Read the headlines here and there, one could assume that venture capital interest in fintech startups is setting records every quarter.
After all: Robinhood didn't raise $ 280 million is $ 320 million more this year? Stripe raised $ 600 million just a few minutes ago, and wasn't Monzo raising £ 60 million a few weeks ago? Oh, and Hippo raised $ 150 million the other day.
And what about Plaid's huge release earlier this year and Chime's billions of dollars that came before the end of 2019?
This is what it seemed to me, at least. And with good reason: the new data from CB Insights indicate that fintech startups raised a record number of so-called "mega rounds", loans worth $ 100 million and more, in the second quarter of 2020.
The exchange explores startups, markets and money. You can read it every morning on Extra Crunch or receive The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.So the atmosphere in fintech that huge shots landed quite often is correct. But under the big deals, there was an early market weakness that creates a striking contrast.
The same CB Insights report describes in detail a key "headwind" factor for many fintech startups, namely that e-commerce is booming in the COVID-19 era, going from around 16% of total trade. of the United States at around 27% until the second quarter of this year.
So, let's start by taking a quick look at Square's earnings that leaked yesterday and some notes of Shopify's recent results to decipher the speed at which the economy is going online before examining what happened in the second quarter of VC for startups fintech as a cohort.
We will keep it as light as possible and as fun as we can - I promise. Here we go!
Digital commerce is growing like a weed
You might think that Square, a company famous for its IRL payment terminals and the ability to turn anyone into a micro-company, would suffer as COVID-19 slowed business in person. But, despite the slowdown in the volume of gross payments (GPV), as expected, Square's revenue exploded in the second quarter, going from $ 1.17 billion in the second quarter of 2019 to $ 1.92 billion in the last period.
