A record year for Singapore fintech

2021 has been a great year for fintechs globally, but even more so in Singapore. While funding raised by fintechs globally almost doubled from 2020 to S$137 billion in 2021, funding for Singapore fintechs has grown by 2.5 times between 2020 and 2021, according to data from the BCG FinTech Control Tower. 

(Equity funding figures do not include grants, debt, mergers and acquisitions, initial coin offerings, initial public offerings (IPOs), and post-IPOs.)

“We have seen at BCG FinTech Control Tower how the fintech industry continues to accelerate, with one record-breaking year after another for funding and valuations,” said Pauline Wray, BCG Singapore managing director and partner, as well as co-lead for BCG FinTech Control Tower. 

“Financial services have made fintech a priority, technology companies have made it a target, and adjacent industries have begun to tap into the fintech space. The fintech activity in Singapore show how we are innovating and leading in industries where we have a lot of strengths and knowledge.”

The most recent quarter, Q3 2021, has been the strongest yet, with about S$1.9 billion raised by local fintechs. 

This was driven by the closure of 5 mega-rounds (funding rounds exceeding S$100 million) worth about S$1.4 billion in total, by AI-driven company Advance Intelligence Group – the parent company of Atome, ADVANCE.AI, Kredit Pintar and Ginee – (S$556 million Series D); digital cross-border payment platform Nium (S$278 million Series D); crypto-investment platform Matrixport (S$139 million Series C); P&C digital insurer Bolttech (S$292 million Series A); and cross-border currency trading platform M-Daq (S$205 million Series D). 

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With these latest investments, Nium, Matrixport and Bolttech have reached unicorn status, which means that the startups have a valuation of over a billion dollars.

Other noteworthy mega-rounds this year include a S$417 million Series A round by fintech Grab Financial Group 3 in January and a S$139 million Series D round by Payment-as-a-Service platform Matchmove in June.

This momentum looks likely to remain strong. Just recently, it was announced that Standard Chartered will put up S$695 million in financing towards buy-now-pay-later company Atome, as part of a wider 10-year multi-product strategic partnership.

Together, they will first focus on rolling out buy-now-pay-later services in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam, before expanding to additional digital lending products.

Fintechs in the payments space attracted the most investment, totalling about S$1 billion. 

In particular, those serving the SME and corporate banking segments have driven this growth, with cross-border payments platforms Nium and Thunes and Payments-as-a-Service platform Matchmove raising about half of this total sum.

Various government initiatives have been introduced to support digital payments. 

In September this year, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced a plan to link the country’s national real-time payment system (PayNow) to Malaysia’s equivalent infrastructure (DuitNow). 

The strategy will roll out in stages, with the first phase to kick off in the fourth quarter of 2022. 

Once launched, consumers in both countries will be able to transfer funds via their mobile numbers and pay for purchases by simply scanning a QR code.

Trading and investments fintechs are the fastest growth segment over the past year, raising approximately S$871 million in 2021. 

This includes S$139 million by Matrixport, S$205 million by M-Daq and S$69 million by alternative funding platform Addx. 

Within this space, strong investor interest has also been observed in cryptocurrencies and blockchain-powered uses cases. 

Notable investments include a S$42 million Series B round by cryptocurrency wallet and blockchain startup imToken, a S$8 million Series B round by global digital asset platform Zipmex and S$5 million Series A round in trade life cycle management and reconciliation platform Stacs.

Financial infrastructure fintechs raised S$717 million, including S$556 million by Advance Intelligence Group at a valuation of $2 billion from an investor consortium led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Warburg Pincus. 

The company plans to use the capital to fuel the growth of its digital lending and AI capabilities across Asia.

Fintechs at Series C+ have attracted S$1.4 billion in funding in 2021 so far, which accounts for about 46 per cent of total funding and 5 out of 8 mega-rounds. 

The number of Series C+ rounds as a proportion of all investments has also doubled over the past 2 years from about 3 per cent in 2019 to about 6 per cent in 2021, indicating that the local fintech sector has reached a more mature state of growth.

Fintechs at Series A have raised S$1.1 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of about 285 per cent. This is driven by mega-rounds by Grab and Bolttech. 

On the other hand, Series B fintechs attracted S$332 million, up about 52 per cent year-on-year, with notable rounds by Thunes and B2B finance platform Aspire.

Seed round fintechs raised S$181 million, up about 60 per cent year-on-year. Notable deals included a S$10 million round by fractional share trading platform Gotrade, S$7 million by decentralised money market Konomi Network and S$1.4 million by cloud-based process automation insurance platform Surer.

Diverse M&A activity

This has also been a strong year for M&A activity in the local fintech ecosystem, with a variety of companies going public or being acquired by major players. 

Overseas fintechs continue to view Singapore as a gateway into the wider Asean market, as observed by merchant platform Pine Labs’ acquisition of digital payments firm Fave for S$63 million to accelerate Southeast Asia’s cashless future.

Local players are also using M&A for market consolidation and to create larger product and platform ecosystems. 

For example, Digiassets Exchange and Minterest merged in May 2021 to form SDAX Financial, a global digital asset exchange ecosystem to serve the growing demand for alternative investments. 

Several months later, robo-advisor solution provider Bambu announced that it was acquiring wealthtech Tradesocio, to expand Bambu’s product offering into stocks and crypto and accelerate its global growth.

M&A activity in the local fintech ecosystem is likely to remain robust, as corporates seek to expand their capabilities and footprint in Asean, and private equity firms and US SPACs set their sights on targets in the region.

Sopnendu Mohanty, chief fintech officer, MAS, said: “The incredible growth of fintech seen through the lens of investment is an excellent testament to a very special African proverb, ‘It takes a village to raise a child’. 

“Therefore, such an ecosystem approach has fostered the collaborative and constructive spirit of the fintech community and strengthened the sense of confidence and viability of a fintech hub in Singapore. The future growth of the fintech hub relies on a robust global talent pool, talents who have empathy to solve real-economy challenges and establish regulatory trust.”

Methodology

The BCG FinTech Control Tower has worked closely with MAS to analyse fintech equity funding data which is curated from interviews, with fintech founders, primary research and from data providers Crunchbase, Dealroom and Venture Capital Insights. 

Fintech companies are defined as those that offer financial services directly or provide enabling technologies to financial institutions, facilitating the provisioning of financial services. An exchange rate of $1.39 USD/SGD has been applied for all numbers presented in this article

The BCG FinTech Control Tower is the fintech-focused business unit at the Boston Consulting Group

For all our coverage of the Singapore FinTech Festival 2021, go to bt.sg/sff2021.