Endeavor

14 Z H O N G A N ZhongAn was co-founded in 2013 by China's most prominent businessmen: Jack Ma (Alibaba), Pony Ma (Tencent) and Mingzhe Ma (Ping An). The idea was enormous in its simplicity—to create China's first insurance company to sell its products over the internet. In 2017, when it was time for its debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange—the first public offering of its kind for an internet-only insurer and the largest IPO in Hong Kong that year—the company raised an initial public offering (IPO) of $1.5 billion on the first day. Japanese tech giant SoftBank bought 5 percent of its shares for $550 million on the spot. The company today boasts more than 400 million customers with over 10 billion policies sold. In 2016, ZhongAn also partnered with Ethereum to establish ZhongAn Technology—an incubator to research artificial intelligence, blockchain and cloud computing. W E C A S H Wecash was founded in Nov 2013 in Beijing and uses big data and machine learning to evaluate consumer credit, detect fraud and underwrite unsecured cash and white goods loans; from institutional lenders to consumer and business owner borrowers. By working closely with banks and consumer finance companies, Wecash is able to improve risk pricing and accessibility of financial products while decreasing non-performing loans by up to 70%. Wecash has more than 800 employees across its offices in China, United States, Brazil, Singapore, Indonesia, India and Vietnam. The company has raised in excess of US$266 million in financing, acquired over 130 million users and disbursed loans worth more than US$7 billion since 2014.

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