FinTech’s Top Seed, Early, And Late-Stage VCs

Crunchbase News recently took a deep dive into the U.S. FinTech industry’s Q1 2018 venture activity. We found that deal volume in 2017 amounted to more than $7 billion in venture funding for seed, early, and late-stage startups. As 2018 came to a head, the number of deals in the space declined slightly, while venture capital dollars increased by 37 percent quarter over quarter.

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With these numbers in mind, we wanted to take a closer look at which VCs have invested the most in FinTech startups. We’ve organized them by top seed, early, and late-stage investors by the number of total investments since January 2017.

Top Seed-Stage FinTech Investors

Seed-stage investors are boosting up and coming startups focused on breaking into payments, insurance, money transfers, and more.

At the top of the list is Y Combinator with 28 investments in seed-stage domestic FinTech companies. Its last seed-stage investment in a FinTech startup was a $120,000 round in March 2018 directed toward SafetyWing, a California-based healthcare company that provides coverage to global freelancers.

In February, Crunchbase News explored the most valuable YC alumni, and with more than 1,588 investments, according to its website, the fund has a deep well of experience in shaping up startups.

Top Early-Stage FinTech Investors

Early-stage U.S. FinTech investments, according to our Q1 2018 report, accounted for the majority of deals in Q4 2017 and Q1 2018. Plug and Play, a seed and early-stage investment firm, led the pack with nine early-stage investments.

The firm has made more than 690 investments in technology companies, with lead investments in 24 startups. Plug and Play also made an early bet on PayPal, now a public company with a market cap over $90 billion. California-based Hippo Insurance picked up an investment by Plug and Play in its $25 million Series B in January 2018. Hippo Insurance was coincidentally also mentioned in our Crunchbase News analysis of startups that have weird names.

Top Late-Stage FinTech Investors

The number of known late-stage deals for domestic FinTech startups increased and accounted for a greater proportion of deals in Q1 2018 compared to previous quarters. One investor that contributed to that deal number increase was Boston-based Bain Capital Ventures, the venture arm of Bain Capital. According to its website, the company has invested in more than 200 companies.

Defi Solutions, a SaaS platform for lenders, was the latest growth-stage FinTech company to score an investment by the firm. Bain Capital Ventures was the sole investor in the startup’s $55 million Series C in January 2018.

As reported in our Q1 2018 Global VC report, many of the investors on this list were influential in shaping the landscape of VC at all stages and across all categories during the first quarter of this year. Y Combinator, for example, was the most active lead investor in startups last quarter, and the 12th most active early-stage investor globally. 500 startups, Plug and Play, Khosla, and Spark Capital also made the top 11 for lead investments as well. And while late stage deals enjoyed the majority of the capital last quarter for U.S. FinTech startups, large, late-stage deals characterized the upward push of global VC as a whole.

Illustration Credit: Li Anne Dias