As its name indicates, fintech is the integration of technology and financial services. It is the use of technology to deliver financial products and services to consumers, and it is transforming the financial industry. The fintech boom has left no stone unturned with the industry ranging from digital payment wallets to investment platforms and online banking apps.
Reportedly, the fintech industry is currently projected to be worth over £150 billion in 2022. As per industry experts, this sum is estimated to surpass £175 billion in 2024. Right in time of this boom in fintech, a study carried out by Utility Bidder lists the biggest fintech companies of 2022, based on factors such as valuation, funding, social following, and online visibility.
In 2021, the study showed that Robinhood emerged as the most influential fintech beating other fintechs in terms of funding and Google searches. Stripe, Kraken, Klarna, and Wise were listed in the top five positions last year. However, the 2022 list has witnessed a plethora of changes as none of these fintech companies, except for Stripe, have made their way to this list.
That said, here is a list of the most influential fintech giants in the world this year. Take a look at this list below.
Chime
Founder/s: Chris Britt, Ryan King
Founded year: 2013
Total funding: $2.3B
With a valuation of $25 billion, Chime has emerged as a clear winner in the fintech race and is the most influential one of 2022. It operates with the mission to make financial peace of mind a reality for millions of Americans. The fastest-growing fintech offers helpful, easy, and free banking services. It partners with regional banks to design member-first financial products and creates a more competitive market with better, lower-cost options for those who are not served well by traditional banks.
In August 2021, Chime raised $750 million in funding in a round led by Sequoia Capital Global Equities along with investors such as SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund 2, General Atlantic, Tiger Global Management LLC, and Dragoneer Investment Group LLC.
OpenSea
Founder/s: Alex Atallah, Devin Finzer
Founded year: 2017
Total funding: $427M
OpenSea is a peer-to-peer marketplace for crypto collectables and non-fungible tokens. It includes collectables, gaming items, and other virtual goods backed by a blockchain. On OpenSea, anyone can buy or sell these items through a smart contract. The NFT auction marketplace scored $300 million in a round led by Paradigm and Coatue Management and reached a valuation of $13.3 billion. Touted to be the world’s first and largest web3 marketplace for NFTs and crypto collectables, OpenSea lets users browse, create, buy, sell, and auction NFTs.
Stripe
Founder/s: John Collison
Founded year: 2010
Total funding: $2.2B
Headquartered in San Francisco, Stripe is a fintech, which builds economic infrastructure for the internet. Businesses of all sizes from new startups to public companies use the company’s software to accept online payments and run complex global operations. The company combines economic infrastructure with applications for new business models like crowdfunding and marketplaces, fraud prevention, analytics, and more. Valued at $68.4 billion, Stripe partners closely with biggies such as Apple, Google, Alipay, Tencent, and others to launch new capabilities.
Brex
Founder/s: Henrique Dubugras, Pedro Franceschi
Founded year: 2017
Total funding: $1.1B
Brex is an all-in-one fintech for growing businesses. Valued at $12.3 billion, this US fintech helps companies spend, save, and earn smarter, and take every dollar later, by doing more than any bank, bookkeeping, or reward program could ever do. This fintech offers credit cards and cash management solutions for its customers to save and spend money.
TripActions
Founder/s: Ariel Cohen, Ilan Twig
Founded year: 2015
Total funding: $912M
Another California-based fintech TripActions provides an end-to-end corporate card, expense management, and travel platform. It provides unprecedented visibility and control over spend to over 5,000 customers around the globe. Trusted by travel managers and finance teams alike, TripActions and TripActions Liquid leverage real-time data to help companies keep travelling employees safe, reduce spending, and drive productivity. The current valuation of TripActions is $7.3 billion.
Carta
Founder/s: Henry Ward, Manu Kumar
Founded year: 2012
Total funding: $1.1B
Yet another San Francisco-based fintech, Carta is a transfer agent for private companies that enables seed-stage to pre-IPO companies to manage equity electronically with the participation of their shareholders, employees, auditors, and legal counsel. It digitises paper stock certificates along with stock options, warrants, and derivatives to create a real-time image of who owns what at startup. The company has a valuation of $7.4 billion for now and recently acquired London fintechs Vauban and Capdesk.
FTX
Founder/s: Gary Wang, Sam Bankman-Fried
Founded year: 2018
Total funding: $1.7B
Another crypto company on this list is FTX Exchange. The Bahamian cryptocurrency exchange company develops a platform for professional trading firms. It is a cryptocurrency exchange built by traders, for traders. This fintech offers innovative products including industry-first derivatives, options, volatility products, and leveraged tokens. It is the only strong competitor from outside the US to feature in the top 10 fintechs list.
Valued at $32 billion, this fintech strives to build a platform for professional trading firms and first-time users. FTX supports quarterly and perpetual futures for all major cryptocurrencies, leveraged tokens, and OTC. In January 2022,
Chainalysis
Founder/s: Jan Moller, Jonathan Levin, Michael Gronager
Founded year: 2014
Total funding: $537M
Headquartered in New York, Chainalysis provides blockchain data and analysis to governments, banks, and businesses worldwide. It designs and develops anti-money laundering software for Bitcoin businesses. Chainalysis also offers activity monitoring reports and diligence tools, which allow analysts to estimate criminal revenues and emerging threats. In addition, the company offers activity monitoring reports, due diligence tools, and cyber threats from the deep web for financial institutions, among others.
A few months back, the blockchain data platform raised $170 million in Series F funding led by GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. This round brought the valuation of Chainalysis to $8.6 billion.
Fireblocks
Founder/s: Idan Ofrat, Michael Shaulov, Pavel Berengoltz
Founded year: 2018
Total funding: $1B
Yet another fintech operating in the bitcoin and cryptocurrency sector is Fireblocks, which protects digital assets in transit, focusing on protecting the transmission of customers’ digital assets between exchanges, counter brokers, hot wallets, and cold stores. The company powers digital asset and crypto products for today’s largest custodians, fintech, crypto exchanges, lending desks, super apps, and asset management firms.
Earlier this year, Fireblocks raised $550 million in Series E funding. The round was co-led by D1 Capital Partners and Spark Capital along with participation from General Atlantic, Index Ventures, Mammoth, CapitalG (Alphabet’s independent growth fund), Altimeter, Iconiq Strategic Partners, Canapi Ventures, and Parafi Growth Fund. This financing round takes the valuation of Fireblocks to over $8 billion.
Circle
Founder/s: Jeremy Allaire, Sean Neville
Founded year: 2013
Total funding: $1.1B
With a valuation of $9 billion, Circle is a global internet finance company built on blockchain technology and powered by crypto assets. The fintech provides an online platform that enables users to send money quickly and easily. Also, it uses blockchain technology with Circle Pay to ease and improve how users send money. Circle expands its services with a crypto-currency investment product with Circle Invest, enabling anyone to buy and sell crypto assets. Earlier this year, the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), agreed to a $400M fundraising round.
