Year in Review (2 of 2): Funding Rounds
In part 2 of my 2020 year in review, I want to take a look back at the top funding rounds of the year. To keep things a little simpler, I’ve ignored SPACs and IPOs (sorry Ant — but you’ve got enough publicity). I also felt that the last post was a little too US-centric, so I’ve decided to segment today’s post by region. Without further ado… let’s take a look at the top fintech funding rounds of 2020!
Please note, the companies are sorted into regions by the location of their headquarters.
Africa and the Middle East
1. Jumo: $55M
2. Tabby: $23M
3. Liwwa: $21M
4. TipRanks: $12M
5. Kuda: $10M
TipRanks may be the most unique company across today’s post. The Israeli company evaluates public stock recommendations made by financial analysts online and currently has 2M direct users and 30M indirect users. 2020 was also a banner year for Nigerian startups. The $10M raised by Kuda was the largest seed round in Nigerian history, and Stripe’s acquisition of Paystack was the largest Nigerian startup acquisition. Jumo offers a technology stack for savings, lending, and insurance products, Tabby operates BNPL solutions (a trend we’ll see throughout this post), and Liwwa is a lending platform that connects investors with small businesses.
Asia
1. Navi Technologies: $398M
2. Paidy: $281M
3. Shuidi: $230M
4. Toss: $173M
5. LinkAja: $100M
When taking a look at the Asia list, I was definitely surprised to see that the top 5 was not dominated by Chinese companies. Overall, this list has an Indian company, a Japanese company, a Chinese company, a South Korean company, and an Indonesian company, a testament to the talent across the entire region. (Admittedly, if I had included SPACs and IPOs in the article, then this would have included Ant and Lufax). Navi Technologies currently offers personal and home loans, and is looking to expand into other aspects of financial services. Paidy is a BNPL provider, Shuidi ($2.9B valuation) is a crowdfunding insurance platform, Toss ($2.6B valuation) is aiming to build a super app across consumer finance, and LinkAja provides cashless payment solutions to those traditionally ignored by financial institutions.
Australia and New Zealand
1. Judo Bank: $210M
2. Airwallex: $200M
3. Xinja: $100M
4. Brighte: $83M
5. Zuuse: $36M
Neobanks certainly dominated the headlines in Australia and New Zealand. Xinja raised $100M early in the year but then exited the Australian banking market because it struggled to raise additional money. Meanwhile, Judo Bank ($1.2B valuation) secured a $210M round in December and a 60% increase from the company’s May valuation. Airwallex is a cross-border payments platform that hopes to use its latest round to grow across APAC and Europe, expand into the Middle East and Africa, and eventually enter the US as well. Brighte offers consumers a way to finance home improvement projects, and Zuuse is a SaaS payments and claims processor.
Central and South America
Shoutout to Wharton FinTech Co-President Miguel Armaza for getting most of these companies on the podcast! (but also, the people have spoken)
1. Neon: $300M — Podcast with CEO and Founder Pedro Conrade
2. Nubank: $300M — Podcast with CEO and Founder David Vélez
3. Rappi: $300M
4. Creditas: $255M — Podcast with CEO and Founder Sergio Furio
5. dLocal $200M — Podcast with CEO and Founder Sebastian Kanovich
No surprise here as the two Brazilian Neobanks lead the way. This was actually not Nubank’s largest funding round; they raised $400M series F funding in 2019. I did feel bad leaving out some Mexican companies from this list (Credijusto, Konfio) as I had them bucketed into the North America region. Rappi is an all-purpose app that helps users order food, groceries, medication, as well as send and receive money. The company became Colombia’s first unicorn in 2018. Creditas offers consumers loans and is looking to expand its home, auto, and payday lending products. RecargaPay is a mobile payments platform looking to democratize financial services. Finally, dLocal became Uruguay’s first unicorn ($1.2B valuation) by helping de-fragment the payments industry!
Europe
1. Klarna: $650M
2. Revolut: $580M
3. N26: $570M — Podcast with US CEO Nicolas Kopp
4. Checkout.com: $450M
5. Molo: $343M
Did I mention BNPL had a big year? Klarna secured $650M in September, making it the fourth-largest private fintech in the world. For a little while anyway… Checkout.com completed its round in December valued at $14.5B. Revolut and N26 continued their strong growth as challenger banks. With its additional funds, Revolut launched products in the US and Japan. Finally, Molo provides a digital lending platform that simplifies the process of obtaining a mortgage and saw a surge in activity during the pandemic.
North America
1. Stripe: $850M
2. Robinhood: $660M
3. Affirm: $510M — Prior to their IPO
4. Chime: $486M — Podcast with CEO and Co-Founder Chris Britt
5. Bright Health: $500M
Holy valuations. It was a strong year all around for the major NA players. One standout memory is this 11:FS episode asking if B2B lenders should just give up after Stripe launched its Stripe Treasury product. Robinhood not only raised a significant amount of money but plans to IPO in 2021. It was also fined by the SEC for misleading customers and accused of gamification. Have I mentioned BNPL yet? Affirm decided to end 2020 and start 2021 with a bang. They completed their series G round, filed for IPO, acquired PayBright, successfully completed their IPO, and then doubled their market cap. Chime made news not only with another successful year but also by providing government stimulus checks early to their users. They plan to do something similar with the next round of checks. Lastly, Bright Health ($4B valuation) is looking to bring some much-needed innovation to the US health insurance industry.
And finally, I can’t end this post without sharing a live look at me after the Plaid acquisition fell through earlier this month:
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About the Author
Anirudh Singh is a first-year MBA Candidate at The Wharton School, where he is part of the Wharton FinTech Podcast team. He has a passion for sports, economic development, venture capital, financial services, and all things FinTech. Don’t hesitate to reach out with questions, comments, feedback, and opportunities at singhan@wharton.upenn.edu.
