Economic uncertainty, geopolitical instability and pandemic recovery are just some of the contributing factors to a macroeconomic storm that has seen VC funding decline in H2 2023.
Those startups to emerge on a firm path to sustained growth deserve all the more credit for riding out the storm.
Here, FinTech Magazine has taken a look at the Top 10 startups that are making a name for themselves in the sector.
10. Edly
Edly’s income-based student loans repayment offer provides an alternative way for students and their families to access college tuition, helping them close the funding gap.
Unlike some other private lenders, it requires no cosigner and claims to approve three times more applicants than other private loan providers.
Edly’s team is still relatively small, but its financing solution has caught the eye. So far, funding in the region of US$180m has been raised.
9. Elwood Technologies
Elwood Technologies is a fintech building digital assets infrastructure for institutional investors.
Founded by British hedge fund billionaire Alan Howard, the seamless, end-to-end platform has been created by industry experts with decades of experience in investment management and digital technology.
It connects to global crypto exchanges, custodians and liquidity providers while delivering execution and portfolio management functionality with advanced risk management tools for the digital asset markets.
Series A funding co-led by Goldman Sachs and Dawn Capital last year raised US$70 million.
8. SellersFi
Formerly known as SellersFunding, SellersFi is a global fintech company aiming to empower and provide financial solutions for e-commerce merchants on their growth journey.
The platform offers an integrated dashboard that allows merchants to handle everything, from funding and payments to business analytics – all in one place.
It has been built with marketplace sellers, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands and B2B businesses in mind, and is already trusted by a host of household names and independent brands.
7. CoinList
San Francisco-based CoinList raised a phenomenal US$120m in funding at the Series A stage.
The firm describes itself as the place “where new crypto projects launch”, issuing new tokens to connect blue-chip projects with thousands of new token holders.
In fact, CoinList supports the full lifecycle of crypto investment, from token sales through to token distribution, trading, lending and crypto-specific services such as staking and access to decentralised finance opportunities.
6. BVNK
BVNK bills itself as a next-generation payments platform for businesses, bridging traditional and digital finance to make payments borderless, fast and secure.
Using the BVNK platform, businesses can send and receive payments anywhere in the world in seconds, 24/7.
Ever since May 2022, when the cryptocurrency specialist secured US$40m in a Series A funding round led by Tiger Global, it has been growing its workforce and enhancing its platform in a quiet but effective fashion.
5. Sunday
Headquartered in Paris, and with additional bases in the UK, Spain and the US, Sunday has built a fintech app that allows restaurants to accept modern payment methods.
Recognising that paying for a meal can be tedious and plagued by various delays, Sunday has turned it into a quick, simple process. Customers can simply scan a QR code, pay and walk away.
In the meantime, restaurateurs can focus on cooking great food and delivering an amazing experience.
4. Paydock
Founded in Australia and expanded into the UK, PayDock is the result of more than a decade of analysis and collaboration with merchants to identify their payment needs and opportunities within digital strategy.
Over the past three years, its team of experts has been forging a new type of payment service.
The result is an innovative payment orchestration platform that enables financial institutions, digital merchants, B2B platforms and not-for-profit organisations to increase their revenue and efficiency while substantially reducing costs.
3. Steady Technologies
Steady Technologies provides institutional-grade financial solutions to residential property managers and owners of single-family rental homes, helping them to protect investments while optimising their bottom line.
The platform offers a suite of tailored financial and insurance products designed to reduce risk for owners and generate ancillary revenue for property manager partners.
One particularly noteworthy feature is a rent advance solution providing landlords with up to 12 months' worth of rent payments up front, while rent default insurance protects against the dreaded non-payment of fees by tenants.
2. Passport
Honing in on the niche area of unified parking and curb management hasn’t stopped Passport from achieving growth and recognition – quite the opposite.
The firm is trusted by more than 800 clients across North America and has been named in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500, which ranks the region’s fastest-growing tech companies.
By integrating parking, enforcement and payments into one software solution, Passport’s mobility management platform brings together the complexities of mobility operations into one view to help city governments and parking operators improve decision-making and become more efficient.
This includes mobile payments, digital permitting and citation issuance, empowering cities of all sizes with better insights to improve parking turnover, expand revenue opportunities and create more livable communities.
1. Secfi
Secfi is the startup working with startup employees to provide equity planning, stock option financing and wealth management services.
The fintech bills itself as being the first to provide a digital platform for equity planning, 1:1 financial advice and ongoing investment management, as well as financing products that enable employees to own a stake in the company they helped build.
What’s staggering is that San Francisco-based Secfi has worked with employees from more than 90% of all US unicorns, building tens of thousands of equity plans worth almost US$50bn in equity value.
Following its latest funding round in April 2023, the firm had raised US$707m over the course of five rounds.
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