Singapore: Milaap Social Ventures, South Asia’s leading, impact-focused fundraising platform today announced it has raised an additional $1.1 million USD in venture funding to invest in development of the platform and scale up its operations.

The round was led by Singapore based Jungle Ventures, an early stage investment firm and an approved technology incubator under the Singapore National Research Foundation’s Technology Incubation Scheme. Other Investors included Toivo Annus (Co-founder & former Head of Engg., Skype), Lionrock Capital (a Singapore based family investment office), Jayesh Parekh (Co-Founder, Sony Entertainment Television) as well as existing investor, Unitus Seed Fund.

Hari Kumar, Partner, Lion Rock Capital and Jayesh Parekh, Managing Partner, Jungle Ventures and previously Board member of Song Investment Management Company (a fund owned by Soros Economic Development Fund, Omidyar Network and Google) have joined the Board with this investment. Prior to this investment, Milaap raised $250,000 USD in seed investments from Unitus Seed Fund, First Light Ventures, Vijay Shekhar Sharma (Founder, One97) and Rajiv Madhok (Founder, Oorja).

The current round of funds will be utilized to expand engineering and marketing investments for enhancing the online product experience, and to invest in scaling up marketing and outreach efforts.

Milaap is targeting the more than 480 million Indians mostly living in the rural and semi-urban areas and who are outside of the formal banking system. Less than 5% of them are able to procure reasonably priced, life-improving loans for their small businesses, vocational training, or other essential household assets.

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