An Analysis of the UK Fintech Market

The UK Fintech ecosystem continues to thrive with a strong entrepreneurial community working alongside established firms, a large client-base, a growing influx of investors domestic and foreign, and support from Government. With the recent addition of more than 12 million private companies to the S&P Capital IQ Pro database it is now possible to paint a more complete picture of the industries that have a thriving ecosystem of private companies and start-ups. To celebrate the newly launched S&P Capital IQ Pro version of the desktop, we conducted an analysis of the UK Fintech market. Highlights from the report include:

• The Top 16 Fintech Unicorns in the UK have an aggregate market cap of £60bn.
• Revolut Ltd, the largest unicorn, now holds an implied market valuation, £24bn, comparable to some of the UK’s major banks. –
• The average time it has taken UK Fintech Unicorns to achieve unicorn status is 8 years.
• Fintechs across the UK are thriving with higher concentrations in London, followed by regional centers like Manchester, Leeds and Edinburgh.
• Companies in the Payments space dominate the unicorn list and lead in terms of their ability to capture funding.
• 28 Fintech M&A transactions were completed in 2020 and volume has not slowed down in 2021, with 19 deals just in H1. EV/EBITDA multiples in the UK remain within historical bounds.
• Foreign capital still takes the larger share of private equity investment into the sector but UK-based Private Equity/Venture Capital (PE/VC) firms, for example, Seedcamp and Balderton Capital, are contributing to the growth of domestic Fintech firms.