Global FinTech funding topped $60bn last year
- More than $170bn has been invested in FinTech companies globally since 2014, across 9,834 transactions.
- Investment increased at a CAGR of 40.1% between 2015 and 2018, reaching $62.4bn last year. Declining deal activity pushed average deal size up from $10.0m in 2015 to $39.4m in 2018 as the FinTech sector continues to mature.
- Funding set a record in 2018 with more than $62bn raised across almost 1,600 deals, of which 114 transactions were valued at $100m and above. China-based Ant Financial, a payment services provider raised a $14bn Series C round in June 2018 which is the largest FinTech deal to date. This funding was led by Temasek holdings and GIC and will enable Ant to continue investing in technology and innovation.
Half of the total FinTech funding raised in 2018 was invested in the second quarter
- Global FinTech investment was a third lower in Q4 2018 than the corresponding quarter in 2017, with deal activity falling from 424 transactions to 330 during the period.
- Total funding raised by FinTech companies worldwide reached $62.4bn last year with more than half of this invested in Q2 2018. In addition to the large Series C raised by Ant Financial, there were another 39 deals valued at $100bn and above in Q2 2018.
- one, a Cayman Islands-based blockchain technology developer raised $4bn in an ICO in May 2018 which is the largest ICO in history. This investment will fund the development of the company cryptocurrency called EOS and invest in companies that could develop the EOS code into products.
More than $2.2bn was raised in the top 10 FinTech deals globally last quarter
- Just over $2.2bn was raised in the 10 largest FinTech deals in Q4 2018, which is equal to 28.4% of the total capital raised by FinTech companies globally that quarter.
- The United States dominated with eight companies listed in the top 10 deals, with remaining two deals involving companies based in Singapore and China.
- San Francisco-based Snowflake Computing, a cloud data company, raised a $450m Series F round, led by Sequoia Capital, at a $3.1bn pre-money valuation. Company revenue topped $100m in 2017 and Snowflake plans to increase its headcount by 1,000 in 2019.
- Linklogis, a supply chain finance provider based in Shenzhen and backed by Tencent Holdings, raised a $220m Series C round which was the largest Asian Marketplace Lending deal of Q4 2018. This funding, led by GIC, will enable Linklogis to further leverage AI and blockchain to help solve financing difficulties for Chinese SMEs.
- Singapore-based PropertyGuru, Asia leading online property listing business, raised a $145m Series D round in October 2018 from KKR. The company has operations in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, is profitable, cash flow positive and is seeing revenue grow at 25% per year.
North American companies share of global deal activity has dropped over the last five years
- North American FinTech companies have dominated global deal activity over the past five years, claiming 4,991 of the 9,834 deals completed between 2014 and 2018.
- However, the region share of deal activity declined from 60.6% in 2014 to 41.5% in 2017, before rebounding to 47.8% of deals last year. More than 64 deals in North America last year were valued at $100m and over with Armour, a Bermuda-based InsurTech raising $500m of private equity funding in Q1 2018 to create a new reinsurance group.
- European companies share of FinTech deal activity peaked at 32.7% in 2017, up from 22.7% in 2014. European-based FinTech companies were involved in almost a third of deals globally last year with London-based Greensill Capital raising the largest equity funding in the region in 2018. The working capital finance provider raised $250m from General Atlantic and will invest further in technology to deliver best-in-class products and services to its customers.
- Investors have been looking to finance FinTech companies in other parts of the world, with the share of transactions involving Asian-based companies growing from 11.1% in 2014 to 15.1% last year. Behind the $14bn that Ant Financial raised in May 2018, SenseTime, a facial recognition solution provider in Beijing raised a $1bn Series D round in Q3 2018 taking the company total funding to over $2.6bn.
The data for this research was taken from the FinTech Global database. More in-depth data and analytics on investments and companies across all FinTech sectors and regions around the world are available to subscribers of FinTech Global. ?2019 FinTech Global
