The bright side of fintech funding results

CB Insights released its global State of Venture report last week, while PitchBook issued its own U.S.-focused venture report. Of course, we couldn’t wait to dig in to the findings of both.

Alex Wilhelm and Natasha Mascarenhas — who also happen to be my partners in crime on the Equity Podcast — and I pored through the numbers to give you all the details here.

On a high level, it’s no surprise that funding flowing into fintech startups was down both globally and in the U.S. in the second quarter of 2022. And it wasn’t only funding. Everything was down. New unicorn births, M&As, IPOs.

But the results are not as gloom and doom as they may seem at first glance.

For one, fintech continues to account for a significant share of global funding. In 2021, an estimated 21% of all venture deals were fintech. In the second quarter of 2022, according to CB Insights, investment into fintech startups wasn’t too far behind that in the second quarter of 2022. That’s not far off from last year and signals that while, yes, fewer dollars are being invested generally, fintech is still attracting serious investor interest.

Another thing. While it’s clear that this year will be far more muted for fintech investment globally and in the United States, it’s still on track to crush 2020’s results. In summary, as Alex wrote: “We’re seeing a comedown, but not a whole-cloth retreat; things are still more active in capital terms in the fintech world now than they were two years ago.”