Taking FinTech by Storm 🌩️ #8

Welcome back to Taking FinTech by Storm! 🌩️

Edition eight, here we come!

Since we've reached the end of the month, let's take a look at some of the top funding rounds that took place in March. Shoutout to Crunchbase for the data 📊

Special mentions to the top three funding titans this month:

🥇 Stripe raised a whopping $6.5 billion in Series I Funding

Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies— from the world’s largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups—use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities.

🥈 PhonePe secured $200 million in a Corporate Round

PhonePe is a mobile payments app that allows people to transfer money instantly to anyone, by using just their mobile number.

🥉 Tamara bagged $150 million in Debt Financing

Tamara is the leading shopping and payments platform in Saudi Arabia and the GCC region, with a mission to empower people in their daily lives and revolutionize how they shop, pay and bank. 

With all this money being continuously poured into FinTech, we thought why not look at 'VC Investments 2023: Where is the Money Flow?'

Although there was a significant decline in funding in FinTech last year compared to 2021, 2022 still had a $20 billion increase from 2020. Meaning that investors did not shy away from investing, but rather invested smaller amounts in early-stage companies. 2022 did not have the same high funding rounds, raising a total of $75.2 billion in global funding.

Many FinTechs were hit with new obstacles, the macro-environment and recovery from COVID-19 resulted in higher inflation and the Fed raising rates. As resources get more expensive, companies are experiencing more scrutiny on how they're spending funding money. This trend is expected to continue into 2023 as recession expectations are still high. In 2023, we're expecting continued investment within B2B payments and Enterprise payments.

Continuing with all things funding and VC investment, we look at the importance of diversity within the VC sector.

Fact Check 🤓

According to the 2020 Women in VC report, only 4.9% of partners at venture capital firms are women, with just 0.2% female Hispanic partners and 0.2% Black female partners.

According to two separate reports from Deloitte and Female Funders, less than 14% of the investment partners at North American venture capital firms are women. But when there is a woman at the investment table, almost twice as many gender-diverse teams are backed according to the Kauffman Foundation.

Benefits ✅

If we raise the proportion of women and visible minorities in investment decision-making roles, we will make progress toward having more funding invested in diversity.

Once again we've gotten to this bittersweet moment...you've reached the end of the eighth edition of Taking FinTech by Storm. For all of you reading this, looking to secure your next round of funding, we're rooting for you! 🤞

As always, have no fear the ninth edition will come out in two weeks' time. If you really can't wait (we're flattered), feel free to get in touch with us here 👈

See you soon! 💙