Funding Circle: A $100m vote of confidence in the UK’s Peer-to-Peer Lending industry
The news that Funding Circle has raised another $100m from a group of well-respected institutional investors is welcome news for the peer-to-peer lending sector, which has been showing signs of vulnerability of late. The funding round, led by Accel, and supported by investors including Baillie Gifford, DST Global, Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital, Rocket Internet, Sands Capital Ventures, Temasek and Union Square Ventures, cements Funding Circle’s position as the leading online peer-to-peer marketplace in Europe. To coincide with the announcement, Funding Circle also said yesterday that its total lending to small businesses globally has now reached £2.5bn – including £1.1bn of advances made last year alone. The latest equity investment takes […]
Citi backs foreign exchange blockchain startup Cobalt DL
Citi has made an undisclosed investment in Cobalt DL, a London startup aiming to use the technology behind bitcoin to simplify foreign exchange trading. Cobalt DL, founded by two veteran bankers, aims to apply distributed ledger technology, also known as blockchain, to the foreign exchange trading market. Currently, when banks trade currencies with each other there are multiple different records of the transaction held by the buyer, seller, broker, clearer, and other third parties, all of which have to be reconciled. This slows the process down and adds to costs. The company aims to create a single, shared view of each transaction by using blockchain technology, which uses complex cryptography […]
London tops fintech index for second straight year
For the second year in a row, London has topped the European Digital City Index (EDCi), a composite index designed by innovation foundation Nesta and the European Digital Forum, according to City AM. The EDCi 2016, published on Friday, ranks European cities by how well they support digital entrepreneurship, and how attractive they are to fintech founders and companies. It is based on 10 core metrics, including skills, access to capital, business environment, digital infrastructure, mentoring, market, and entrepreneurial culture. Here are the results of this year’s index: London still leads. The British capital ranked first out of 60 featured cities both for startups and for “scale-ups,” or young companies […]
The Pulse of Fintech
‘ The Pulse of Fintech ’ is a quarterly report created by KPMG along with KPMG Enterprise’s Global Network for Innovative Startups and CB Insights (the ‘go to’ name for insights related to venture capital investment) which launched on August 17th, 2016. The series analyses the latest global trends in venture capital investment data on the fintech sector. Given the significant interest in fintech globally, and its ongoing evolution in terms of market drivers, technologies and potential use-cases, KPMG and CB Insights are partnering to bring you the pulse on fintech investment globally. Each quarter, we’ll highlight key fintech deals, issues and challenges around the world, in addition to key […]
Fintech investment surges in Q1 but does that mean the Kodak moment nears for banks?
There was a resurgence of activity in the financial technology (fintech) universe in the first quarter of the year after signs of potential rapid deflation at the end of 2015. According to KPMG’s latest The Pulse of Fintech report, the March quarter saw funding to the fintech sector rebound with total investment in fintech companies hitting US$5.7 billion. Globally, Venture Capital-backed fintech companies drew $US4.9 billion in funding, rising from just $US1.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2015. The report identified larger deals, concentrated in Asia, played a major role in the rebound with 13 $US50 million+ rounds to VC-backed fintech companies, a slight rise from 10 such deals in […]
FinTech Investments Quadruple: Top Trends To Watch
Investments into FinTech startups recently quadrupled, growing from just over $3 billion in 2013 to over $12 billion in 2014. And consider alongside that another trend showing that crowdfunding will surpass VC in 2016 as a funding source–given that crowdfunding itself is a segment of the FinTech market. Source: FinTech Investments Quadruple: Top Trends To Watch
