Forty-two fintech companies became unicorns in the third quarter alone, making up a third of total unicorn births, according to CB Insights’ State of Venture Report.
In 2021, investment in fintech almost doubled compared to last year.
getty
The fintech sector is booming, with a record $91.5 billion in global funding so far this year—that’s almost twice as much as what the sector collected in the entirety of 2020. The past quarter saw the birth of 42 fintech unicorns (startups valued at over $1 billion), bringing the year’s total to 200, according to CB Insights’ State of Venture Q3’21 Report.
“Financial services is one of the largest industries on the planet, but until recently, the way it operated had remained unchanged for decades,” says Satya Patel, cofounder and general partner of venture capital firm Homebrew. “And because of that, there are huge segments of the population that are underserved or ignored by current financial services players. Fintech is changing all of that by decreasing costs, increasing access and improving experiences for financial products and services.”
The CB Insights report shows Tiger Global Management and Coinbase Ventures lead the pack among fintech investors, with 24 and 22 deals in the third quarter, respectively. The U.S. remains the region with the most fintech deals, gaining ground during the last quarter to make up 38% of global fintech deals, followed by Asia with a 26% share.
“Some people thought that the internet was winner-takes-all, and that may be true in some markets. But it’s usually not true in fintech,” says Sheel Mohnot, who has been investing in seed-stage fintech for six years as general partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures.
One third of all unicorns minted during the last quarter are fintech startups. Bahamas-based based FTX, the U.K.’s Revolut, San Francisco-based Chime and Mexico’s Kavak saw the biggest funding rounds in the sector during Q3, amassing a joint $3.2 billion.
“People are just starting to discover there are going to be unicorns in every major country—I think any country above a hundred million people will have a fintech unicorn very soon,” says Mohnot.
The report showed exits from the fintech sector also reached a new high, tallying 723 this year, a 25% increase from last year and more than double what we saw five years ago.
Credit: Source link
