Markets
27 Fintech Unicorns, and Where They Were Born
The 27 Fintech Unicorns, and Where They Were Born
Everyone wants faster, cheaper, and more customized financial services – and since technology now makes this possible, the world is embracing the fintech revolution.
In 2015, investments in fintech nearly doubled to $22.3 billion. And although there were 1,108 deals made, there are only 27 companies that can call themselves unicorns – private companies valued at over $1 billion or more.
Locating the Fintech Unicorns
Today’s infographic breaks down data on the 27 fintech unicorns, and it comes from Glance Technologies, a Canadian-based payments company that just IPO’d on the Canadian Securities Exchange.
In total, the world’s fintech unicorns add up to a total valuation of $138.9 billion, and here’s how that is distributed by geography:
Location | Unicorns | Total Value | Raised |
---|---|---|---|
United States | 14 | $31.0B | $5.7B |
China | 8 | $96.4B | $9.4B |
Rest of World | 5 | $11.5B | $1.8B |
Total | 27 | $138.9B | $16.9B |
Amazingly, the 27 fintech unicorns have only been born in six countries: United States, China, Sweden, India, the Netherlands, and the UK.
The United States has more than half of all fintech unicorns (14), including nine in Silicon Valley. China has eight unicorns, while the UK has two. Sweden, India, and the Netherlands each have one.
While the U.S. can say it is home to more unicorns, the Chinese ones have far more value so far. The biggest four fintech unicorns worldwide were all born in China: Ant Financial ($60 billion), Lufax ($18.5 billion), JD Finance ($7 billion), and Qufenqi ($5.9 billion). This is because China has more than 500 million smartphone users, with a more evolved market for payments and P2P lending.
Fintech Unicorns by Sub-Sector
Fintech is a broad net that encompasses everything from health insurance apps to robo-advisors. As a result, different sub-sectors within fintech are maturer with more unicorns and success stories (payments, lending), while others do not have any unicorns yet (wealth management, blockchain).
Here are the 27 fintech unicorns, organized by sub-sector:
Sub-sector | Unicorns | Valuation | % of total |
---|---|---|---|
Payments | 7 | $77.9B | 56.1% |
Lending | 8 | $30.4B | 21.9% |
Financial Services | 3 | $11.5B | 8.3% |
Consumer financing | 2 | $7.9B | 5.7% |
Enterprise/SaaS | 5 | $6.5B | 4.7% |
Insurance | 2 | $4.7B | 3.4% |
27 | $138.9B | 100.0% |
The biggest fintech startups are in payments and lending, which combine for nearly 80% of the value of all unicorns combined. Meanwhile, all other sub-sectors including insurance, enterprise/SaaS, financial services, and consumer financing add up to roughly 20%.
Future Unicorns
Will future fintech unicorns follow similar tracks to their predecessors?
The biggest success stories have come from payments and P2P lending, especially in China. Today, however, the Chinese payments market seems pretty hard to crack, with big dogs like Alibaba, JD.com, and Tencent all having their hands in the cookie jar. Recently, P2P lending has also been under scrutiny by regulators in China, and even U.S. lending champions such as Lending Club are having challenges as of late.
Perhaps the next fintech giant will come from somewhere outside of the status quo.
Markets
Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?
We visualize the recent performance of the Magnificent Seven stocks, uncovering a clear divergence between the group’s top and bottom names.
Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
In this graphic, we visualize the year-to-date (YTD) performance of the “Magnificent Seven”, a leading group of U.S. tech stocks that gained prominence in 2023 as the replacement of FAANG stocks.
All figures are as of March 12, 2024, and are listed in the table below.
Rank | Company | YTD Change (%) |
---|---|---|
1 | Nvidia | 90.8 |
2 | Meta | 44.3 |
3 | Amazon | 16.9 |
4 | Microsoft | 12 |
5 | 0.2 | |
6 | Apple | -6.7 |
7 | Tesla | -28.5 |
From these numbers, we can see a clear divergence in performance across the group.
Nvidia and Meta Lead
Nvidia is the main hero of this show, setting new all-time highs seemingly every week. The chipmaker is currently the world’s third most valuable company, with a valuation of around $2.2 trillion. This puts it very close to Apple, which is currently valued at $2.7 trillion.
The second best performer of the Magnificent Seven has been Meta, which recently re-entered the trillion dollar club after falling out of favor in 2022. The company saw a massive one-day gain of $197 billion on Feb 2, 2024.
Apple and Tesla in the Red
Tesla has lost over a quarter of its value YTD as EV hype continues to fizzle out. Other pure play EV stocks like Rivian and Lucid are also down significantly in 2024.
Meanwhile, Apple shares have struggled due to weakening demand for its products in China, as well as the company’s lack of progress in the artificial intelligence (AI) space.
Investors may have also been disappointed to hear that Apple’s electric car project, which started a decade ago, has been scrapped.
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