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 […]
Vantiv seals $10 billion Worldpay acquisition
Vantiv Inc. agreed to acquire U.K. payments processor Worldpay Group PLC for about GBP8 billion ($10.4 billion) in cash and stock, one of the biggest deals in the fast consolidating sector. The tie-up, according to a joint statement Wednesday, will create a trans-Atlantic payments processing giant with a combined market value of more than $20 billion. The companies disclosed their negotiations last month as the Ohio-based Vantiv appeared at the time to ward off a potential rival bid from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. The combined entity will be called Worldpay. Payments businesses are under pressure to join forces in part to cut costs as greater regulatory scrutiny and rising […]
Fintech Kantox raises £4.6 million from investors as it targets profitability
Foreign exchange fintech company Kantox has raised £4.6 million from its existing investors as it aims for profitability. Filings with Companies House show Kantox raised the sum at the end of July. CEO and founder Philippe Gelis confirmed the fundraise with Business Insider over email, saying the company raised the money from existing investors Partech Ventures, IDinvest Partners, and Mundi Ventures. Gelis told Business Insider: “We indeed raised some more money with our existing investors. We are progressing well and focusing on building sophisticated software solutions for our clients. “We have great traction so we did not want to look for new investors (something which is always very time consuming) […]
Singapore’s GIC leads $220 million funding round for Chinese P2P lender Dianrong
Chinese peer-to-peer lending platform Dianrong has raised $220 million from Singapore sovereign fund GIC Pte Ltd [GIC.UL] and other investors to fund R&D in China and potential ventures elsewhere in Asia. Other investors in the funding round included CMIG Leasing, a unit of China’s biggest private investment conglomerate China Minsheng Investment Group (CMIG), and South Korean fund manager Simone Investment Managers, Dianrong said on Wednesday. The Shanghai-based firm will use the funds to automate some of its new branches across China, for research and development and potential acquisitions, Dianrong’s co-Chief Executive Soul Htite told Reuters. “Now we’ve graduated to another level, so people that know finance are also seeing us […]
Fintech funding on the rebound as Irish start-ups play part
Global fintech investment more than doubled from the first to the second quarter on the back of a sharp rise in European funding deals. Ireland played its part, recording fintech investments of more than $230 million (€194 million) in the three-month period, led by Plynk which raised €25 million in a Series A round from Swiss Privée in June. Total global funding to fintech firms rose to $8.4 billion (€7.1 billion) from $3.6 billion (€3 billion) with European fintech investment jumping to over $2 billion (€1.7 billion). This is well below the peak investment high of $5.8 billion (€4.9 billion) seen in the fourth quarter of 2015, but up on […]
Global VC fintech investment attracts $6.5 Billion in H1 2017
Global VC investment for FinTech in H1 2017 attracted $6.5 billion of VC investment with 787 deals, a 45% decrease year on year, according to statistics compiled through Pitchbook by Innovate Finance, the not-for-profit membership association for global FinTech. While total global investment dropped, UK VC investment for FinTech firms increased by 37% to $564 million, despite Brexit and the future uncertainty between European markets and the UK’s financial services sector. Both Q1 17 and Q2 17 were higher than Q1 16 and Q2 16 by 45% and 22% respectively. The US attracted the most investment both in deal value, which topped $3.3 billion, and deal volume, with 357 investments […]
Investment in UK Fintech tops pre-Brexit levels in First Half of 2017
Over half a billion dollars were poured into British financial technology companies in the first half of 2017, over a third more than the same period last year, trade body Innovate Finance said on Wednesday, in the latest sign the fast-growing sector is so far weathering Brexit. UK-based fintech startups pulled in $564 million of venture capital investment in the first six months of the year, more than half of which came from outside Britain. That was up 37 percent from the first half of 2016, and put Britain in third place globally for fintech investment, behind the United States and China. Some had worried that Britain’s vote last June […]
