Qupital, a Hong Kong-based trade finance platform, announced last week it has signed a financial strategy agreement with Alibaba. According to Qupital, The collaboration enables qualified Gold Supplier members of Alibaba to free up working capital easier through its platform. It was also reported:
“Under this agreement, Alibaba Gold Supplier members applying for Qupital’s invoice financing services can opt to use their operations record with Alibaba as an evaluation factor, for a faster turnaround for funding approvals and larger loan amounts.”
Qupital also noted that the partnership will allow its customers to select promotional offers from Alibaba and enhance their exposure to global buyers on the e-commerce platform. The partnership with Alibaba comes less than a year after Qupital secured $2 million in seed funding led by Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund and MindWork Ventures. As previously reported, Qupital was founded in March 2016 by Andy Chan and seeks to provide an efficient SME financing solution. The company reported that more than 25% of Hong Kong’s 300,000 + SMEs are not provided with sufficient access to working capital. Chan at the time stated:
“We began our journey together in Hong Kong when we noticed that there were many businesses here that had cash locked up in unpaid invoices while being underserved by traditional lenders with slow and cumbersome processes.”
Chan then added:
“Qupital’s vision is to help inject liquidity into the market, reducing SMEs cost of financing and enabling professional investors access to an entirely new asset class of accounts receivables. At the same time, we are excited about the opportunity to work with Alibaba to reach a brand-new audience of businesses, both in Hong Kong and regionally.”
