Amid a number of regulatory initiatives including a “sandbox” dedicated to early-stage fintech startups in the UK and major forthcoming shifts in investment research (MiFID II) and online payments (PSD2) in the EU, funding to venture capital-backed fintech startups in Europe saw a major bump in Q1’17, according to CB Insights data.
Over the first three months of 2017, Europe saw $667M in funding to VC-backed fintech startups across 73 deals. At the current run rate, Europe fintech deal activity is on pace to surpass 2016’s total by 57%. VC-backed fintech funding deployed in Europe in Q1’17 is already at 60% of the total investment amount of 2016.
The funding increase in Q1’17 becomes more evident when looking at the data on a quarterly basis. Compared to Q4’16, Europe fintech funding rose 222% in Q1’17, while deals jumped 74%. There were four $30M+ deals to VC-backed fintech companies in Europe over the three-month period including to digital challenger bank Atom Bank, SMB marketplace lender Funding Circle, online deposits marketplace Raisin, and blockchain provider BitFury Group.
Perhaps most compelling from the new data is the pace of early-stage (seed + Series A) fintech investment growth in Europe. Early-stage fintech deals grew 72% on a quarterly basis, while funding grew almost 4X including a number of $10M+ deals. Some of these deals included a $10.4M Series A to Switzerland-based digital currency exchange ShapeShift, a $28M Series A to Germany-based digital banking platform solarisBank, and a $10M Series A to Monese, a UK-based banking app for immigrants and expats.
Looking for more fintech investment data and analytics? Sign up free for the CB Insights Venture Capital Database.
If you aren’t already a client, sign up for a free trial to learn more about our platform.