Asia Pacific saw the largest y-o-y decline in fintech funding value compared to other regions in 1Q2024, falling 46% to US$1.85 billion ($2.51 billion), according to data by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
This is largely due to the base effect, the firm found.
Globally, fintech startups engaged in 529 funding rounds worth US$6.58 billion in 1Q2024, representing 18% fall in round count and 26% decline in dollar value on a y-o-y basis.
Compared to the previous quarter, fintech funding value was flat while deal count grew by 13% y-o-y.
Latin America doubled its dollar value of investments to just under US$500 million, while North America and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) attracted over US$2.1 billion respectively, registering y-o-y declines of 26% and 10% respectively.
S&P Global Market Intelligence fintech research analyst Sampath Sharma Nariyuri notes that the fintech funding landscape has shown promising signs in 2024, with some regions and segments experiencing growth.
See also: Atome Financial secures another US$200 mil syndicated credit facility from HSBC
“Based on current trends, the fintech industry is expected to experience growth in funding during the latter half of 2024. This outlook is supported by the strong public market valuations of fintech companies,” he adds.
Late-stage investing continued to increase in the quarter, partly aided by the growing participation of private equity firms, Nariyuri points out. “Itis highly likely that several fintechs that completed at least a late-stage round could go public from the second half of 2024 to late 2026 if the current cycle of interest rate tightening reverses.”
Segment-wise, the banking technology segment had a decent quarter, pulling in US$1.86 billion from 72 deals in 1Q2024. This is up from US$1.7 billion via 62 deals in the previous corresponding quarter.
Payments attracted US$1.41 billion from 127 rounds, down from US$3.5 billion via 151 rounds during the same period last year.
