Fintech funding is already breaking records this year. For the first half of the year, there has been $41.7 billion invested in fintech globally, eclipsing the 39.4 billion total raised last year according to Fintech Global. As the world of fintech funding continues to gain momentum, there are some deals that stand out. Bank Innovation has sorted through some of the most noteworthy deals from July.
Here are five you should know about
1. Greensil – The B2B lending space has been seeing a lot of activity with more and more alternative lenders catering to specific customer needs by using AI and machine learning. Add to the list Greensil, which last week received a $250 million investment by General Atlantic raising its valuation of to unicorn status at $1.64 billion. It’s worth noting that General Atlantic was Greensil’s first institutional investor. Greensil’s lending platform was established in 2011, and the company owns a bank of the same name, formerly NordFinanz Bank AG founded in 1927, based in Germany. The FI plans to expand into international markets including Brazil, India, and China. Greensil could not be reached for comment.
2. Even – There are an increasing number of use cases for fintech in retail sectors, and San Francisco-based PFM fintech startup Even is cashing in on this trend. The fintech, established in 2014, secured $40 million in series B funding from Khosla Ventures last week. This may be small compared to some of the other fundings on our list, but it is noteworthy because this past December, Even partnered with global retailer Walmart to offer its solution to employees as a cash advance on their scheduled paychecks. Of Walmart’s 1.5 million US employees, over 200,000 use Even. Silicon Valley Bank has also backed this fintech with an undisclosed amount of series B funding.
3. Blackfin –GDPR compliance has obviously not slowed fintech investment for one of Europe’s largest fintech venture funds. The Paris-based venture fund raised €180 million ($211 million) for their fund coined ‘BlackFin Europian Tech Fund’ last week. Bank backings include Germany’s KfW bank and BNP Paribas. The VC fund was founded in 2009 and has invested in 21 financial institutions and startups across Europe. President and co-founder Laurent Bouyoux formerly served as senior principal at Aquiline Capital Partners, a New York-based fintech venture fund.
4. Next Insurance – Israeli insurtech startup Next, founded in 2016, has raised $83 million in series B funding earlier this month. The platform offers insurance to small businesses and entrepreneurships across several verticals, through an entirely digital onboarding process. The latest funding round is led by Redpoint Ventures, but American Express Ventures is also included among investors, as well as a legacy brand Nationwide Insurance. This investment is on trend for the sector. Bank Innovation previously reported that as a fintech sector, insurtech received the highest amount of investment in 1Q18.
5. Nervos Network – The debate around cryptocurrency and the blockchain’s legitimacy rages on, but the decentralized technology has been embraced by the crypto community in China. A China-based blockchain startup, which is an open network that “enables enterprises and application developers to decide what goes into the blockchain” has raised $28 million in series A funding two weeks ago. The enterprise blockchain network platform was founded by Jan Xie in January. Xie also founded Cryptape in 2016, a platform which provides infrastructure for crypto-economies.