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The Pulse of Fintech H1 2018

2018 is on pace to be a record-breaking year for fintech transactional activity. In the first 6 months of 2018, global investment in fintech was exceptional, driven in part by two massive deals – the USD12.9 billion acquisition of WorldPay by Vantiv and the USD14 billion VC funding round raised by Ant Financial. Funding to date has already exceeded the total amount of fintech funding seen in 2017 and is well on pace to exceed 2015’s peak.

Looking ahead, the global fintech market is expected to remain strong over the remainder of 2018. Investments in insurtech and regtech are expected to grow over the next few months, alongside AI, RPA, and blockchain capabilities. In mature areas like payments and lending, we expect to see consolidation increase over the next 12 months as the largest platforms become bigger and others fail to achieve scale.

Highlights from the H1’18 report

Global fintech investment hit USD57.9 billion in the first half of 2018 across 875 deals, surpassing 2017’s total results.
Dominant fintech players attracted large investment rounds, including challenger banks Revolut (USD250 million) in the UK and N26 (USD160 million) in Germany.
The global median size of late-stage venture financings skyrocketed to USD25 million during the first half of 2018, from a tally of USD14 million in 2017.
In H1’18, investment in fintech companies in Asia hit USD16.8 billion across 162 deals powered by a massive USD14 billion Series C VC funding round by Ant Financial. Excluding this massive outlier deal, Asia still saw strong fintech investment, including quarter-over-quarter increases in overall fintech investment in India, Australia, and Singapore.