Wonga, the short-loans company which uses a realtime platform to assess users’ applications instead of people, has raised a significant £73 million ($117 million) funding round – actually a Series C – as expansion capital. Wonga plans to use the cash to expand further in the UK, it’s home market.
The funding round was led by Oak Investment Partners. Meritech Capital partners, another US VC, and the Wellcome Trust, the UK’s largest charity and health-funding organisation, also invested, as did some existing investors. Wonga has also had previous investment from Accel Partners, Greylock Partners, Balderton Capital, Dawn Capital and London based Seed fund TAG. However, we understand from sources that Balderton didn’t invest in this round, making Dawn Capital the only investor to have invested three times in the business, and the only European VC to have invested in this round.