Cijinrong Announces Completion of 65 Million Yuan Series A Funding Round Led by Source Code Capital

On March 20, Cijinrong — a pan-supply-chain finance company that had been operating for seven months — announced the completion of its Series A funding round, raising RMB 65 million led by Source Code Capital, with Matrix Partners China and Yunqi Capital making additional investments.

Cijinrong

Cijinrong is an asset trading platform under Shanghai Fuli Financial Services Co., Ltd., focused on micro and small business finance, particularly pan-supply-chain finance. The company's core team hails from Tailong Bank, a domestic leader in micro-finance banking. Founder Yan Qiang previously served as president of Tailong Bank's Shanghai branch.

Drawing on its understanding of and innovations in micro-finance lending, Cijinrong pioneered an industry-first model combining "super loan officers + credit factories + big data," and independently developed the "Zhanlu" risk control system. The company offers multiple products tailored to the individual needs of micro and small enterprises. It has established asset-based partnerships with more than thirty supply chain platforms, while its funding partners include select banks as well as financial institutions such as Wanda Internet Technology Group, JD Finance, and Huabao Trust.

The lead investor in this round, Source Code Capital, was founded in 2014 and currently manages USD 500 million and RMB 1.5 billion. It has assembled an industrial capital investor alliance called "Code Club" comprising over 20 new-economy leaders as limited partners. Source Code Capital focuses on innovative sectors including "Internet Plus" (financial internet, industrial internet, service internet), "Intelligence Plus," and "Global Plus." Its portfolio companies include financial internet firms such as Qu Fen Qi, Geshang Wealth Management, Yinker, and Yongqianbao Suishouji; industrial internet companies such as Yijiupi, Yimi Dida, Xiaoguan Technology, and WeiMai; service e-commerce platforms such as Meituan, Lianjia, MOGU, and Kanjia; and "Intelligence Plus" enterprises such as Toutiao and CHJ Automotive.

Micro-Finance

Internet-based micro-finance demand currently falls into three main categories. The first is large-scale trading platforms built on robust data, which leverage transaction-generated data for big data risk control. The second is supply chain finance based on B2B matchmaking platforms, whose advantage lies in vertical upstream and downstream B2B user traffic. The third is supply chain finance in deeply segmented sectors, where offline scenarios and markets are sufficiently standardized.

In Yan Qiang's view, the company's offline risk control experience in micro-finance is the cornerstone of its survival. Combining this offline expertise with internet technology can substantially improve risk control quality. Micro and small enterprises are highly personalized. While the development of big data and personal credit reporting has greatly aided micro-finance risk control, "non-operational factors matter more than operational ones, non-financial factors matter more than financial ones, and non-standard factors such as the social community behavior of small business owners often determine lending risk." Business owners' diversified investments, family situations, private lending, personal vices such as gambling or drug use, and specific regional community dynamics all manifest visibly in lending risk. The industry inflection point will come from combining offline experience with online data.

The Zhanlu Risk Control System

Cijinrong utilizes its offline team to conduct risk control reviews for the majority of B2B users, while simultaneously developing its proprietary "Zhanlu Risk Control System." The system integrates external data and gradually refines its own risk models by codifying risk control experience into data models.

In terms of specific risk control processes, Cijinrong's super loan officer model ensures the quality of offline risk control reviews. Based on their field audit experience, loan officers can extract substantial "non-standardized" risk control information, distilling an "expert model" that then evolves into a "data model" fed into the risk control system. Cijinrong consolidates this fragmented risk control information across sectors; its super loan officers, through long-term operational experience, gain intimate knowledge of vertical industries and become attuned to community-based risk signals, thereby improving risk control efficiency. These risk control insights,沉淀 into the company's "Zhanlu" system, also help reduce risk control costs to a certain extent.

The "Zhanlu" risk control system operates on three levels. The third level constitutes Cijinrong's risk control core, concentrating the company's scenario-based risk control effectiveness and its loan officers' industry expertise. After further data model refinement, this forms a complete online risk control solution.

Cijinrong's proposed pan-supply-chain model is a supply chain ecosystem built for the internet's decentralized era. The company partners with B2B platforms, vertical industry leaders, SaaS providers, ERP vendors, and other platforms to provide risk control solutions for financing micro and small enterprises within these platforms. The Zhanlu system establishes different models for different platform types and clients, conducting anti-fraud screening, blacklist checks, off-site scoring, and automatic recommended credit limit generation.

Cijinrong has selected more than 100 sectors, concentrated primarily on commerce and circulation enterprises in people's livelihood sectors. According to Yan Qiang, the decision to enter fragmented markets was driven partly by portfolio risk balancing and partly by the opportunity these markets present.

These 100-plus industries are developed and maintained by the company's 100-plus loan officers. This approach mitigates industry cyclical and systemic risks on one hand, while enabling loan officers to develop deep vertical expertise in one or two sectors and distill industry-specific risk insights on the other. At the company level, this achieves a relative balance between risk diversification and economies of scale.

Outlook

Since commencing operations in June 2016, the company has built an outstanding loan portfolio of approximately RMB 600 million, with 960 loans disbursed at an average of RMB 600,000-plus per loan. According to company data, it currently has zero bad debts and only RMB 50,000 in overdue payments. Its funding sources include commercial banks and non-bank financial institutions, with platform partners such as Wanda Group, JD Finance, Qijia.com, and Jinshidu Jewelry.

Relative to competitors, Cijinrong has carved out a "pan-supply-chain" niche that BAT finance arms and vertical platforms cannot easily reach — a relatively fragmented market that still holds considerable room for growth and margins. Grounded in the risk control capabilities inherited from "Tailong Bank," the company has achieved substantial traction during the window when internet-based micro and small enterprise credit demand awaits release. Another company operating on a similar model, Shenzhen-based Dashu Finance, also holds a leading position in the industry. Going forward, as big data risk control matures, the company's main direction will be providing solutions for B2B and other pan-supply-chain platforms.