Xiaomi’s investment in microfinance startup suggests you could soon get a loan from your phone

Xiaomi will soon allow owners of its smartphones to bind their bank accounts to their personal Xiaomi account (pictured above). But that could expand even further in the near future. Today, a peer-to-peer lending startup in China by the name of Jimu Box revealed that is has secured series B funding, jointly led by Xiaomi and ShunWei Capital, a venture capital fund headed by the phone-maker’s founder, Lei Jun.

Jimu Box offers business loans for small and medium-sized businesses and consumer loans for individuals. It’s one of many such P2P lending sites in China. Judging by the VC rounds given to rival sites, Xiaomi’s new partner is dwarfed by local microfinance startups such as Renrendai and Dianrong.

According to Tencent Tech, Jimu Box has secured US$37.2 million in this round, with Vertex Ventures, Matrix Partners China, and Ventech China also taking part.

Though not yet confirmed by Jimu Box nor Xiaomi, the investment could signal the upstart phone-maker’s expansion into online financial services, following the path now well-trodden by Chinese web giants such as Alibaba and Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU). Both Alibaba and Baidu offer online personal investment funds that offer higher interest rates for savings than Chinese banks.

Jimu Box came online in August 2013. It currently has funds available for loan totaling RMB 2 billion (US$326.3 million).

See: Xiaomi sells 26.1 million smartphones in first half of 2014, still on target for 60 million this year

(Source: Tencent Tech – article in Chinese)