The world’s leading fintech innovators were announced in this year’s Fintech 100 report, unveiled by KPMG and H2 Ventures at Sydney fintech hub Stone and Chalk yesterday. This year’s list was split into two categories, celebrating 50 established startups and 50 emerging stars, with Australian startups including Avoka, Equitise, and Moula making the list of emerging stars, while SocietyOne and Prospa were named as established innovators.
“This year the more interesting companies are the ones that are emerging,” said Toby Heap, founding partner from H2 Ventures.
The report also highlighted a major funding boom, with the Fintech 100 companies collectively raising in excess of US$10 billion, while the number of Australian companies on the list underlining the growing importance of Australian fintech in the Asian marketplace.
This comes at the end of what has been a big year for the local fintech space, which is finally beginning to develop the kind of cultural cachet enjoyed by other tech sectors. The biggest moment to date came last week, when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull visited Stone and Chalk to announce a partnership between First State Super and H2 Ventures which will see tens of millions of dollars invested into local fintech startups over the next few years.
NSW Minister for Industry, Resources and Energy, Anthony Roberts, said, “This report confirms that Sydney is not only the biggest fintech hub in Australia but also Asia.
“This is because seven out of the nine fintech companies in the top 100 list are based in Sydney. What’s more, Sydney has more fintech companies on the list than any other Asian city,” he said.
The last 12 months have also seen an increase of in shore funding in Australia, making it significantly easier for fintech startups to capitalise and companies to raise locally.
“It is a really exciting time to be a tech company in Australia,” said Philip Copeland, CEO of Avoka.
Heap added, “In an industry that will soon be irrevocably changed by the disruptive effect of innovation, the companies doing fintech best are those most likely to succeed. Already, some of the world’s major financial centres are equally becoming known for fintech innovation: London, New York and more recently Sydney.”
Taking out top spot on the top 50 established innovators list is Shanghai-based ZhongAn. This is the company’s first appearance on the list, highlighting just how fast the industry moves and the growing rate of capital in the Asian market.
Forty percent of companies on this year’s list come from the Americas, 20 percent from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, 18 percent from the UK, and 22 percent from the Asia-Pacific region, with the remaining 10 percent from Australia and New Zealand.
The global list takes into account five factors following extensive research and data analysis:
- Total capital raised
- Rate of capital raising
- Geographic and sector diversity
- Consumer and marketplace traction
- X-factor: degree of product, service and business model innovation (applied to companies appearing on the 50 Emerging Stars list)
According to the report, the spaces to look out for next year will be insurance, with the top two companies on this year’s list both coming from insurance sectors. This demonstrates that global impact of insurance fintech is increasing and it would be wise not to ignore their emergence in Australia.
The top ten companies on the list include:
- ZhongAn – Property Insurance (China)
- Oscar – Healthcare Insurance (USA)
- Wealthfront – Investment Management (USA)
- Qufenqi – Electronics Retailer (China)
- Funding Circle – Small Business Loans (UK)
- Kreditech – Digital Banking (Germany)
- Avant – Lending Platform (USA)
- Atom Bank – Digital Banking System (UK)
- Klarna – Payment Solution (Sweden)
- OurCrowd – Equity Crowdfunding Platform (Israel)
The seven rising Aussie startups named on the list are:
Avoka
http://www.avoka.com
Delivers frictionless digital sales and service transactions for financial institutions, government agencies, and other industries where e-Commerce is not a good fit. A digital, mobile responsive experience can be deployed in weeks, rather than months, which builds a competitive advantage around mobile and digital customer acquisition.
Equitise
http://equitise.com.au
Crowdfunding platform that brings together investors and business owners, simplifying the investment marketplace. It removes traditional barriers to investing and sourcing capital by making the process quick, easy and safe. Equitise modernise the way to raise capital.
Metamako
https://www.metamako.com
Technology company that specialises in solutions for latency sensitive businesses, by designing and manufacturing grade network devices, with the goal of simplifying networks and increasing flexibility.
Moula
https://moula.com.au
A leading provider of unsecured business loans to small and medium businesses. Their unique platform analyses business data and provides relevant funding with no hidden fees or hassles.
PromisePay
https://promisepay.com
Powers frictionless, invisible payments for online marketplaces and platforms. PromisePay provides escrow, fraud management, chargeback protection and identity verifications to build trust, improve user experience and drive revenue.
Simply Wall St
https://simplywall.st
Turns complicated financial data into easy to understand infographics that help casual investors understand the stock market and become better investors. Simply Wall St evaluates every listed company on the primary US, UK and Australian stock exchanges to empower retail investors to make profitable non-emotional long term investment decisions.
Stockspot
https://www.stockspot.com.au
Australia’s first online, automated investment adviser and fund manager that helps clients to invest in a professionally managed portfolio of global investments for a fraction of the fees charged by financial advisers and fund managers. They invest in low-fee Exchange Traded Funds, monitoring and optimising portfolios when markets move to help Australians manage their money smarter.
Image: L-R Top Row- David Snowden, Chris Brycki, Will Mahon-Heap, Andrew Watt, Philip Copeland, Nick van den Berg, Chris Gilbert. L-R bottom row- Matt Symons,Toby Heap, Ian Pollari, Beau Bertoli, Al Bentley. Source: Supplied
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