FT Partners Publishes 2021 FinTech Almanac

FT Partners Research is pleased to announce the publication of our 150+ page 2021 FinTech Almanac report, providing the most comprehensive review of global FinTech deal activity with analysis across private company financings, IPOs, M&A and SPAC transactions.

Executive Summary

2021 was a banner year for FinTech deal activity globally across private company fundraising, IPOs, M&A and SPAC mergers. Following a surprisingly strong 2020, in 2021 private company financing volume more than tripled, valuations soared, and every region globally (including emerging markets across Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia) experienced record levels of investment activity in the FinTech sector.

Trends that were hastened in the back half of 2020 accelerated in 2021 as the global pandemic continued to push companies and entire industries to digitize and leverage online and mobile channels in new ways. An increasing number of consumers adopted and favored FinTech apps for banking, payments and investing, and Crypto and NFTs moved further into the mainstream. Banks, financial institutions, and other strategic players continued to look for ways to innovate, in part through their corporate VC arms and occasionally, acquisitions. Additionally, established FinTech companies made multi-billion-dollar acquisitions of their own.

While 2021 was an incredibly strong year for the FinTech sector, equity markets have fallen precipitously to start 2022. Recent SPACs, IPOs, and unprofitable growth stocks have all fallen sharply, with many down more than 50% from their highs only months ago. FinTech stocks have been hit very hard as many of them fall into the high growth / high multiple camp, which is suffering the most.

Should public market multiples remain down, multiples in private markets and private market funding activity could eventually take a hit. On the other hand, there are arguments for private market multiples holding relatively steadier than public markets. Growth rates among private companies tend to be higher than public company growth rates, investment time horizons tend to be much longer, and the amount of dry powder available to invest remains very high.

From a longer-term perspective, we do not see any of the key demand drivers for FinTech changing. Banks and other traditional financial institutions still have a long road in digitizing their businesses. Meanwhile, consumer-focused FinTech companies continue to gain share in both developed and emerging economies. These powerful trends seem nearly inexorable at this point. ?

Highlights of the Report

• 2021 was the largest and most active year ever for private FinTech company financing activity with $141.6 billion in total dollar volume raised across 3,573 funding rounds.
• Total financing volume more than tripled over 2020 ($45.6 billion), and 2021 financing deal count outpaced the prior record level in 2020 of 2,008 by more than 1,500 deals.
• The massive increase in dollar volume raised in the FinTech sector was supported by an unprecedented level of mega, multi-hundred-million-dollar financing rounds. There were 399 funding rounds of $100 million or more and 36 $500 million+ rounds in 2021.
• In 2021 there were record levels of M&A activity in the FinTech sector – total volume reached $348.5 billion with 1,485 M&A transactions globally.
• There were 71 $1 billion+ M&A transactions in 2021, the most ever in a year and 30 more than there were in 2020.
• There was an explosion of SPAC activity in the FinTech sector in 2021 with 39 mergers announced in total, in addition to a record-breaking 56 FinTech IPOs globally in 2021 (39 of them on US exchanges) that in total raised more than $33 billion in gross proceeds.

FT Partners’ business remains strong as the FinTech sector continues to expand. FT Partners recently advised on several landmark capital raises and M&A transactions building upon our track record of generating highly favorable outcomes for FinTech companies globally.

Selected Recent FT Partners-Advised Transactions?

• Payoneer's $3.8 billion Merger with FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp.
• Divvy's $2.5 billion Sale to Bill.com?
• GreenSky’s $2.2 billion Sale to Goldman Sachs
• Forge’s $2 billion Merger with Motive Capital Corp.
• Truebill’s $1.3 billion Sale to Rocket Companies
• CompoSecure's $1.2 billion Merger with Roman DBDR
• Currencycloud’s ~$1 billion Sale to Visa
• Revolut's $800 million Financing at a $33 billion Valuation
• Mollie's $800 million Financing
• Varo’s $510 million E Round Financing
• Bolt’s $355 million Series E Financing at a $11 billion Valuation
• SpotOn’s $300 million Series E Financing at a $3.2 billion Valuation
• Upgrade’s $280 million Series F Financing at a $6 billion Valuation
• Mambu’s ~$266 million Series E Financing at a ~$5.5 billion Valuation
• CAIS’ $225 million Series C Financing at a $1 billion Valuation
• Accelerant’s $193 million Financing
• CloudWalk’s $150 million Series C Financing at a $2.2 billion Valuation
• Mission Lane’s $150 million Preferred Equity Financing
• MFS Africa’s $100 million Series C Financing