PINTEC, a leading independent technology platform enabling financial services in China, today announced that the company has raised US$103 million in financing led by Mandra Capital and SINA Corp., which was joined by STI Financial Group, Shunwei Capital Partners and ZHONG Capital Holding Group, among others.

PINTEC also established a strategic partnership with SINA to jointly tap the huge fintech opportunities being created by the expansion of China’sconsumer economy.

Leveraging SINA Weibo’s tremendous traffic, SINA’s brand value, and PINTEC’s fintech expertise, the two sides will cooperate in online traffic, user data, and product development to effectively enable financial institutions with advanced digital and artificial intelligent technologies.

This is the first series of equity financing since PINTEC became an independent company. PINTEC, which traces its roots to 2012, was separated from its predecessor in September 2016 in order to focus on developing an independent technology platform that enables financial services as its core competency. This funding round will help the company achieve that goal.

“The funding proceeds will be used to strengthen PINTEC’s innovation capabilities,” said William Wei, founder and CEO of PINTEC. “We will increase our investment in R&D, traffic integration, risk management and operations to better serve small and medium-sized financial institutions.”

Fintech has become one of the most promising industries in China, with enormous potential to grow. The digital transformation of traditional financial institutions is expected to create huge opportunities for technology enablement platforms. The two companies said they hope the partnership can generate great synergy to drive business growth, with PINTEC’s advanced technologies, established brand and experienced team, together with SINA’s advantages in traffic and data.

As an independent fintech solutions provider, PINTEC offers advanced end-to-end solutions based on artificial intelligence, big data and blockchain. PINTEC analyzes key elements in retail financial services, including user cases, traffic, data, risk management, capital and products, and turns the complicated process into standardized and modularized solutions that can enable small and medium-sized financial institutions and businesses to offer online financial services efficiently and effectively.

“SINA’s resources, traffic and data will be valuable assets for PINTEC to develop more efficient fintech solutions and win more institutional clients,” added William Wei of PINTEC. “With the fast-growing demand for consumer finance in China, PINTEC can empower traditional financial institutions to strengthen their technology capabilities and expand their online services with our expertise in technology, risk management and operations.”

Based on its lending solutions platform “Dumiao” and robo-advisory solution “Polaris”, PINTEC provides end-to-end fintech solutions for installment payments, individual credit loans, SME loans, wealth management and online insurance. By the end of 2017, PINTEC had about 200 financial and business partners. Its partners included Xiaomi, Qunar, Ctrip, BestPay, Vip.com, Shouqianba, Anbang Finance, Minsheng Securities, Yunnan Trust, Orient Securities, Industrial Consumer Finance, etc.