Scotland attracts £37m investment in fintech over the past decade
Fintech in Scotland has attracted nearly £37m in investment over the last 10 years with an emerging ‘ecosystem’ which brings together start-ups, large firms, universities and the public sector, said the Scottish Government. Scotland is now a key location for many international firms, such as J.P. Morgan, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, NCR, Ingenico and Avaloq. J.P. Morgan’s European Technology Centre in Glasgow is a key strategic technology hub with 1,300 employees.Deloitte’s 2017 Global FinTech Hubs Federation report highlighted Edinburgh’s high concentration of key elements, and outside London and the South East, Scotland has the most complete financial and business services industry cluster in the UK. Economy Secretary Keith Brown has been […]
UK start-ups attract record £8.27bn investment
UK start-ups raised more money in equity investment last year than ever before, new research shows, as foreign investment cash flooded into the country. Data from the research firm Beauhurst, which specialises in tracking growth businesses, shows UK start-ups picked up £8.27bn worth of funding during 2017, more than twice as much as in 2016. Last year was also a record year for megadeals, with no fewer than 29 companies attracting investments of more than £50m. These businesses were led by Improbable, which raised £389m from the Japanese technology investor SoftBank Capital, and Farfetch, which raised £313m from the Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com. Other large funding rounds included TransferWise’s raise […]
Ant Financial plans equity fundraising at potential US$100 billion valuation
A fundraising would bring Ant a step closer to a hotly anticipated initial public offering by establishing a more current valuation. China’s Ant Financial Services Group is planning to raise up to US$5 billion in fresh equity that could value the online payments giant at more than US$100 billion, people familiar with the move said.A fundraising would bring Ant, in which e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding is taking a one-third stake, a step closer to a hotly anticipated initial public offering by establishing a more current valuation. Ant’s last fundraising in 2016 valued the owner of Alipay, China’s top online payment platform, at about US$60 billion. The new round should […]
Singapore notches record US$229m fintech funding in ’17: KPMG
BUOYED by US$122.75 million of funding in the fourth quarter, Singapore achieved a record high of US$229.1 million of fintech funding in 2017, according to KPMG’s Pulse of Fintech report. The record was attained despite a dip in the number of deals done throughout the year – from 37 in 2016 to 29 in 2017. Additionally, the smaller deal base in the past year meant that each was worth an average of US$7.9 million in 2017, bettering the US$5.9 million average in 2016. The high in fintech funding was mainly attributed to two of Asia’s 10 biggest deals – with a combined value of over US$130 million – taking place […]
Paris is city of Fintech love for startups seeking hookups
The fintech dating game is on in Paris. Entrepreneurs in Europe’s financial-technology sector are pushing low-cost payments solutions to steal market share from banks, hoping the challenge they pose will spur the lenders to buy them or seek partnerships with them. Many startups are eyeing deals or potential backing as they converge on Paris this week to meet with the top executives of French finance, from BNP Paribas SA’s Jean-Laurent Bonnafe to Societe Generale SA’s Frederic Oudea, at the city’s annual Fintech Forum. How fintechs defy incumbents is a prime theme of discussion there, with payments an area of focus, as banking alternatives from Alipay to M-Pesa already dominate in […]
Israel’s OurCrowd to hit $1 bln in assets from crowdfunding in ’18
Israel’s equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd said on Wednesday it expects to surpass $1 billion in assets under management in funds raised through equity crowdfunding in 2018. Since its inception in 2013, OurCrowd has raised $650 million for 145 startup companies and 12 funds, it said at the outset of its annual investor summit. In 2017, its investor base grew to more than 25,000 from 112 countries. OurCrowd’s primary investor base is the United States, with 49 percent of funding, followed by Asia at 26 percent. The company also said its seed stage incubator will invest in 100 early stage companies in the next 10 years, focused on technologies such as […]
India leads world in Fintech investment returns
India is a dominant force in the financial technology sector globally with 29 per cent annual returns on investments, a report released by the City of London Corporation said. The Corporation — the municipal governing body of the British capital — released the report as part of its launch of a new “Asia Next Decade” campaign. The ‘Asia as a financial services partner for London’ report also found that the “demonetisation wave” in India led to a 1,000 per cent increase in demand for digital transaction technologies last year after the government banned the high- value bank notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. “Annual returns on FinTech investment in […]
Digital currency exchange Coinbase raises $100 million, hits $1 billion valuation
Digital currency exchange Coinbase announced on its blog on Thursday that it has raised $100 million in so-called “Series D” funding led by U.S. venture capital firm IVP, making it the first bitcoin start-up to achieve a valuation of at least $1 billion. Start-ups with a $1 billion valuation are part of what is called a “unicorn” club in the venture capital industry. The $1 billion valuation was estimated by data and research provider Pitchbook. Series D is generally the fifth stage of funding, following a seed investment, and series A through C rounds. With the new investment, Coinbase has raised $217 million since it launched in 2012. It raised […]
