FINTECH VENTURE DEALS2020

RECENT DEALS

Period: 03/4/2021 - 03/17/2021

Our latest funding report includes 30+ FinTech deals, but we also want to take a peek at deals not yet on your radar. Venture funding may be a leading indicator of future partnerships or hiring, but it’s a lagging indicator of sub-sectors and trends.

The venture capital machine Techstars recently invested in a staggering 120 startups, of which 18 are working in FinTech.

Demo day is a lagging indicator. Get 'em while they're hot 

RECENT DEALS

Period: 02/17/2021 - 03/03/2021

We begin our weekly roundup with a first-in-FinTech experience sure to wow! you out of those COVID blues: pick six lucky numbers and you could win millions.

Alas, this is not an advertisement for your local lotto but a VC-backed FinTech adventure called Millions.app. The age of lotto FinTech has dawned with this stealthy startup “gamifying altruism through social media” having just landed $3M in seed funding. The Empire brain trust continues to tussle with the exact classification of this scheme: Is it wealth? Is it personal finance? Or is it just some combination of gaming or gambling? If it is the latter, the now disingenuously named Robinhood trading app may well be a gaming company. ($GME to the moon.)

On to the recent funding rounds. Our lucky numbers selection this week is Cincinnati-based Coterie Insurance. The team has another $11.5M to continue to tackle commercial insurance with an API-based approach. Later stage deals and pouring one out for our Cap Mkts homies, NYC-based Axoni, landed $31M in funding from big-name capital behemoths such as Citi, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan. While your crypto-investments skyrocket, these folks are using the underlying distributed ledger technology (DLT) to reimagine financial market infrastructure. Personally, I’ve been somewhat surprised by the balance-sheet strategy here. Last up, wealth management firm Human Interest and its $55M Series C. The firm is headquartered in San Francisco and works tirelessly to help SMBs with 401(k)s and other employee retirement investments.

RECENT DEALS

Period: 02/03/2021 - 02/17/2021

This week’s magic number is 1.7 – one billion, seven hundred million dollars in total funding flooding into the wide world of FinTech. Lending in Q1 is off to an especially active start. Let’s hit the list to see which startups are making waves.

New York-based startup Instnt, having lost a key vowel, has managed to find that sneaky letter at the end of a Series funding round. The $7M-and-change Series A is powering this core tech/fraud company. Fun fact: In a previous work-life iteration, Instnt CEO and Founder Sunil Madhu was CEO and Founder of an Empire alum and crowd favorite, Socure. Sunil, cheers to you old sport!

Digital Banking is a hot ticket that was given a boost by COVID-19 and the transition to Zoom-life. Yotta Savings is another innovator in the space, offering free savings accounts and other goodies. This startup pulled in a $13m Series A raise just months after closing a Seed round. Lead investor for this most-recent round, Base10 Partners, must have been wowed by Yotta’s Q4 2020 growth numbers. Oh, and before we forget, do take a minute to check out the recent Forbes article on the work these fine folks are doing.

Our secretive seed this week comes in the form of Pontoro, a capital markets FinTech on a mission to transform infrastructure financing. This involves creating “custom portfolios of infrastructure assets within its tokenization platform and facilitate bi-lateral liquidity among participants”. Two interesting developments worth noting. 1) The startup is now Techstars-backed, and 2) They are backed by the Abu Dhabi program, which highlights how FinTech and digitization are growing in the Middle East.

RECENT DEALS

Period: 01/18/2021 - 02/02/2021

RECENT DEALS

Period: 01/04/2021 - 01/17/2021

We made it – 2021 is here. And with this new year comes a rapidly evolving venture funding situation in FinTech. A first major trend is the influx of capital at Series A. Early-stage investment firms, such as QED Investors and Coatue, have both played king-maker in 2020. In Q4 of 2020, QED filled the coffers of Provide with a $34M Series A. That same quarter, Coatue raised a king’s ransom for both Ramp ($34M) and Gorillas ($44M) Series A funding rounds.

This brings up a second point. Series A funding rounds averaged $8.6M in 2020 nationally. Our question: Can businesses move fast enough to catch up to the valuations from these funding rounds? As Series A funding rounds continue to grow, a chasm is created between Series A and seed rounds. We may need to consider a new round name. Seed extensions doesn’t sound quite right. Maybe, seed-plus? Food for thought.

In the spirit of a dawning new year, we are focusing on those just-blossoming companies at the seed stage. Our list this week comes packed with eight seedlings, of which we’ve selected three.

The FinTech lending startup TradeUp out of Y Combinator in Q1 of 2020. Three quarters later the company announced a $4M-and-change seed round. The company is following the path-of-most-disruption in the student loan market, and offers income share agreements (ISAs) to those training for a new career. Umba, a digital bank made for Africa, landed a recent $2M seed round. The bank operates in Kenya and Nigeria, and will likely capitalize on the worldwide growth of digital banking. Business intelligence startup XILO raised $2M+ in December 2020, having had two pre-seed rounds earlier in the year. This startup makes a sales and quoting platform for insurance agencies.

RECENT DEALS

Period: 12/17/2020 - 01/03/2021