Making sense of the FinTech Startup Ecosystem

At this time, I am tracking 440 FinTech companies across 15 categories, with a combined funding amount of $7.47B. These are relatively new companies that either serve existing pieces of the financial system or develop alternatives to those pieces. It includes B2B and B2C companies.

See the breakdown in sector funding and the most updated market information at: venturescanner.com/scans/financial-technology

Lending (Consumer): New ways for consumers to obtain personal loans. Includes peer-to-peer lending for education loans, housing loans, payday lending, and micro-financing. Also, includes companies that provide big data analytics and consumer credit scoring services.

Lending (Business): New ways for companies to raise debt financing. Includes small business loan underwriting, provision of working capital, peer-to-peer lending platforms, asset-based lines of credit (i.e. borrow against unpaid invoices), and micro-financing. Also, includes companies that provide big data risk analytics and business credit information.

Payments: New ways of paying online and offline — including Point-of-Sales dongles, API integrations, credit card emulation, social payments, and mobile payments.

Personal Finance: New ways for consumers to manage their personal finances — including tools to track expenses, clear debt, and save money. Also includes tools that address wrongful credit card charges, tools that optimize for credit card rewards, and insurance comparison tools.

Retail Investment: New ways for the consumers to invest — including theme-based investments, crowdsourced investment expertise, unbiased algorithmic investment advice, and investment social networks.

Remittances: Companies that allow consumers to send money abroad easily and cheaply. Money can be sent in the form of cash or gift cards.

Equity Financing: News ways for private companies to raise capital in exchange for equity and for investors to participate in private securities markets — including crowdsourcing platforms and secondary markets.

Institutional Investment: New ways for wealth managers, hedge fund managers, and professional traders to manage their portfolios and optimize returns — including tools for stock sentiment analysis, alternative investment platforms, and algorithmic trading tools.

Consumer Banking: New ways for consumers to interface with banking services — including Internet-banking-only services and virtual credit cards.

Banking Infrastructure: Solutions that improve the operations of financial institutions — including API integration with banks, white-label mobile solutions, and big-data solutions.

Financial Research and Data: Information services that enable investors to make better investment decisions — including news, research, and data sources.