Research: The most active fintech investors so far in 2019

2018 was a record year for fintech investing with over $53 billion of capital allocated to the sector. The three largest financings, which included a $14 billion private round in Ant Financial, accounted for $18.8 billion of the total.

2019 is shaping up to be quite strong, as well. Halfway through the year and we’ve already seen $20.9 billion of capital flow into fintech, according to FT Partners. If you annualize that, 2019 is on pace to be the second strongest year ever in terms of total investment volume made in fintech.

It’s not just volume, either. In terms of numbers of transactions, 2018 saw 1626 financings and at 818 halfway so far, 2019 will probably see a similar level.

New investments made in H1 2019

Big funds with a history of investing in fintech and financial services have been active in 2019, too. Insight Partners tops the list with 11 new fintech investments in 2019. Next up is QED Partners with 8 investments. Bessemer, Tiger Global, DS, Index Ventures and Andreesen Horowitz all sit upon the most active list.

There have been plenty of follow-on investments in 2019, as well. Accel (14), Andreesen Horowitz (12), Bessemer (12), and Insight Partners (12) are the most active in making follow-on investments in their fintech portfolio companies, according to FT Partners.

Challenger banks, like N26, Chime and OakNorth, drove fintech financing volumes in the banking sector as there were a handful of challenger banks that raised hundreds of million of dollars each in H1 2019.