UK FinTech startups raised $173m across 16 deals in Q4 2016, up $95m from Q3.
That’s according to CB Insights’ “Global Fintech Report”, a review of last year’s FinTech investment trends across Europe, North America and Asia.
The total raised in 2016 marks a decline since the previous year, however, with $275m being invested into UK FinTech firms in Q4 2015.
The report also revealed the top UK FinTech rounds for 2016, which included Nutmeg’s £42m Series D and the £20m Series C raised by EZBob back in March.
Additionally, the most active UK investors in European FinTech were found to be Balderton Capital, Octopus Ventures, Passion Capital and Seedcamp. More broadly, the top global FinTech investors in 2016 outside of the UK included the likes of SpeedInvest and Global Founders Capital.
European FinTech
Deal activity for European FinTech reached a five year high, with a total of $366m being raised across 114 deals in 2016, compared to $113m in 57 investments in 2012.
The back end of last year was less fruitful for European FinTech, however, with early-stage average deal size dropping from $3.4m in Q2 2016 to $2.2m in Q4.
Overall, European FinTech deal size also dropped from an average of $5.1m in Q2 2016 to $4.4m in Q3, then further to $3m in Q4.
Top European deals included the $46m Series C raised by Hamburg-based FinanzCheck and Irish non-government student lender Future Finance’s $27.3m round.
Global investments
Across the globe, CB Insights also revealed that in 2016, a total of $12.7bn was invested into VC-backed FinTech companies across 836 deals.
Top investors in the global space included 500 Startups, General Catalyst Partners, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Ribbit Capital.
Of the 836 global deals made, US-based Stripe’s $150m Series D and Brazilian finance company Nubank’s $80m Series D were among the top 20 investments into FinTech startups in the world.