Colendi, is delighted to announce that İnanç Balcı has been appointed to the board of directors.
İnanç, currently is the co-founder of the global early-stage FinTech fund Crestone Venture Capital and previously pioneered the e-commerce ecosystem as the regional co-founder and local CEO of Lazada Group, a leading e-commerce company in Southeast Asia. Alibaba acquired the Lazada Group for $3.2 billion in 2018, making it the region’s largest acquisition. Balcı also served as the founding partner of HelloPay, which was acquired by Ant Financial in 2015 and rebranded as AliPay.
Ian Hannam, chairman and Bülent Tekmen, co-founder and CEO of Colendi: “As we grow rapidly in Turkey and beyond, we are strengthening the team and Balci brings great experience in building world class businesses. Together, we will continue our vision of being one of the leading players in the industry.”
About İnanç Balcı
After graduating from Private Koç High School in 2004, İnanç Balcı continued his education at Purdue University. He graduated from Purdue in 2008 with a double major in Industrial Engineering and Economics. Following his education in the U.S., he moved to London to work in the Technology M&A unit of Nomura Investment Bank. After deciding to establish a virtual shopping company in Asia, İnanç Balcı became the founding partner of Lazada Group in 2012. He pioneered the establishment of e-commerce ecosystem in Southeast Asia (the SEA region including Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) which has created a better buying experience for thousands of startups and millions of customers in the region. In 2018, he sold Lazada to Alibaba for $3.2 billion.
He also co-founded HelloPay, which was acquired by Ant Financial in 2015 and rebranded as AliPay. Seeing Financial Services as the next stage in the fourth industrial revolution, Balcı co-founded the global early-stage FinTech fund Crestone Venture Capital and became an active investor in many fintech companies operating at the intersection of e-commerce and financial services.
About Colendi:
Colendi is a multifunctional banking as a service platform that democratizes banking services for consumers, merchants, and financial institutions to overcome the limitations associated with legacy banking. Colendi is moving forward with the goal of solving a chronic financial problem that directly affects more than three billion people who do not have bank accounts and more than five billion people who cannot get loans.
Colendi develops unique services based on scoring algorithms, combining new generation financial technology solutions utilizing artificial intelligence and big data. Together with its platform partners and strategic business allies, Colendi provides fast and easy access to loans with buy-now-pay-later model as well as other distinct financial services to 2.4M users as of today. By increasing users’ literacy level, Colendi helps them save through micro-investment platforms.
