ÀÖÓ㣨Leyu£©ÌåÓý¹ÙÍø

During 2024, the global fintech market saw $95.6 billion of investment across 4,639 deals � lows not seen since 2017 � as the market weathered macroeconomic challenges, geopolitical conflicts and tensions, and a year of elections in numerous jurisdictions. The Americas saw the largest share of this investment, attracting $63.8 billion across 2,267 deals, including $50.7 billion across 1,836 deals in the US. Comparatively, the EMEA region attracted $20.3 billion across 1,465 deals, while the ASPAC region attracted $11.4 billion across 896 deals.

H2�24 sees drop in global fintech investment, but uptick in Q4�24 sparks optimism

While global fintech investment fell from $51.7 billion in H1â€�24 to $43.9 billion in H2â€�24, the quarterly results provided a sense of positivity heading into 2025, with investment growing from $18.0 billion in Q3â€�24 to $25.9 billion in Q4â€�24. A similar trend occurred in both the Americas and EMEA regions; the Americas saw $31 billion in fintech investment in H2â€�24 â€� of which $20.2 billion came in Q4â€�24, while EMEA attracted $7.3 billion in H2â€�24 â€� of which $4 billion came in Q4â€�24.  Meanwhile, investment in the ASPAC region dipped slightly from $5.8 billion to $5.5 billion between H1â€�24 and H2â€�24. 

Payments sector remains fintech superstar

After falling to $17.2 billion in 2023, global investment in the payments space increased to $31 billion in 2024. While the largest deal of the year came in H1�24 (Worldpay - $12.5 billion), H2�24 saw solid deals in all regions, including the $6.3 billion buyout of Canada-based Nuvei, the $1.6 billion buyout of US-based Transact Campus, a $788 million raise by Philippines-based Mynt, the $385 million acquisition of UAE-based NeoPay, a $309 million raise by Argentina-based Ualá, and a $267 million raise by UK-based Zepz. The broad applicability and growth potential of payments solutions � and the ongoing expansion of the space into areas like B2B payments � is expected to keep investor interest hot well into 2025.

Dry exit environment keeping investors cautious

After falling to a seven-year low of $28.5 billion in 2023, global exit deal value for fintechs picked up slightly in 2024 to $37.3 billion, even as the volume of exits fell for the third straight year � from 399 deals to 367 deals. Despite the small pickup, the exit environment remained incredibly soft, continuing a trend seen in the wake of the outlier years of 2020 and 2021, when exit values surged from $48.3 billion in 2019 to $104.7 billion in 2020, and then to $395.2 billion in 2021. The lack of sustained exits, combined with ongoing market uncertainty and concerns about valuations and potential down rounds, likely kept many fintech investors on the fence in 2024. It likely also contributed to the increasing interest in continuation funds and the use of secondary transactions to provide liquidity.

M&A deal value falters year-over-year, but Q4�24 results positive

Global M&A activity fell from $60.2 billion to $49.6 billion between 2023 and 2024 as large M&A transactions remained in short supply. While M&A deal value dropped from $28.1 billion to $21.6 billion between H1�24 and H2�24, deal value nearly doubled from $7.4 billion to $14.2 billion between Q3�24 and Q4�24; with interest rates coming down and the uncertainty related to various elections now calming, the end-of-year uptick bodes well for the M&A market heading into 2025. PE investment also declined significantly, falling from $10.5 billion in 2023 to just $2.55 billion in 2024, while VC investment dropped more modestly, from $49.1 billion to $43.4 billion.

• Payments continuing to drive a large share of fintech investment globally.
• Fresh interest in digital assets and currencies, particularly in areas like market infrastructure, stablecoins, and digital tokenization.
• Continuing use of secondary transactions and continuation funds to give investors liquidity.
• Growing focus on AI-focused regtech as corporates look to enable efficiencies.
• Increasing focus on improving cross-border flows of credit.
• Several mature fintechs around the world preparing for IPOs, particularly those able to demonstrate annual recurring revenues.