Investment in Australia’s fintech sector smashed previous records in 2019, jumping up 252 percent to US$1.913 billion, spurred by the acquisition of Property Exchange (PEXA) and the US$280 investment in neobank Judo – with Australia bucking the global investment trend, which saw 2019 fall just shy of 2018’s record with US$135.7 billion invested across 2,693 deals.
Notable venture capital deals in Australia included neobank Athena’s US$43.4 million Series C round, Grow Super’s US$11.8 million Series B funding round and Cover Genuis’s US$10 million Series C round.
2019 Key Global Highlights
- Global fintech investment fell short of 2018’s record year, with US$137.5 billion invested in 2019 compared to US$141 billion in 2018.
- Global fintech M&A rose from US$91 billion in 2019 to a record-high of US$97.3 billion in 2019, despite a strong drop in the number of M&A deals from 622 to 426.
- Global corporate VC investment participation rose during every quarter of 2019, leading to US$16.7 billion in total annual VC invested with Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) involvement; CVC-related deal volume was also robust, with 553 deals over 2019, including 166 in Q3’19 – the second-highest quarter ever in terms of CVC fintech deals volume after Q2’18.
- Cross-border M&A held strong at US$54.2 billion in deal value – despite ongoing global trade tension.
- The number of fintech deals by global tech giants – including Alibaba Group, Alphabet, Apple, Baidu, IBM, Microsoft and Tencent – increased for the fifth straight year, with US$3.5 billion invested across 46 deals in 2019.
- Cybersecurity related fintech investment more than doubled year-over-year, from US$316.9 million to US$646.2 million.
- Proptech investment rose to a record high of US$2.6 billion in 2019 from US$1.9 billion in 2018.
