UK leads the way with record $16bn fintech investment
The UK’s fintech investment in the first half of 2018 hit a record $16 billion, ahead of $14 billion in each the Americas and China, according to KPMG’s report “The Pulse of Fintech 2018”.
In the same period, investment in companies in Europe (including UK) hit $26 billion, a total of 198 deals. Some of the largest among these are the acquisitions of WorldPay by Vantiv and iZettle by PayPal, and buyouts of Nets and IRIS Software.
The UK has four of the region’s top ten deals over the past six months, which is attributed to the efforts that the UK government is putting to boost the sector. The report forecasts investments increasing in areas like regtech, insurtech and wealth management.
In Europe, the median venture capital angel/seed stage deal size increased from $1.2 million in 2017 to $1.5 million in 2018; while the median M&A size in Europe went from $23.7 million in 2017 to $60.4 million in 2018.
Other highlights in the past six months are a $250 million round by UK-based Revolut, and a $160 million round by Germany’s N26.
Interestingly, although the total value of the deals globally has increased to $57.8 billion in investment, the numbers of deals closed is lower than last year for the same period, and not too different from 2016.
Globally, Ant Financial in China leads the venture capital firms with the highest investment, at $14 billion, followed by Worldpay ($12.9 billion) and Nets ($5.5 billion).
The report also cites in the top ten: Blackhawk Network, iZettle, IRIS Software, Powerplan, Cayan, OpenLink Financial and Nordax.
More from KPMG: the firm recently partnered with Appian to expand their artificial intelligence (AI) alliance for improved “intelligent automation” (IA).
KPMG also participated in the launch of a new cloud-based business management solution called Wiise, alongside Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Microsoft.
