Koyo raises USD 50 mln in funding and sets its sights on UK's consumer credit market.

Koyo was built to offer affordable credit to those who do not have access to it. The company’s vision is to become a player in using alternative data to offer financial products. Koyo services a range of customers using transactional bank data to gain an information advantage relative to incumbents.

Many segments of the market, such as thin file customers (short or no credit history) or near prime customers, have very few options when it comes to affordable credit. The near-prime market alone equates to 13-15 million people in the UK, according to Fintech Finance.

Koyo launched its consumer loans business in January 2020 at the start of the pandemic in the UK. The pandemic created a challenging lending environment for the consumer credit industry. However, during this time Koyo had an opportunity to widen its target market from those who were historically ‘thin-file’, to the larger ‘near-prime’ UK risk segment.