Using CB Insights data, we highlight some of the key takeaways from our Q1’23 State of Fintech report, including:

1. Global fintech funding grows 55% QoQ in Q1’23; $6.5B is raised by Stripe alone. 
2. Early-stage deal share reaches 72%, a new high.
3. Unicorn births fall to 1 for the first time since 2016. 
4. Fintech M&A exits rebound, increasing 15% QoQ. 
5. Banking funding and deals hit lowest levels since Q2’17. 

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While big banks like Bank of America, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs were quick to place restrictions on employee use of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in February 2023, other financial firms have jumped at the opportunity to leverage the tech. 

For example, Morgan Stanley is using OpenAI-powered chatbots to assist financial advisors as a knowledge resource that leverages the firm’s internal repository of research and data. Hedge fund Citadel is reportedly in talks for an enterprise-wide ChatGPT license that will be used for software development and information analysis. 

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At the same time, financial innovation, rapid advances in AI modeling, and new digital customer data streams are making the nature of regulatory and compliance management significantly more complicated.

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Fintech was Sequoia Capital’s top investment category in 2022, representing nearly a quarter of the firm’s deals.

Using CB Insights data, we mapped how Sequoia Capital spread its 2022 fintech investments across categories like capital markets, personal finance, real estate, and more.

CB Insights clients can dig deeper into all 25 deals listed above as well as explore Sequoia Capital’s bets beyond fintech using this CB Insights platform search.

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However, some top investors like Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) remained active in the space across various deal stages, valuations, geographies, and sub-industries. 

Fintech is central to a16z’s investment strategy. In recent years, the firm has not only shored up its presence in more familiar sectors like banking, but also reached deeper into newer territory like blockchain. 

Of the 206 deals a16z participated in last year, almost a quarter went to fintech companies — more than any other industry. Sixty percent of these fintech investments closed in H1’22, and the remaining 40% closed in H2’22.

Using CB Insights data, we mapped how a16z spread these fintech investments across categories like payments, blockchain, digital lending, and more. 

Below, we dig into a16z’s top 3 fintech targets in 2022, including key deals in each category.

Payments 

More than a quarter (28%) of a16z’s fintech investments in 2022 went to the payments category. Notable investments include:

• SpotOn ($300M Series F): SpotOn offers a cloud-based platform that provides payment solutions for restaurants and small retailers. 
• Jeeves ($180M Series C): Jeeves offers corporate cards and other expense management tools for businesses, with a focus on credit and payments rails across countries and currencies.
• Tally Technologies ($80M Series C): Tally’s app helps consumers pay off credit card debt more quickly by automating payments.

Blockchain

a16z has actively invested in companies developing blockchain platforms for years. In 2022, 22% of its fintech deal volume went to blockchain companies — although most of these deals closed between January and June, before the year-end turmoil that rocked the cryptocurrency markets. Notable investments include: 

• Matter Labs ($200M Series C): Matter Labs is an Ethereum development company building a rollup layer 2 network designed to lower fees and speed up transactions. 
• Lightspark ($175M Series A): Lightspark, launched in May 2022, is building a Bitcoin payments tool.
• NEAR Protocol ($150M Series B): NEAR Protocol is developing a platform for blockchain-based decentralized applications, with a heavy focus on Web3.
  

Digital lending

a16z’s third-most popular fintech category in 2022 was digital lending, accounting for 12% of the firm’s fintech deal flow. Notable investments include: 

• Point Digital Finance ($115M Series C): Point provides a lending marketplace that allows homeowners to borrow against a percentage of the future value of their property.
• Valon ($60M Series B): Valon offers residential mortgage loan servicing technology through a cloud-native platform. 
• Vesta ($30M Series A): Vesta provides a platform for mortgage origination and underwriting that is designed to streamline processes, reduce risk, and help lenders improve their book of business. 

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Overall, deals fell 8% year-over-year to reached 5,048 in 2022. Africa was the only major region to see deals increase compared to 2021.

Below, check out a handful of highlights from our 178-page, data-driven State of Fintech 2022 Report. For deeper insights, all the record figures, and a ton of private market data, download the full report.

Other 2022 highlights across fintech include:

• $100M+ mega-rounds accounted for $36.5B in funding in 2022, marking a 60% drop from 2021.
• Banking funding declined 63% YoY — the sharpest drop across fintech sectors analyzed — to return to pre-Covid levels.
• US fintech funding fell 50% YoY to $32.8B. Despite the drop, 2022 was the second-highest funding year for US fintechs on record.
• Africa-based fintechs saw a record 227 deals in 2022, a 25% increase YoY.
• Insurtech M&A exits reached a new high, rising 40% in 2022 to 81 deals.
• Fintech unicorn births steadily declined throughout 2022, sinking to a low of 5 new unicorns in Q4’22 — an 87% drop compared to Q4’21.

Download the full State of Fintech 2022 Report to dig into all these trends and more.

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Nevertheless, continued investment and partnership activity in the space highlight emerging technologies that are helping firms use data to improve efficiency and maximize planning process outcomes. These technologies enable capital markets firms not only to adapt to market volatility, but also to pursue new growth opportunities.

Using CB Insights data, we surface 3 capital markets tech trends to watch and highlight what’s next across:

• Equity management practices
• ESG reporting requirements
• Trade analytics and execution

EQUITY MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

Tech to watch: Equity management platforms

Why we’re paying attention: Three of the top 10 capital markets tech deals in Q3’22 went to companies developing equity management platforms, which offer technology for companies and their stakeholders (e.g., investors, law firms, etc.) to manage data related to shareholder equity over time.

These platforms simplify administrative efforts — across areas like accounting, human resources, and legal — and employ data and software modules to help companies plan for future equity changes (such as before a funding round).

Raising $40M in a Series B deal, Pulley offers an equity management platform that enables startups to manage cap tables and fundraising activities. The company also partners with law firms, which offer Pulley’s service to their startup clients.

Meanwhile, Switzerland-based Ledgy, which raised $23M in a Series B, enables startups and investors to automate and manage equity activities across international environments. In addition, the company offers an analytics module that allows firms to model potential funding and exit scenarios.

Quotabook, a South Korea-based equity management platform that raised $11M in a Series A, also targets both investors and startups. For investors, the platform includes broader solutions for fund and portfolio management.

Why it matters: Companies use these platforms to manage existing equity structures, as well as plan for changes to equity related to future funding rounds. Funding to these 3 companies follows a record year for venture investment in 2021, which suggests a strong, ongoing need among startups for solutions to manage equity given the influx of capital.

What’s next: Although funding is down from 2021 highs, startups will continue to raise funding to fuel growth. For instance, half of insurtechs plan to raise funding in the next 12 months. Expect continued demand for equity management solutions that help with preparation for future funding rounds.

ESG REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

Tech to watch: ESG intelligence

Why we’re paying attention: ESG intelligence technology helps capital markets firms gain insight from ESG-related data. This can support firms’ reporting on progress to meet environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards.

Demand for ESG reporting is growing as investors, ratings agencies, and regulators push for firms to adopt ESG standards. News coverage of ESG reporting has grown dramatically, more than doubling over the past 2 years.

Q3’22 saw 1 early-stage deal and 1 exit among ESG intelligence companies:

• In August, Worldfavor raised a $10M Series A round. Worldfavor offers a SaaS platform for firms to manage ESG-related information, including capabilities for sustainable investment monitoring.
• alva uses machine learning and natural language processing to help firms understand ESG-related risks and build ESG profiles. The company merged in September with several research and analytics firms to form Penta, which provides solutions to help businesses and their stakeholders improve decision-making related to risk and strategy.

Why it matters: ESG standards are evolving, and investors are grappling with an increasing number of reporting requirements. Proper data not only helps capital markets firms ensure ESG agreements and standards are met, but also improves decision-making related to ESG-focused strategies, investments, and partnerships.

What’s next: Expect to see further investment in companies that offer data-driven solutions to make ESG reporting more efficient and transparent. ESG intelligence products may take different forms, but the underlying technology will broadly improve how capital markets firms use data for ESG-related initiatives. For more, explore how AI could transform the ESG space here.

TRADE ANALYTICS AND EXECUTION

Tech to watch: Trade APIs

Why we’re paying attention: Trade application programming interfaces (APIs) provide structured data for use in trading activities to simplify data acquisition, engineering, and management for capital markets firms.

Q3’22 saw 2 early-stage deals and 1 partnership among companies developing trade API technology:

• Thalex is a trading platform for cryptocurrency derivatives. In addition to its online portal, the company’s platform offers traders an API to facilitate trade execution. It raised $7.6M in a Series A deal in July.
• Meanwhile, Tradefeedr’s trade API platform provides traders with access to trade analytics and technology teams with normalized data for model development. The company raised $1M in a seed deal in July.

• In July, Tradier announced a partnership with TradingView — which is used by over 30M investors — to embed its API-enabled trade execution capabilities within TradingView’s charts and dashboards.

Why it matters: Capital markets firms that adopt trade API technologies can streamline trading operations and build more efficient workflows for trade execution, which can ultimately lead to improved trade decision-making based upon data that would otherwise be unavailable or unusable. Trade APIs also improve connections to markets, which can increase the pool of available investment opportunities for capital markets firms.

What’s next: The adoption of trade APIs aligns with a broader shift within financial services toward embedded finance, which uses APIs to embed financial services across third-party platforms. Expect to see further investment in trade API technologies, given the decreased cost of data management and the revenue potential from increased trade opportunities. Watch for more firms, ranging from large investment banks to small trading firms, to adopt these technologies to achieve broader market reach.

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• Alternative investing platforms that open access to non-traditional assets like private equity, real estate, art, and crypto for retail investors and their advisors
• ESG powered by AI that gives retail and institutional investors more complete and accurate assessments of investments’ environmental and social impacts
• Asset tokenization that converts financial or physical assets into digital tokens via blockchain technology, providing the infrastructure for companies and investors to more efficiently issue, track, and trade assets

In this report, we dive into how these 3 technologies are poised to have a transformative impact on both retail and institutional investing and the players that have an edge.

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But the firm is now looking to expand far beyond its traditional business lines, such as investment banking and asset management.

For example, it recently launched a digital consumer bank called Marcus and partnered with Apple to launch a credit card. Goldman is also building an embedded finance offering to allow its financial services — such as digital lending, escrow services, and payments processing — to be integrated with third-party platforms like e-commerce sites via APIs.

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To continue competing in this modern landscape, traditional advisors are turning to technology solutions to streamline and scale manual processes, as well as expand offerings. iCapital Network, for example, provides access to alternative investments through a solution that connects into existing advisory practices. ForwardLane offers an AI-powered platform for investment managers that automates data analytics by organizing unstructured data and deriving actionable insights. 

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Amid this challenging economic environment, one opportunity for capital markets firms — ranging from large investment banks to small private trading firms — is to invest in new technologies that improve operating models. These solutions can reduce the costs and complexity of application development and data management as well as expand revenue-generating activities by optimizing dealmaking, investing, and trading processes.

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Mega-rounds also accounted for a smaller percentage of total funding (34%) compared to the average of 66% in 2021.

Below, check out a handful of highlights from our 150-page, data-driven State of Fintech Q3’22 Report. For deeper insights, all the record figures, and a ton of private market data, download the full report.

Other Q3’22 highlights across fintech include:

• Mega-round funding came in at $4.4B, the lowest level seen since 2018.
• Fintech unicorn births fell below double digits for the first time since 2020, with just 6 new unicorns in Q3’22.
• M&A deals dropped 14% QoQ to 155 deals, an 8-quarter low. The number of SPACs surpassed IPOs for the first time ever.
• Europe (32%) surpassed the US (24%) in late-stage deal share for the first time since Q4’18.
• US fintech funding fell 43% QoQ to $5.1B, reaching its lowest point since Q1’20.
• Coinbase Ventures was the most active fintech investor in Q3’22, backing a total of 16 fintechs and surpassing Tiger Global Management, which topped the list during the previous 2 quarters.

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Over the past few years, the adoption of blockchain has gained significant traction across multiple industries, including capital markets. In this article, we will discuss:

• How is blockchain transforming capital markets?
• Which are the main companies applying distributed ledger technology (DLT) in capital markets?
• Which recent partnerships/developments have contributed to the capabilities of the industry players?
• What are the key challenges faced by blockchain in capital markets?

How is blockchain transforming capital markets and what are its benefits?

In a broader perspective, blockchain technology aims to decrease the role of intermediaries, cut down on transaction settlement time and its costs, improve the transparency of cryptocurrency trade, decrease friction in transactions, and improve the speed of transactions. Blockchain can provide capital markets players with asset tokenization and securitization of assets and even decrease costs for tokenization by 35% – 65% compared to traditional securitization. Asset tokenization is the process of converting real assets such as real estate, commodities, private equity shares, and physical goods into digital assets on a blockchain.

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We all know of the necessity for anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) checks. Blockchain can simplify this process by cutting short lengthy reconciliation and verification processes. The emergence of blockchain technology can open doors for increased resilience, speed, and transparency in capital markets. Let us dig deep into the use cases it offers

Settlement times: Assets are traded extremely fast in the modern world, but transactions take time to get cleared and settled. The usage of blockchain brings down the time required for clearance and settlement.

Streamlining processes: Blockchain streamlines the operations across the assets’ life cycle, including investor onboarding, event handing, trade execution, and post-settlement services.

Operational improvements: Standardization is required for making processes further streamlined and improving operations. Blockchain contributes to the standardization of instruments and data formats required in blockchain trading, which in turn reduces middle and back-office processes.

Sales and trading: Sales and trading are some of the major functions of investment banking, which include buying and selling securities and other instruments. Blockchain uses mechanisms such as bilateral negotiations, centralized exchanges, decentralized exchanges, matching algorithms, and auctions to seamlessly allow digital securities to go to market.

Collateral management: Blockchain can decrease the existing redundancies in collateral management processes which slow down the entire system. It helps to get rid of manual reconciliations and physical delivery of securities. Moreover, smart contracts can boost collateral management by issuing margin calls and invoking predetermined rules for each bilateral or intermediary relationship. The creation of collateral tokens or digitalization of assets can further enhance the collateral management processes by providing real-time settlements of collateral obligations.

Custody : Custody minimizes the risk of theft or loss of financial assets, and with the help of blockchain technology and its advanced security features, assets can be secured. Blockchain is also expected to decrease costs significantly in comparison to traditional methods.

Asset servicing: Asset management refers to the administration of money and securities by financial institutions. Blockchain technology is used to automate digital security lifecycle events such as the exercise of rights and management processes, among others.

From the above use-cases, we can see how blockchain’s distributed ledger characteristics useful in the capital market.

Below, we explore some of the key players who are doing this.

What type of companies are applying DLT in capital markets?

The DLT removes most of the inadequacies prevalent in the existing capital markets infrastructure, offering a secure, highly capable, and decentralized method of organizing and sharing data. A growing number of companies are deploying DLT to streamline the process of verification of transactions and eliminate internal reconciliations. These companies use DLT to develop services such as asset tokenization, custody services, settlement services, and compliance solutions.

There are more than 200 companies operating in this space. Using the CB insights platform, we have identified the most relevant companies that are applying DLT in capital markets.

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Companies in the market map include primarily private and active companies and are not meant to be exhaustive of the space. Our analysis does not include acquired and public companies, Coinbase being the exception. These companies have been selected based on the funding raised by them when there are many organizations in a specific category. The categories are not mutually exclusive, and companies are mapped according to their primary use cases.

Primary Markets: Companies in the primary markets segment focus on the tokenization of real assets, which means tracing ownership via DLT technologies such as blockchain. Some of the main companies are Bitbond and Securitize.

Secondary Markets: Here, the companies in focus are the blockchain-based securities exchanges that allow users to trade tokenized securities. Though traditional exchanges have started their own DLT-based offerings, these continue to be a threat to players in the secondary market. AlphaPoint and Blocktrade are among the popular players in the secondary market.

End-to-end platforms: End-to-end platforms provide services across an asset’s lifecycle, such as custody solutions, asset tokenization, and issuance. Some of the important firms in this category are Blockstation and Fintelum.

Payments: DLT companies in this segment are focused on technologies such as stablecoins, real-time gross settlement, and payment currencies. These systems enable transactions within a DLT-based capital markets framework. Circle and Ripple are two popular companies in the payments space.

Post-trade : Participants in this category offer DLT based services such as settlement and clearing after a trade is complete. Paxos is a definitive example that provides custody, payment, and clearing and settlement services.

Services : These companies provide services such as know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML), reporting, and compliance. They leverage DLT to verify and track transactions. Token and Solidus Labs are two popular companies in this category.

Infrastructure : These industry players offer frameworks and base DLT layers and provide blockchain solutions for capital markets service providers. The solutions include distributed ledger technology deployments, analytics, and smart contract development. Axoni and Polymath are two prominent companies in this category.

Now that we have talked about how DLT has shaped the capital markets space, let’s discuss the latest trends, such as collaborations that have contributed to the same.

What are the recent partnerships/developments in this space?

In the recent past, the space has witnessed joint partnerships between financial institutions/capital markets infrastructure providers (CMIPs) and fintech. DLT provides potential value in post-trade activities. It ensures ledger consolidation and a reduction in system risks. Banks and financial institutions are collaborating with the major capital market players to explore DLT and its capabilities.

Here are some of the key developments in this space that have taken place this year.

Apart from the ones highlighted above, companies such as ADDX have managed to get investments from banks (UOB, Development Bank of Japan) and exchanges (Stock Exchange of Thailand), which indicates that players in the space are poised to grow. These tie-ups have helped companies provide a wide range of services, such as tokenization and custody.

What challenges does blockchain encounter in capital markets?

Despite having multiple benefits and tremendous growth prospects, blockchain technology has also faced considerable challenges, which restrict the full utilization of the technology in the capital markets ecosystem. Some of the most concerning ones are increased transaction costs, lack of scalability and interoperability, and inefficiency. Privacy and legal uncertainties are other major concerns. We highlight below some of the major challenges inhibiting the use of blockchain in capital markets.

Inefficiency: The lack of flexibility of blockchain can sometimes also restrict the use cases. A transaction remains permanent once validated and stored on the blockchain. This is not always desirable in capital markets where compensations and updates are required based on the nature of transactions. For example, human error in trades or ‘fat-finger’ trades, are only valued by an equal and offsetting trade, which involved parties must accept. Therefore, this may cause hurdles when it comes to trade validation as the DLT ecosystem runs on compliance between nodes.

Lack of Standardization : Even though the technology has advanced over the past few years, there is a dearth of standardization between the emerging use cases and technical solutions. Obviously, this hampers scalability.

This apart, one of the biggest concerns is whether blockchain in the capital markets space can replace clearing houses at all. Regulators need to be convinced that a decentralized blockchain can cater to this requirement.

What does the future hold for blockchain in capital markets?

So far, we have focused on how blockchain-based technologies are currently being used in capital markets. However, with the growing requirement for a robust and resilient infrastructure, the usage is expected to evolve and scale. As more companies adopt DLT, it will impact the way data is stored and shared, transactions are recorded, and how ownership is represented. Thus, the role that DLT will eventually play in capital markets will largely be determined by how much the brokers, dealers, asset managers, and other related service providers are open to transforming to fully leverage the benefits of this technology.

DLT is expected to restructure capital markets’ value chains in the future. Capital markets bridge the gap between providers and the users of finance and DLT aims to make these connections safe, fast, and of course, cheap. The focus of DLT in the next few years should revolve around risk reduction, cost-cutting, and revenue opportunities. The market will also benefit from the growing collective efforts and partnerships between market participants, as these will largely shape infrastructure investment patterns in the future. The prospect is indeed promising, particularly in an ecosystem where market players, authorities, and developers together nurture and facilitate this growth.

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JP Morgan, for example, recently announced its ambitions to tokenize trillions of dollars of assets to develop new mechanisms in financial services such as trading, borrowing, and lending.

In this article we explore how asset tokenization works and how it will impact institutional investors.

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Some of this year’s winners are building safer and more efficient ways to send and receive payments. Others are striving to make banking, loans, mobile wallets, and investing products available to historically underserved populations all over the world. 

Using the CB Insights platform, our research team selected these 250 winners from a pool of over 12,500 eligible private companies, including applicants and nominees. They were chosen based on factors including proprietary Mosaic scores, funding, market potential, business relationships, investor profile, news sentiment analysis, competitive landscape, team strength, and tech novelty. The research team also reviewed over 2,000 Analyst Briefings submitted by applicants. 

Clients can access the entire Fintech 250 list and interactive Expert Collection here. (If you don’t have a CB Insights login, create one here.)

Companies are categorized by their primary focus area and client base. Categories in the market map are not mutually exclusive. Please click to enlarge.

Want to be considered for future rankings? Fill out this initial application form (it’ll take no more than a few minutes). If selected, you’ll be asked to complete our Analyst Briefing Survey so that our analysts can better understand your products, customers, and market traction.

FINTECH 250 COHORT HIGHLIGHTS

Below are a few highlights from the Fintech 250 Class of 2022.

New vs. repeat winners: Nearly two-thirds (64%) of this year’s cohort are repeat winners: 144 were on last year’s list and 16 have made their way back onto the list after winning in a prior year. That leaves only 90 new winners (36% of the list), the fewest ever since we started the Fintech 250. 

Why is the new winner cohort so small? In the past, many winners would exit via IPO or M&A and lose eligibility for the list. Today, fintech leaders are staying private longer, especially amid this year’s market turmoil. This has allowed them to retain their eligibility through multiple list rounds. Additionally, factors such as rising inflation, interest rate hikes, and struggling public tech stocks have made it more difficult for new entrants to make a splash in the already maturing fintech market. 

Some of the biggest names in the industry, like Stripe and Klarna, have certainly faced their fair share of obstacles, including layoffs and valuation cuts. But when analyzing the data — including revenue, number of customers and customer growth, partnerships, and equity funding — most of these better-established fintech leaders remain on top.

Global reach: Globalization is a key theme for this year’s Fintech 250. The winners represent 33 different countries (by headquarters location) across the globe — 7 more than last year. Just over half (53%) of the selected companies are headquartered in the US, which is the fewest we’ve seen in the Fintech 250 since 2017. The UK came in second with 31 winners (12%), followed by India with 14 (6%), Brazil with 9 (4%), and Germany with 7 (3%).

Stemming from the broader theme of globalization comes localization — the practice of serving local markets and regions. This is a strong focus for winners in emerging markets like India, South America (11 winners, 4%), and Africa (6 winners, 2%).

For example, 3 of this year’s first-time winners are building payment networks in Africa: MFS Africa, TeamApt, and Paga.

B2B vs. B2C: About two-thirds (64%) of this year’s Fintech 250 are B2B, and 36% are B2C. The B2B-B2C split represents a broader shift in market sentiment away from consumer-facing fintechs. This has been driven in part by reports released this year citing the lack of neobank profitability as well as the visible struggle of public B2C fintech stocks like Robinhood, Coinbase, Affirm, and NuBank.

The largest B2B fintech winners by valuation are Stripe ($74B internal valuation), Checkout.com ($40B), Plaid ($13.5B), and Brex ($12.3B).

Most-represented categories: The fintech categories comprising the most winners are payments processing & networks with 33 (13%), insurance with 25 (10%), cryptocurrency with 24 (10%), core banking & infrastructure with 19 (8%), and retail investing & wealth management with 17 (7%).

This marks payments processing & networks’ second straight year as the top category by number of winners. This category includes B2B providers of e-commerce and point-of-sale (POS) payments processing, APIs, payouts, cross-border payments, and more. It also tied with cryptocurrency for the most new winners at 11. Notable new Fintech 250 champions in the payments processing & networks space include card reader and POS system provider SumUp, gaming payments platform Coda Payments, and Brazil-based CloudWalk (the developer of POS solution InfinitePay).  

All but one of this year’s insurance winners were also featured in our inaugural Insurtech 50, published in June 2022. The category includes companies selling insurance products and services directly to customers (i.e., individuals or businesses buying an insurance policy), like Digit Insurance in India and SMB-focused Next Insurance. It also includes companies like Cambridge Mobile Telematics and Shift, which sell technology to reinsurers and insurance brokers.

Despite the crypto market downturn this year, startups in the space still account for a significant share of this year’s Fintech 250 list. Data on funding, top investor support, revenue, and business relationships still point to the long-term momentum of these companies. Notable players include crypto exchange Binance as well as Web3 infrastructure providers ConsenSys and Fireblocks.

Overall funding & valuation trends: The Fintech 250 cohort has raised over $115B in equity funding across over 1,100 deals since the start of 2017 (as of 9/20/2022). In 2021 alone, winners raised over $51B across 337 equity deals. That’s an average of more than one funding round per company in a single year.

The top 3 winners by total equity funding raised since 2017 are Ant Group (who’s had to delay an IPO due to Chinese government regulations), Klarna, and Chime.

This year’s list includes 159 unicorns with a $1B+ valuation — almost two-thirds (64%) of the total list. While that stat definitely jumps off the page, it’s a little less shocking when you consider that there were a total of 297 fintech unicorns in the world at the end of Q2’22.

Top investors: Tiger Global is the top investor in this year’s Fintech 250 by a significant margin, having backed equity deals to 45 of the winners, including Stripe, Checkout.com, and Revolut, since 2017. Accel is second with 29 companies in its portfolio, followed by Ribbit Capital with 27.

Innovation at the earlier stages: Thirty-two (13%) of our winners are seed, Series A, or Series B startups.

To highlight a few, MoonPay provides fiat-to-crypto on- and off-ramps for crypto and NFT businesses, enabling them to accept traditional payment methods. International insurtech bolttech is building a global insurance exchange that connects insurers, distribution partners, and customers, to change the way insurance is bought and sold. Finally, StockGro is an India-based social investing app that allows users to invest virtual money to learn about stocks, play games, and win rewards.

THE FINTECH 250 CLASS OF 2021: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Since the start of October 2021, the 2021 Fintech 250 winners have posted a number of accomplishments, including:

• Nearly $20B in equity funding raised across 150+ deals (as of 09/20/2022)
• 68 mega-rounds (deals worth $100M+), including a $1B Series D to payments platform Checkout.com
• 5 exits, including 3 acquisitions and 2 IPOs (AvidXchange and Nubank)
• 20 new entrants to the $1B+ unicorn club, including Alchemy, Cross River Bank, and Qonto

If you want to learn more about the Fintech 250 Class of 2021, check out the full list of previous winners.

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In line with this trend, $100M+ mega-rounds also accounted for a smaller percentage of total deals (4%) and funding (47%) than they did at any quarterly point last year.

Below, check out a handful of highlights from our 197-page, data-driven State of Fintech Q2’22 Report. For deeper insights, all the record figures, and a ton of private market data, download the full report.

Here are some of the fintech highlights from Q2’22:

• Mega-round funding came in at $9.7B, a 45% drop QoQ.
• Just 20 fintech unicorns were born, marking the first time this figure has fallen below 30 since Q4’20. New entrants to the unicorn club include KuCoin ($10B), Coda Payments ($2.5B), and Newfront Insurance ($2.2B).
• M&A deals took a 30% QoQ hit, dropping to 181 deals from 257 in Q1’22. In contrast, wealth tech saw a 24% jump in M&A deals QoQ.
• While Europe fintech funding sank across most fintech sectors, wealth tech startups in the region saw funding increase. European banking startups, on the other hand, saw funding drop by more than 50% QoQ.
• Foreshadowed by the previous 2 points, wealth tech was the only sector that saw deals increase QoQ. Startups in the space secured 188 deals, a 36% increase QoQ.
• Tiger Global Management lost its top investor crown to Global Founders Capital in Q2’22, investing in 22 fintechs vs. the latter’s 24. On the whole, the top 10 investors funded 27% fewer companies in comparison to the previous quarter.

Download our Q2’22 State of Fintech Report to dive into all these trends and more.

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In our State of Fintech Q1’22 Report, we dive into global investment trends to spotlight takeaways including:

• How fintech saw record deal activity despite the funding decline
• The slowdown in $100M+ mega-rounds
• The record unicorn count, unicorn birth trends, and new fintech unicorns of Q1’22
• The region that saw deals grow 44% QoQ to a record high
• The world’s top fintech investors
• The 5 $1B+ M&A deals in the quarter
• The sector that saw funding shrink 58% QoQ
• And much more

Below, check out a few highlights from our 206-page, data-driven State of Fintech Q1’22 Report. For deeper insights, all the record figures, and a ton of private market data, download the full report.

Q1’22 Sees largest % drop in quarterly Funding since 2018

See who’s up and who’s down in global fintech funding, from the startups seeing the biggest deals to the regions with the largest gains — and losses.

unicorn births remain above 30 for 5 consecutive quarters

See which companies have the largest valuations in Q1’22 and who their investors are.

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How’s the company performing?

• Bahamas-based FTX offers a number of products for traders, including derivatives, options and volatility products, tokenized stocks, prediction markets, leveraged tokens, and an OTC desk.
• Since its October 2021 funding round, the company’s user base has grown by 60%, and its average daily trading volume has jumped 40% to hit $14B.
• It recently launched a $2B venture fund, named FTX Ventures, to accelerate the global adoption of cryptocurrency, blockchain, and Web3 technologies.
• The company operates in the Bahamas and the US.

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HOW’S THE COMPANY PERFORMING?

• California-based CoinTracker enables crypto investors to track portfolio performance and taxes.
• The platform supports 300+ exchanges and 8K+ crypto assets. It has established partnerships with OpenSea, Coinbase, Blockchain.com, and Intuit’s TurboTax.
• CoinTracker has a total of 500K+ users across the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia, and it has tracked more than $200B in crypto assets to date.
• The startup has been profitable since its launch in 2017 and currently has 40 employees.

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WHO ARE THE PARTIES TO THE DEAL?

• Wealthfront: California-based Wealthfront offers automated financial planning, investment management, and banking-related services to millennial and Gen Z investors. Founded in 2011, the startup has over 470K US customers and over $27B in assets under management (AUM). The company maintains operations in the US.
• UBS: Switzerland-based UBS provides wealth management, investment banking, asset management, and business banking services to customers worldwide. In Q3’21, the company reported an operating income of $26.8B, up 10.5% year-over-year. As of December 2020, the company’s total headcount sat around 73,000.

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HOW’S THE COMPANY PERFORMING?

• India-based StockGro enables users to get information on the stock market, learn trading strategies, and communicate with other traders and investors through the platform.
• As of January 2022, the company has doubled its user base to 10M from 5M in October 2021.
• StockGro’s platform has hosted 500+ events with 250+ partner institutions.

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In our State Of Fintech 2021 Report, we dive into global investment trends to spotlight takeaways including:

• Fintech accounted for $1 in every $5 of global venture funding
• The metrics behind $100M+ mega-rounds, how mega-rounds compare against total global fintech funding, and which region had the highest number of mega-rounds
• The record unicorn count, unicorn birth trends, and the highest-valued unicorns to close out the year
• Which sector, from payments to digital lending to banking, saw the highest funding growth
• Which region saw the most fintech funding growth in 2021, and which accounted for almost 50% of total 2021 funding
• How 2021’s M&A, IPO, & SPAC exits & exit valuations compare to previous years
• The deal stages experiencing the most dramatic YoY median deal size expansion
• And much more

Below, check out a few highlights from our 183-page, data-driven State Of Fintech 2021 Report. For deeper insights, all the record figures, and a ton of private market data, download the full report.

2021 Fintech funding blows past 2020 totals by more than 2x

See who’s leading the explosion in global fintech funding, from the startups seeing the biggest deals to the regions with the largest funding booms.

Global fintech $100M+ Mega-rounds triple yoy, SHattering 2020’s TOTAL

See which companies are driving the biggest funding rounds in 2021 and Q4’21 across deal stages, geography, and sectors.

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