Global venture capital funding for fintech startups soared in 2025 to its highest level in several quarters, boosted by later-stage deals, according to Crunchbase data.
Total global funding for venture-backed fintech startups was $51.8 billion for the year, according to Crunchbase. data. This is a fairly significant increase – 27% – from the total of $40.8 billion raised in 2024.
Unsurprisingly, the numbers are still well below the peak of $141.6 billion raised in 2021 and the $90.2 billion raised in 2022. But they are at least on an upward trend, unlike 2024, where they fell below 2023 levels.
And, for the first time in recent years, total funding for 2025 exceeded pre-pandemic amounts of $50.8 billion in 2020 and $49.3 billion in 2019.
Deal flow, however, was down, signaling fewer, but larger, cycles. The year saw 3,457 deals concluded, down 23% from the more than 4,486 completed in 2024.
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Big deals
The fact that the sector saw an increase in financing despite a lower number of transactions indicates that the first half of 2025 saw a number of significant cycles. Interestingly, several of the largest transactions involved blockchain or crypto companies and prediction markets.
Other major deals completed during the year included the UK payments platform. Fastthe $500 million harvest in mid-March; HR and Payroll Startup Ripple $450 million Series G in May; and expense management platform RampIt is $500 million, Series E-2 at a valuation of $22.5 billion at the end of July and $300 million increase at a valuation of $32 billion in November.
“Continuing the AI Hype Cycle”
Every VC firm we spoke with said they believe 2021 and 2022 are outlier times for venture funding. The record funding during those years was driven by “the Covid-19 rebound and ultra-low interest rates,” said Raph Osnosgeneral director of General Atlanticbased in New York and focuses on investments in the company’s financial services sector, including financial technology.
“After a reset, a more constructive overall market in 2025 has brought renewed investor appetite, but with investor selectivity in terms of scale and quality in a world where uncertainty persists,” he wrote in an email interview.
VCs seem to be doing very well, with funding not returning to those high levels.
Businesses for a better future’ Jake Gibson In other words: 2021 and early 2022 have not been healthy markets for the tech or startup sector as a whole. Fintech has secured a disproportionate amount of capital due to the COVID “everything is going digital” craze.
“Too much money chasing too few great founders,” he said. “There would be four or five companies building the same thing, with business models that shouldn’t have been funded in the first place, and in many cases none of them were successful because none of them were able to scale.”
“Flight to quality”
Returning to the pace and exuberance of 2021 is not necessarily desirable or sustainable, according to Norwest Venture Partners Vice-president Jordan Leiteswhich believes that fintech is experiencing a continued flight to quality, with capital increasingly focused on companies with differentiated ideas, clear execution and “real traction”.
Meanwhile, it has become much more difficult for others to do so.
“This dynamic helps explain why the total amount of funding is increasing even as transaction volume is declining,” he told Crunchbase News. “I think the level of activity we’ve seen in 2025 is healthy. In the early stages…the pipeline remains very strong, particularly in the area of AI and stablecoins. These areas have real structural tailwinds.”
Methodology
The data in this report comes directly from Crunchbase and is based on reported data. Data is as of January 4, 2026.
It is worth noting that data lags are more pronounced in the early stages of VC activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.
Please note that all financing values are quoted in US dollars unless otherwise noted.
Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the spot rate in effect from the date financing rounds, acquisitions, IPOs, and other financial events are reported. Even though these events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, currency transactions are converted at the historical spot price.
Glossary of financing terms
Seeds and Angels consist of rounds of seeds, pre-seeds and angels. Crunchbase also includes seed rounds, equity crowdfunding, and convertible notes in amounts of $3 million (USD or converted USD equivalent) or less.
The early stage includes Series A and B rounds, as well as other types of rounds. Crunchbase includes seed rounds, venture projects and other rounds over $3 million, as well as those under $15 million.
Advanced phases include Series C, D, E and subsequent venture capital series of letters following the naming convention “Series (Letter)”. Also included are unknown series rounds, corporate projects and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate financing rounds are only included if a company has raised early-stage equity financing through a serial venture financing round.
Tech Growth is a private equity round raised by a company that has already raised a venture round. (So basically any round of the previously defined steps.)
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
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