Fintech Funding

WOO HOO! The new year (2018 if you slept through) began with a great start for funding in the worldwide fintech sector. Just in January alone fintech startups roped in over $2.5 billion in funding. So, where did all that funding go? A bit shy of 60% went to US startups with China (surprising), India and France getting some loose change. I'll bet you want to know what types of startups got the most funding, right? Well, INVESTMENT PLATFORMS and LENDING scored big with insurtech a significant third. And the usual suspects (bankingtech, big data, cryptos, etc) getting participation. BUT.....a BIG BUT (sorry)........these January number DON'T include ICOs, IPOs or debt financing. So January was probably much bigger. No slowdown in the fintech sector.

(Bill Taylor/Managing Editor)


"The year 2018 started off on a great note for the global FinTech community. In January 2018, FinTech startups across the globe collectively raised $2.56 billion in funding. The US heavily dominated the funding charts with $1.51 billion, which was a whopping 59% of the global FinTech funding in the first month of 2018. China was a distant second with a 9.8% ($252.4 million) contribution, with India and France contributing 4.7% ($121 million) and 4.2% ($106.8 million) respectively.

Investment platforms led the race with 20.28% contribution (worth $520.1 million) to the total funding in January. There were some large deals in this segment, with key players such as Cadre (raised $250 million), Wealthfront (raised $75 million), and Folio (raised $63.2 million) securing significant funding.

Several large banks were fairly keen on investing in startups from this segment. Visible Alpha, a US-based investment research technology firm raised $38 million from several investors, including large banks such as Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Santander, and BNP Paribas. Goldman Sachs, in particular, was a part of the three large funding deals in this segment (Cadre, Folio, and Visible Alpha).

Lending, following up with the 2017 trend, was neck-to-neck with investment platforms, with 20.17% in contributions worth $517.3 million. InsurTech, BankTech, and Big Data & Analytics were the other three key segments that garnered substantial interest from investors..."


Full Story at GoMedici.com