. It’s online portal www.finreq.com deals with end-to-end loan products for businesses and retail customers.
The company claims that its online portal’s algorithm, analytics and matchmaking features connects the right borrowers with the right lenders.
(Image – JustDial, FinREQ)
