With investment into the UK's Fintech firms surging within the last year and setting a brand new record, these statistics show that the UK has kept its pace with global investment in the Fintech sector. And it's not just London; in fact, Regional hubs outside of London are making up an ever-growing proportion of this growth. In this blog, we discuss all things Fintech, whilst looking at the companies worth watching throughout 2022.
The UK has always been listed as one of the global leaders within the Fintech sector, and it definitely has the statistics to back its position at the top. With its strong track record of innovation, technology, and development, it's no surprise that over the last few years with monumental changes across all sectors, that the UK has risen dramatically, going head to head with the United States in terms of total capital investment within Fintech.
The UK has now registered another record year in annual Fintech investment in 2021, exceeding around £8.5bn - showing an increase of 217% in comparison to 2020. The previous record was set in 2019, when the Fintech sector saw £3.3bn invested during the entire year, so it's clear to see that there's been a dramatic increase in such a short amount of time.
In a lot of ways, 2021 was the year for Fintech. The Covid-19 pandemic managed to accelerate a number of different trends that play into the world of Fintech, whether it's from the rise of e-commerce, to the move away from physical interaction. For example, in the UK, 70% of consumers say that they don't tend to use cash in todays society. Investors have never been more enthusiastic about Fintech businesses prospects - data has now revealed that globally, the sector picked up a record $94.7bn of brand new funding during the first nine months of the year, which is almost twice as much in the whole of 2020.
With this in mind, the value of the global Fintech market is now expected to triple across the next decade - giving the best Fintech's a strong position to capitalise this. Here are some of the top UK Fintech's that are expected to do great things across this next year.
Companies To Look Out For In 2022
Tide
Founded back in 2015 by George Bevis, Tide is a mobile-first bank for SME's. Tide's accounts are aimed towards freelancers, and SME's, promising that it will save customers' time and money by providing them with instant access to a variety of financial services such as automated bookkeeping.
Back in Spring 2021, the company reported that it had doubled its user base to 400,000 accounts as well as also planning to invest over £100 million - the company has subsequently raised £47 million in their Series C funding round.
Cuvva
Launched back in 2016 by Freddy Macnamara, Cuvva is an app-based car insurance provider that offers their users pay-as-you-go driving cover. This company offers drivers a brand new type of policy that simply uses mobile phone sensors as well as machine learning in order to understand a motorist's behaviour. It claims that drivers could potentially save up to a third on their monthly subscription policy.
Cuvva has a mobile-first approach that handles claims reporting and handling through their app. The company has been able to raise £15 million in its Series a funding back in 2019, then becoming the most downloaded insurance app within the UK in 2020.
Form3
Founded back in 2016 by Michael Mueller, Form3 is a platform that powers the future of payments. They are a fully managed payment technology service, combining a powerful AWS cloud processing platform, multiple-scheme payment gateways as well as a fully managed 24x7 service model. Form3's micro-services architecture and API's are able to provide a single point of simple access to the full universe of payment schemes.
In September 2021, they raised a Series C round investment of £116 million which was led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Holding a strong position in the UK and Europe, they are preparing for a wider international expansion, focusing primarily on the United States of America.
PrimaryBid
Since their launch back in 2016 founded by Anand Sambasivan, James Deal and Kieran D'Silva, PrimaryBid have helped retail investors to take part in IPOs and public company fund raising at the same time and price as institutional investors.
The pandemic typically prompted more people to take an interest in investment, so much so, that the company's platform has now worked with more than 200 public companies that choose to include personal investors in their IPOs - including the likes of Deliveroo and Ocado. The company itself has managed to raise £38.4 million in their Series B round back in October 2020, becoming fully regulated in the European Union and launched alongside of Euronext in France, June 2021.
Cleo
Founded back in 2016 by Barnaby Hussey-Yeo, Cleo uses its simplicity and humour to help around 4 million of its users to improve their relationship with money, making claims that they aren't a bank, but instead a financial assistant platform. Their aim is to be an AI assistant that defines a brand new category, one that goes beyond savings and budgets to actually help people change the way they feel about finances.
Through chat, "she" provides users with a deep insight about money, whilst also suggesting personalised financial products that help you with your ability to save. Cleo is a product that has been designed for the next generation and they've managed to raise around £32 million in their Series B round of funding.
Moneybox
Founded back in 2015 by Ben Stanway and Charlie Mortimer, Moneybox was created because they thought people were growing up without the correct tools and information that's needed to build their financial futures - so they were determined to change this to make saving and investing simple, enjoyable and available to everyone.
With Moneybox, you simply set up a savings or investment account via their app in just a couple of minutes. They offer a wide variety of accounts and services like - stocks & shares, simple saver, mortgage advice all the way to personal pensions. Moneybox have gone through 10 different funding rounds and now have a collective total of £76.7 million in funding.
Chip
Launched back in 2017 by founder Simon Rabin, Chip is known as the 'savings account of the future' - allowing its customers to seamlessly earn the best returns on their savings. The app utilises open banking technology to enable their customers to deposit to investment funds, cash deposits, ETF's and alternative passive investments, all working completely from inside their bank.
Chip recently raised a total of £11.5 million from 12,954 investors, making it the biggest equity crowdfund of 2021 - whilst also being the second biggest investor community in the UK's Fintech sector and one of Europe's largest. The company plans on using the capital to fuel growth activities across marketing, product and technology, while looking to significantly increase the size of their team as they consider European expansion.
It's very evident that there are plenty of different Fintech companies out there, paving the future of finance digitally for their consumers and boosting the UK's investments - so much so, that we had to restrict it down to just six of our favourite companies to look out for in 2022.
When you look closely at the UK figures, investment outside the UK's capital and the south-east of the country is definitely on the rise - establishing a strong regional Fintech hub through out the country. The top deals in Britain were dominated by the challenger banks including Revolut, Monzo and Starling. However, challenges still remain for the sector, with the country lacking growth capital as the majority of funding that backs the UK companies went into early or late-stage funds, whilst the female funding gap persists - with female founders only receiving 9% of all capital invested.
It's exciting to see the sector develop further and here at Talented Recruitment Group, we can't wait to see what the future has in store for Fintech.