Banks & FIs Double Up Investments in FinTech Startups

We are witnessing that slowly (but steadily) banks are buying into the new paradigm of partnering with FinTechs in different ways—it makes sense, considering the investments in the FinTech industry reached $58 billion in value in 2018. Incumbents on both sides (banks and FinTechs) are working towards coming together to meet growing customer expectations and stay relevant in a technologically growing world (concerning banking).

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In 2018, we saw 159 deals made by FIs/banks with FinTech companies ($5 billion was the total amount invested in those rounds in the startups). 

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Note: The above-mentioned investors might have partially invested in the deals.

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In 2019 (January to July), the total value of investment deals (total in all the rounds by all the investors) was 5.52 billion USD compared to 5.0 billion in 2018 (January to November). There were 204 deals where 84 banks invested in 127 FinTechs, 46 insurance companies invested in 56 FinTechs/InsurTechs, and 31 asset management companies/investment management companies invested in 40 FinTechs.

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Here are the top investment deals that took place in 2019 (January to July):

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• Goldman Sachs was one of the investors that invested in the $300-million Series E round in Carta
• Allianz was one of the investors that invested in the $300-million Series D round in Lemonade
• Goldman Sachs was one of the investors that invested in the $250-million Series E round in Marqueta
• New Investment Solutions, an asset management company, invested $230-million in DMI Finance

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It’s interesting to note that much capital has come from incumbents’ venture capital arms which include—but aren’t necessarily limited to—Barclays Venture, Santander Innoventures, Allianz Life Ventures, ABN AMRO Digital Impact Fund, and CommerzVentures.

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Furthermore, to explore and utilize emerging technologies, older financial institutions are now organizing to innovate by developing labs to foster innovation and actively partnering with FinTechs that offer expertise in areas beyond their strengths.