intech flourished in 2021 as our financial lives continued to shift
online, crypto prices soared and entrepreneurial talent and
investment dollars flooded the zone. Venture capitalists poured $133
billion into fintech startups worldwide last year, nearly three times the $49 billion they invested in 2020, according to CB Insights.
The result was a gusher of promising new businesses, with half of the 2022 Fintech 50 winners new to our annual list. That’s the most since our inaugural list in 2015, when all 50 were, by definition, first-timers. One new standout is Chipper Cash, a San Francisco-based startup launched by two twentysomethings from Uganda and Ghana that helps Africans transfer money cheaply, buy U.S. stocks and invest in crypto. Founded in 2018, it already has more than five million users and a $2.2 billion valuation. As always, our list is restricted to still-private companies with headquarters or substantial operations in the U.S.
Two categories made a particularly strong showing–crypto and blockchain companies and business-to-business neobanks that aim to make banking services more accessible to small businesses of all sorts. Example: Creative Juice offers bank accounts and other tools to web creators, and it even cuts them checks of between $25,000 and $500,000 in exchange for a share of their future revenue. Sima Gandhi, its CEO and cofounder, illustrates two other trends. She’s one of a record seven female CEOs leading Fintech 50 honorees, and she’s part of a wave of second-generation fintech entrepreneurs–she was the 15th employee at Plaid, which connects apps to customers’ bank accounts and was on our very first list (and is still on it).
Yes, times have gotten tougher for fintech this year, as consumers have left their homes to shop and concerns around inflation, rising interest rates and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have spread. Crypto has crashed, publicly traded fintech stocks have fallen 50% and the private markets have been pulling back too, with VCs warning of lower valuations and layoffs hitting everything from payments and buy-now, pay-later companies to crypto trading platforms. Entrepreneurs will need to make do–and innovate–with fewer resources. But many great companies have been built in challenging times.
F
Edited by Jeff Kauflin and Janet Novack
Reported by Nina Bambysheva, Margherita Beale, Jason Bisnoff, Isabel Contreras, Michael del Castillo, Kevin Dowd, Steven Ehrlich, Jeff Kauflin, Jonathan Ponciano and Hank Tucker
intech flourished in 2021 as our
financial lives continued to shift
online, crypto prices soared and entrepreneurial talent and investment dollas flooded the zone. Venture capitalists poured $133 billion into fintech startups worldwide last year, nearly three times the $49 billion they invested in 2020, according to CB Insights.
The result was a gusher of promising new businesses, with half of the 2022 Fintech 50 winners new to our annual list. That’s the most since our inaugural list in 2015, when all 50 were, by definition, first-timers. One new standout is Chipper Cash, a San Francisco-based startup launched by two twentysomethings from Uganda and Ghana that helps Africans transfer money cheaply, buy U.S. stocks and invest in crypto. Founded in 2018, it already has more than five million users and a $2.2 billion valuation. As always, our list is restricted to still-private companies with headquarters or substantial operations in the U.S.
Two categories made a particularly strong showing–crypto and blockchain companies and business-to-business neobanks that aim to make banking services more accessible to small businesses of all sorts. Example: Creative Juice offers bank accounts and other tools to web creators, and it even cuts them checks of between $25,000 and $500,000 in exchange for a share of their future revenue. Sima Gandhi, its CEO and cofounder, illustrates two other trends. She’s one of a record seven female CEOs leading Fintech 50 honorees and she’s part of a wave of second-generation fintech entrepreneurs–she was the 15th employee at Plaid, which connects apps to customers’ bank accounts and was on our very first list (and is still on it).
Yes, times have gotten tougher for fintech this year, as consumers have left their homes to shop and concerns around inflation, rising interest rates and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have spread. Crypto has crashed, publicly traded fintech stocks have fallen 50% and the private markets have been pulling back too, with VCs warning of lower valuations and layoffs hitting everything from payments and buy-now, pay-later companies to crypto trading platforms. Entrepreneurs will need to make do–and innovate–with fewer resources. But many great companies have been built in challenging times.
F
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