The rise of the venture capital boom of 2021 has shaken much of the startup world, but the lack of capital is sharply visible in one particular niche: fintech.
CB insights indicate data that after peaking in 2021, funding for fintech startups around the world fell dramatically by 46% to $75.2 billion, compared to $139.8 billion a year ago. Early 2023 data is still trickling in, but we haven’t heard from anyone yet that venture finance for fintech will recover. Yes, Stripe’s $6.5 billion raise may be biased, but let’s not forget that it’s also a round of downside.
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But fintech is broad, encompassing everything from Chime and Alpaca to Brex. In fact, it is almost too broad a group to be of much use. You need to dig deeper and be more specific to get a clearer picture of the developing trends.
This brings us to CFOs, everyone’s favorite person on a company’s executive team: the naysayer, the receipt claimant, the fuss over budgets.
Call them what you will, CFOs are a critical part of a startup’s evolution. We don’t pay enough attention to CxOs here at londonbusinessblog.com, as we’re a little more focused on founders, but last year CFOs managed to get their way to our attention: londonbusinessblog.com reported on a surge in CFO turnover at companies going IPO. track before the market blocked that path or put the company in a slump.
That’s the bad news for CFOs: shifting valuations in many startup categories have taken IPOs off the table, and they’re now tasked with stretching money as far as possible in a market where capital is drying up faster than a puddle in Death Valley.
But there’s also good news: Many fintech startups are building tools for CFOs and their larger office, known as “the CFO stack.”