Early-stage investment activity into Fin Tech startups has increased for three quarters straight and reached 124 deals in Q1’15, a 12-quarter high in the number of deals and up 23% versus the same quarter a year prior.
Things don’t look to be slowing down as Q2’15 is on pace for largest amount invested since the start of 2012. So far, the Q2’15 deals include over ten $10M+ Series A financings, among them Ripple Labs’ $28M and Patch of Land’s $23.8M financings. Q2’14 holds the previous quarterly high, with early-stage Fin Tech funding reaching $437M in that quarter.
Top early-stage Fin Tech companies
We used CB Insights Company Mosaic to analyze some of today’s top early-stage fin tech startups globally. Mosaic takes into account various quantitative factors to rank startups, including fundraising, web traffic, social media traffic, and job listings, among other things.
Ireland-based money-transfer company CurrencyFair topped our list. The company most recently raised a $10.7M Series A in April 2015 from Octopus Investments and Frontline Ventures. Germany-based modern-banking startup Number26 was second, as the company’s web traffic has increased drastically in the months leading up to its $10.6M Series A in April 2015.
Notably, 3 of the top 5 early-stage fin tech companies per Mosaic are based outside of the US.
| Company | Mosaic Score | Total Funding ($M) | Select Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| CurrencyFair | 930 | 13.2 | FrontLine Ventures, Octopus Investments |
| Number26 | 900 | 12.6 | Earlybird Venture Capital, Redalpine Venture Partners, Valar Ventures |
| BitPay | 890 | 32.7 | Felicis Ventures, Founders Fund, Index Ventures, RRE Ventures |
| Xapo | 890 | 40 | Benchmark Capital, Ribbit Capital, Slow Ventures |
| CrowdRise | 880 | 26.34 | Bezos Expeditions, Index Ventures, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures |
| Blockchain | 870 | 30.5 | Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mosaic Ventures, Wicklow Capital |
| itBit | 860 | 28.25 | RRE Ventures, Canaan Partners, Liberty City Ventures |
| Earnest | 860 | 32 | Atlas Venture, Collaborative Fund, Slow Ventures |
| Moven | 840 | 12.41 | Route 66 Ventures, SBT Venture Capital |
| Patch of Land | 840 | 24.8 | SF Capital Partners |
| untapt | 840 | 4.89 | SenaHill Partners, Tsai Ventures |
| SmartAsset | 840 | 7.62 | Javelin Venture Partners, SV Angel |
| AngelList | 840 | 24 | Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Google Ventures, Atlas Venture, SV Angel |
| Ripple Labs | 840 | 33.5 | Google Ventures, IDG Capital Partners |
Most active early-stage VCs
The usual suspects topped the list of most active early-stage VCs in Fin Tech since 2012, with 500 Startups, Google Ventures, and SV Angel rounding out the top 3. 500 Startups’ more notable investments include Chain, a tool for developers to build apps related to the blockchain, as well as Lettuce, a small business finance-management tool that was acquired by Intuit in May 2014.
Google Ventures, the most active corporate venture investor overall in Fin Tech, also has made many early-stage bets in the space since 2012. Their notable investments include ZenPayroll, which recently raised a $60M Series B at a $560M valuation and Robinhood which raised a $50M Series B in May 2015. Google Ventures is a seed investor in both companies.
See below for the full ranking.
| Rank | Investor | Rank | Investor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 500 Startups | 11 | Index Ventures |
| 2 | Google Ventures | 14 | Kima Ventures |
| 3 | SV Angel | 14 | Collaborative Fund |
| 4 | Andreessen Horowitz | 14 | Boost.vc |
| 5 | First Round Capital | 14 | Atlas Venture |
| 6 | Spark Capital | 18 | Rothenberg Ventures |
| 6 | Bitcoin Opportunity Corp. | 18 | New Enterprise Associates |
| 8 | RRE Ventures | 18 | Lerer Hippeau Ventures |
| 8 | CrunchFund | 18 | Felicis Ventures |
| 8 | Accel Partners | 18 | General Catalyst Partners |
| 11 | Lightspeed Venture Partners | 18 | BoxGroup |
| 11 | Khosla Ventures | 18 | Data Collective |
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