These are the 50 hottest fintech startups in Europe right now, as London fights to keep up with innovation
Over half of the 2018 Fintech50 are based in London, as it fights to keep its crown amid increasing competition from startups in cities like Berlin, Dublin, Amsterdam and Warsaw.
The city has produced 27 out of Europe’s best ‘ones to watch’, selected from the list’s largest ever pool of over 1,800 fintechs across the continent.
The panel of judges, which includes innovation and investment specialists from tier-one banks, venture capital investors and global fintechs like Stripe, has also revealed a top five out of the 50 chosen for the first time in the list’s history.
The top five startups are:
Revolut (London, UK)
Onfido (London, UK)
N26 (Berlin, Germany)
Raisin (Berlin, Germany)
Tink (Stockholm, Sweden)
Now in its sixth year, the Fintech50 features 23 startups that are new to the list in 2018, including London favourites like challenger bank Starling, pensions robo adviser Pension Bee, and the open-banking platform Bud.
These are London’s hottest startups in the 2018 Fintech50
Azimo, Bud, ClauseMatch, ClearBank, ComplyAdvantage, Curve, Duco, Everledger, Featurespace, Habito, Monese, Monzo, Mosaic Smart Data, Neyber, Oaknorth, Onfido, Pensionbee, Previse, Privitar Railsbank, Revolut, Seedrs, Setl, Starling Bank, Suade, Truelayer, Trussle
Regulation and compliance specialists, known to those in the industry as regtech, made its biggest appearance ever thanks to GDPR with eight new startups on the list. Last year, London startups made up 31 of the Fintech50, up from 29 in 2016.
Fintech50 startups from across Europe
Aid:Tech, AQMetrics, Billon, Bunq, BUX, Clark Germany, Ethereum, Fenergo, Figo, Friss, Governance.com, Idnow, Ledger.fr, Leveris, Mash, N26, Netguardians, Payfit, Raisin, Riskmethods, Solaris Bank, Tink, Wefox
In addition to the Fintech50 list, judges have recognised a so-called Hot 10 of emerging startups, which includes London names like flexible insurtech Zego and intelligent cashflow software Fluidly.
The 2018 Fintech50 “Hot 10”
Access Fintech (London, UK)
Coya (Berlin, Germany)
Dream Quark (Paris, France)
Fluidly (London, UK)
Nivaura (London, UK)
20|30 Pillar Project (London, UK)
Smartvalor (Zug Valley, Switzerland)
Tetrao (Luxembourg)
Trustology (London, UK)
Zego (London, UK)
Finally, a further 15 names have been added to the Fintech50 Hall of Fame. Two of them, Behaviosec and Digital Shadows, have been featured in five out of the six Fintech50 lists so far.
The 15 startups added to the Fintech50 Hall of Fame
Darktrace (Cambridge UK)
Kreditech (Hamburg, Germany)
Spotcap (Berlin, Germany)
BehavioSec (Stockholm, Sweden)
Gocardless (London, UK)
Digital Shadows (London, UK)
Credit Benchmark (London, UK)
OpenGamma (London, UK)
Iwoca (London, UK)
Lendinvest (London, UK)
Ratesetter (London, UK)
Marketinvoice (London, UK)
Crowdcube (Exeter, UK)
Bima (Stockholm, Sweden)
Julie Lake, CEO and co-founder of the Fintech50, and fellow co-ounder Nicky Cotter, said in a joint statement: “This is very much a forward-looking ‘watch list’ and not a review of who did well in 2017. We asked the panel to take a big-picture view of the sector and look at what excited them as leading investors, buyers and sector watchers and who they would be looking out for this year.
“For us, the hottest trend this year is not the strength of individual verticals such as regtech or insurtech, but in how a once fragmented sector is increasingly working together with banks and with other fintechs to deliver a superior experience for customers.”
It was revealed last week that the UK is now the tech unicorn capital of Europe, with more than double the amount of startups with a $1bn valuation or higher than any other country in the continent.
Read more: The UK has been crowned the tech unicorn capital of Europe