By
Steve Muchoki
February 9th, 2024
The following list of the globe’s 10 most valued unicorns shows the huge potential of the fintech industry which is gaining recognition from one of the leading investors.
The financial technology recorded a rapid growth over the recent years, with new startups attracting millions of dollars from investors. The increase of the fintech investment demonstrates that banks and other financial organizations recognize the potential of new technologies and innovations in the financial industry.
According to Dow Jones VentureSource, there are currently 67 companies worth more than $1 billion, which means 7.5% are from the fintech industry. Meantime, CB Insights recently reported that startups in the payments and lending sectors hold 83% of all the major fintech unicorns.
A few days ago, Rakuten launched the Rakuten FinTech Fund in an attempt to drive investment in the sector. The US$100 million fund is mainly targeted at fintech investment in the US and European startups, but also plans to expand its operations globally.
Here is a list of the world’s 10 major fintech industry players:
- Lufax – A Chinese P2P lending platform provides its services for financial license holders and insurance companies. The startup is one of the fastest growing P2P companies and is now worth $10 billion. A few months ago, Lufax reached a milestone of 10 million registered users, what is a huge step forward in the Internet finance industry in China.
- Square – Mobile payments startup, which is now estimated at $6 billion, allows people make payments using both fiat and digital currencies. Since its creation in 2009 by the interim CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey, Square has raised hundreds of millions from various investors, including Richards Branson, Kleiner Perkins and Starbucks.
- Stripe – Stripe’s value reached $5 billion after it got an overall investment of $190 million. Established in 2010 by John and Patrick Collison, the company allows businesses and private individuals to accept payments via its mobile application.
- Social Finance – Known as SoFi, the $4 billion startup provides mortgages, student loan refinancing and a range of loans, including personal, MBA and parent loans. Unlike traditional lenders, the company offers loans at lower rates. In 2014, SoFi secured $80 million after completing a Series C funding round led by Discovery Capital Management.
- Zenefits – Zenefits managed to raise nearly $600 million over three funding rounds, led by such investors as Fidelity Management, Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator and Hydrazine Capital. The San Francisco-based startup, which is currently estimated at $4.5 billion, provides businesses with cloud-based software as a service for managing human resources.
- One97 – An Indian mobile payment platform has raised over $585 million, what raised its value to $2 billion. One97 processes over 800,000 orders per day and has more than 50 million registered users globally.
- Credit Karma – The California-based company is now priced at $3.5 billion, with a total equity funding of $368 million. A free online credit reports provider now serves over 35 million users and includes 250 employees.
- Powa Technologies – Established by entrepreneur Dan Wagner, the UK-based Powa Technologies offers mobile payments and e-commerce services. The company, which profits totaled $23 million last year, has a total value of over $2.7 billion.
- Mozido – The startup, which was founded in New York in 2005, secured an overall investment of more than $300 million from such investors as MasterCard and Wellington Management. Mozido is a mobile payment and wallet provider mainly targeted at the unbanked in such regions as Southeast Asia, Africa and Mexico.
- Adyen – The Netherlands-based company serves international merchants by providing a single platform for accepting payments all over the world. Last year, Adyen completed a $250-million funding round, what brought the company’s value to $1.5 billion.
Despite the ongoing growth of fintech businesses, there are some concerns among the industry players regarding regulation. The recent survey prepared by by Silicon Valley Bank unveiled that the innovation is likely to slowdown in the next year due to regulatory problems. The majority of respondents mentioned regulatory amendments as the key issue difficult to deal with.
Earlier, we took a look on the top 10 most popular startups from the fintech sector, including key information on each of the companies.