Ant Financial Looms Large Over Global Fintech Fundraising (Again)
Ant Financial has done it again. In 2Q18, the Chinese fintech raised the largest amount for fintech invest ever. According to CB Insights’ 2Q fintech report, Ant Financial’s fundraising accounted for 69% of total global fintech funding.
This is not the first time Ant Financial has done something like this. Back in 2016, Ant Financial took its peers by surprise by raising more money than the entire global fintech funding combined. In 2016, Ant raised $4.5 billion in the second quarter that year, while total fintech funding around the world excluding Ant, totaled $3.7 billion, based on CB Insights’ 2Q16 fintech report.
According to the most recent report, released last week, the total fintech funding across the globe in the second quarter of this year was $20.3 billion. Of this amount, Ant Financial contributed $14 billion.
Last month, Ant Financial, a subsidiary of e-commerce giant Alibaba, announced that it raised $14 billion in what has been called the single largest fundraising by any private company ever. At the time, Ant Financial said it would use the funds to further expand its Alipay payment platform, in addition to other fintech initiatives. In April, Bank Innovation reported that pending a $9 billion fundraising, which Ant was said to be pursuing at the time, the company’s valuation could be $150 billion, which would make its market cap higher than that of Goldman Sachs and PayPal. With the $14 billion fundraising in June, that valuation is no doubt higher today.
Thanks to Ant Financial and similar players in the Asian market, it is likely that Asia could surpass the U.S. in fintech deals. Right now, the U.S. is on top in the number of deals, with a total of 158 deals, while Asia is a close second with 133 deals, based on the report. More than half of the Asian deals came from China, which saw 68 deals totaling $15.4 billion. Additionally, Asia beat the U.S. when it came to “megadeals,” closing seven major funding rounds, of $100 million or more, while the U.S. had six. Europe had one.
Following an unimpressive few quarters last year, this year, fintech deals seem to be picking up. This is especially true in 2Q, where we saw 383 VC-backed fintech deals totaling $20.34 billion, up an impressive 262% from 1Q 18’s $5.6 billion and 2Q17’s $5.5 billion.
