2021 was an incredibly active year for Fintech startups. According to Pitchbook, almost 6,700 companies received funding from nearly 11,000 investors during the year. Here is the capital breakdown:
Venadar published a “First View” of the future of Fintech in early February 2021 to illustrate this investment activity and provide a forward-looking prediction of which startups were ripe for funding. In this report, we highlighted the most promising startups in three key trend areas: Wealth Tech, Digital Banking, and Lending.
- The Wealth Tech startups featured included Alpaca, an equities trading software using API, which raised $50M in Series B funding in August 2021.
- The Digital Banking trend category included Fortress Identity, which offers a multimodal identification security platform. Fortress was acquired by Aware (NAS: AWRE), which specializes in biometric identification, in December 2021.
7 out of 10 Venadar picks in the Lending trend category receive funding in the last 12 months, including an IPO
Our hot startup predictions within the Lending trend produced 6 startups that raised nearly $590M combined, plus one that raised $750M of development capital through a private placement:
- Petal, a solution for cashflow-based underwriting, raised $15.34M in Series C3 and $140M in Series D funding
- Flowcast, which uses machine learning algorithms to uncover consumer behaviors to enhance trade financing, raised $3M in Series A funding
- Compound, an open-source decentralized finance lending protocol that algorithmically adjusts interest rates, raised $100K in venture funding
- Home Lending Pal, an AI-powered predictive mortgage advisor, raised $2.25M in seed funding
- Better, offering democratized mortgage lending, raised $750M of development capital through a private placement
- Street Shares’ Lending-as-a-service for community banks and credit unions raised $64.98M in convertible debt financing
- Blend digital lending platform raised $360M in its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol of BLND on July 16, 2021
These First View reports are generalized category analyses meant to illustrate the Venadar process. The high-level First View can identify the most promising startups in a category that are directly addressing relevant trends. What’s the next innovation trend in Fintech and where are the best emerging startups? Contact us today to see how we can create a bespoke report to directly address strategic gaps and challenges you face and identify the right partners to help you move into the future with targeted innovation efforts.
To view the full Fintech First View (and all other categories) visit venadar.com/insights.