The office of the London Mayor is flying the flag for the UK capital's status as a post-Brexit fintech hotspot, reeling out a ream of favourable comparisons to other European destinations ahead of a trade mission to showcase local talent at the Money20/20 show in Las Vegas next week.
Data sourced from Pitch Book by the Mayor's promotional team at London & Partners shows that global investors continue to pump large sums of money into London fintech companies, with the research revealing that 2017 is set to be a record year for investment into both London and the UK’s fintech sectors.
Over $1 billion (£825m) has been poured into the UK’s financial technology companies since the beginning of the year, double the amount raised compared with the same period in 2016. The research also suggests that British companies are on course to raise more money in 2017 than the records set in 2015, with the data showing firms have already received more investment than the first three quarters of 2015.
The findings have been released to coincide with an upcoming trade mission of London financial technology companies to Money 20/20. Companies joining the delegation include foreign exchange banking app, Revolut, which recently raised $66m in Series B funding and AI based ID verification app Onfido which received $30m in funding in September this year. Other London fintech businesses on the trade mission include: Divido, Fluidly, Vega One, Fractal Labs, Monese, PixelPin, Smarkets, Starling Bank, Sthaler and Yoyo Wallet.
London’s Deputy Mayor for Business, Rajesh Agrawal, says that in the past five years London’s fintech sector has received more than five times the amount of investment than any other major European city, attracting more VC money than Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin and Amsterdam combined.
Pointing to figures that show London fintech companies attracting over £1 billion in venture capital funding since the EU referendum vote, Agrawal continues: “Clearly, Brexit poses major challenges - but London’s position as a global financial centre and world-class technology hub is built on strong foundations which cannot be replicated anywhere else: access to more software developers than Stockholm, Berlin and Dublin combined, Europe’s largest fintech accelerator Level 39, and the continent’s only truly global financial market."