The Unicorn Club – Rise of FinTechs
Over the last few years, a few startups have attained the “Unicorn” status by crossing 1-billion-dollar valuations.


The global FinTech industry has been expanding through investments, acquisitions, buyouts, and partnerships. In terms of incorporations, hundreds of new FinTech startups form each week. And over the last few years, a few startups have attained the “Unicorn” status by crossing 1-billion-dollar valuations. This shows that the investors trust the innovations of the FinTech startups as well as a demonstration of consolidation of this market.
As per MEDICI’s analysis, there are over 80+ FinTechs that are Unicorns as of today. While a significant chunk of these Unicorns comes from the Payments segment, which has contributed 20.4% to this Unicorn club, segments such as Digital/Neoanks, Lending, InsurTech, B2B FinTech, etc., are also major contributors to the FinTech Unicorn club. We have mapped the FinTech Unicorns with their valuation and employee strength in the image below.

In terms of countries, the USA leads the race with 54.2% of Unicorns, followed by the UK with 12.0%. China (6%), India (6%), and Germany(3.6%) were the rest of the top 5 countries that led the race in terms of the number of Unicorns. In terms of valuation, Stripe leads the race with ~ $34.5 billion in valuation from the USA, followed by One97 communication (parent company of Paytm) with a valuation of over $16 billion, followed by Chinese cryptocurrency hardware company Bitmain Technologies (~$12 billion), US-based cryptocurrency company Ripple ($10 billion), and Brazil-based Digital/Neobank Nubank (~10 billion). In terms of number of employees, we estimate Klarna has the largest workforce (2,900–3,300 employees) followed by One97 Communications, which has the highest number of employees (2,700–3,100 employees), followed by Stripe (2,700-3,100 employees), and Nubank (2,700 -3,100 employees)
The past couple of years have witnessed greatly enhanced activity in the FinTech VC funding space, as can be observed in the increase in the number of Unicorns. In November 2018, there were 50+ Unicorns, and as of March 2020, over 80+ FinTech startups were valued at more than $1 billion. A few Unicorns that have joined the list include Bright Health, Sentinel One, Riskified, High Radius, and Kabbage.
To learn about Prove’s identity solutions and how to accelerate revenue while mitigating fraud, schedule a demo today.
The modern
way of proving identity
Trusted by 2,000+ leading companies to reduce fraud and improve consumer



Keep reading
Read the article: CLARITY Act could allow 11 crypto activities for US banksThe Congressional Research Service has identified 11 categories of crypto activities that the Senate-reported CLARITY Act would permit for U.S. banking organizations and credit unions, including digital asset underwriting and dealing.
Read the article: Insurance Fraud Has a Contact Center ProblemFraudsters can use the contact center to impersonate policyholders, manipulate accounts, and redirect claims or benefits. Learn how Prove for Amazon Connect brings stronger identity intelligence into contact center journeys to help insurers reduce fraud and friction.
Read the article: Why We Must Close Identity Gaps Before AI Agents Start TransactingProve's Frances Zelazny says that we need to fix the identity systems people rely on today before trusting them to support what comes next.
