Irish FinTech companies raised $42.8m across 9 deals in Q1 2017, putting it on track to surpass last years total deal tally.
- Total FinTech funding in Ireland have progressively increased YoY since 2014 at a 59.7% CAGR.
- The 84.2% increase in total FinTech investments in Ireland between 2015 and 2016 is mostly due to a $170.5m deal to Future Finance in March of last year. Excluding this deal investments fell by 34% in 2016.
- Q1 2017 saw a good start to the year, with FinTech companies receiving 45% of the $95.1m invested in deals valued between 0-$100m in 2016.
Between 2014 and Q1 2017 more than 50% of deals went to Irish FinTech companies specialising in three FinTech Sectors; Payments & Remittances, Marketplace Lending and RegTech.
- Payments & Remittances companies received the highest number of deals in Ireland between 2014 and Q1 2017. 2016 saw a total of $80.6m invested in the sector. The most notable deals of the year went to money exchange company CurrencyFair which raised a total of $18.8m across two deals and P2P payments company Circle which received $60m in its series D round.
- Marketplace Lending received the second highest number of deals in the period. This sector also received the largest deal in Q1 2017 with GRID Finance, which provides financing options to SME, receiving $31.8m in February.
- The third largest sector is RegTech with companies such as Fund Recs, which offers fast valuations and custom reporting, receiving 3 investments in the period.
Marketplace Lending company Future Finance received a $170.5m investment in March 2016, the largest FinTech Investment in Ireland to date.
- The top 10 deals in Irish FinTech companies received a combined amount of $294.6m of Investment over the last 5 quarters, which equates to 97.5% of investment in Irish FinTech in this period.
- Three of the top ten deals over the last 5 quarters went to marketplace lending companies. Future Finance, GRID Finance, and Currency Fair received a combined total investment of $205.7m between 2016-Q1 2017. Despite receiving 30% more deals than Marketplace Lending companies the three deals to Payments & Remittances companies in the top 10 received a combined total of $77.8m.
- The other 4 deals were made up of; RegTech company AQ Metrics, InsurTech specialist ClaimVantage and Infrastructure & Enterprise Software companies Moqom and Global Shares.
The 10 most active FinTech investors in Ireland participated in almost 40% of deals between 2014 and Q1 2016
- 37.9% of all investments in Ireland between 2014 and Q1 2017 were made by the top ten Investors.
- Two of the top ten investors are based in Ireland; Enterprise Ireland and Kernel Capital. Of the other eight; Frontline Ventures, Octopus Ventures and Wayra are based in the UK, and the remaining five are based in the US.
- Enterprise Ireland has made the most investments in Irish FinTech since 2014. The largest round they participated in during this time was a $3.25m venture round to AQ Metrics which provides automated risk monitoring and regulatory reporting. The second most active investor Frontline Ventures also participated in this round.
