New CB Insights Report: FinTech Firms Raised $39.5 Billion In 2018 With Ant Financial Leading The Way

Fintechs Raised $40 Billion In 2018

2018 was a very eventful year for the financial world. Blockchain investments topped $24 Billion that year and it has now been reported that fintech firms raised $40 Billion in the same year.

These funds were raised across a total of 1,707 deals across the globe. One of the biggest contributors to this investor figure is Ant Financial’s $14 billion investment which makes up 35 percent of the total amount raised worldwide. Another key player was Asia which saw $22.65 billion raised through about 516 deals.

North America follows behind with $11.89 billion raised through 569 investments. In Europe, $3.53 Billion was raised through 367 deals. All figures raised on the respective continents were record highs. There was also increased investments in regions outside the major markets of North America, Europe, and Asia. In South America, for example, $540 million was raised through 55 deals and Southeast Asia also saw significant growth.

The increased growth in places like South America is not unexpected as many blockchain firms have focused their attention there and the region seems to be more open to the cryptocurrency and blockchain than ever before with several mainstream merchants such as Church’s Chicken now accepting cryptocurrency. It must also be kept in mind that South America is also home to Venezuela, which has introduced and is heavily pushing, the Petro, which is a national cryptocurrency. This would have created a stable environment for blockchain and crypto-based businesses to grow.

All these have seen the number of venture capital-backed fintech firms grow to 39 worth a combined $147.37 billion. Two of those firms, CoinBase and Circle, are in the blockchain space.

Growing Trends

Among the firms that have seen great investment in 2018, there do seem to be some business models that are quite popular.

One of these is the merging of fintech and real estate as the tokenizing of property has picked up steam in the last few years.

Firms such as RobinHood and CoinBase have shown that asset classes and convenient investment platforms have great appeal, particularly for investors just entering the market.

For now, it cannot be said what 2019 holds in store for the fintech market. There is some talk of venture capital funding taking over the blockchain industry as ICOs seem to be declining in popularity, in no small part due to regulatory issues. Either way, the fintech market shows no signs of stopping for now.