The 10 largest Fintech companies in America 2022
John and Patrick Collison
ETHAN PINES FOR FORBES
Fintech’s most powerful privately owned companies continued to grow over the past year, but declining investment in the industry signals stormy waters ahead.
It’s starting to be a sober year for fintech. Following a carnival of new unicorns and mega-financing rounds in 2021, private fintech companies are now striving to cut costs and stretch the funds they have to avoid having to raise extra money for a lower valuation (known as a “down round”). Their fears are well-founded.
With listed fintech companies down 50% since November, venture capitalists are putting the brakes on start-up financing in the sector; US fintechs raised $ 13.3 billion during the first quarter of 2022, a 27% decrease from the same period last year, according to a report by data provider CB Insights. Even more dramatic, according to the report: the median value of late-stage US fintechs that raised money in the first quarter of 2022 was $ 1.9 billion, 58% lower than those who raised funding in the last quarter of 2021.
Still, it has been a great ride, driven in part by the pandemic-accelerated shift toward so much online shopping and banking. In February 2020, just before Covid-19 hit the United States, the average valuation of the United States’ ten largest private fintech companies was $ 9 billion, and the limit for entering the list was $ 3.7 billion. For our 2022 list, these numbers have more than tripled – to an average value of $ 27.7 billion and an interface of $ 12 billion. Future funding rounds will show whether these record values reflect a bubble that is about to burst or may be sustainable after a break.
Of the 10 fintechs on 2020’s 10 most valuable list, half have since gone public, including Robinhood. The free stock trading app went public in July last year at $ 35, peaking at $ 55 per share. It is now traded for just $ 9, giving it a market value of $ 8 billion, down 30% from its value as a private company in 2021.
The most notable newcomer on the 2022 list, and the third most valuable private fintech company in the United States, is the $ 32 billion cryptocurrency exchange FTX today, having achieved unicorn status less than a year ago. The NFT trading platform OpenSea, valued at 13 billion dollars, is also new in our ranking.
Here are this year’s most valuable American private fintechs.
| 1 |
Stripe: $ 95 billion
Stripe was founded in 2011 and helps large and small businesses process online payments, take out corporate loans and automatically calculate and collect sales tax. The company is still the most valuable US private fintech with a valuation of $ 95 billion raised in a Series H round in 2021, and is the world’s fourth most valuable private company, after tiktok owner Bytedance, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the Chinese fast fashion seller SHEIN. Stripe processed $ 640 billion in payments last year, an increase of 60% from 2020. (Read more about Stripe here.)
Co-founders: CEO Patrick Collison, 33, and President John Collison, 31. The Irish-born brothers have a total net worth of $ 19 billion.
| 2 |
Klarna: $ 46 billion
The pioneer in the buy-now-pay-later model, Klarna focused on customers moving away from credit cards, but still wanted a way to pay over time. Users can buy everything from Nike sneakers to Sephora lipsticks through the app and choose to schedule interest-free payments or pay at check-out. The company earns most of its revenue by charging retail partners for associated marketing and payment services. Klarna is reportedly working to raise $ 1 billion in a round that could lower the company’s valuation to $ 30 billion.
Co-founder and CEO: Sebastian Siemiatkowski, 40, who worked in an accounting firm before starting Klarna and is now worth an estimated $ 3.2 billion.
| 3 |
FTX: $ 32 billion
One of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, FTX’s valuation jumped from $ 1.2 billion to $ 25 billion after raising $ 1.5 billion in private financing last year. The valuation shot up to 32 billion dollars after an increase of 500 million dollars in January. The Bahamas-based company handles around 11% of $ 2.4 trillion in derivatives traded worldwide each month. Eager to become a household name, FTX spends hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing, registering celebrity ambassadors including Tom Brady, David Ortiz and Kevin O’Leary, as it pursues US clients with its own unit, FTX US, valued at 8 billion dollars.
Co-founder: CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, 30, the world’s second richest cryptocurrency billionaire with $ 24 billion, and CTO Gary Wang, 28, worth $ 5.9 billion.
| 4 |
Chimes: $ 25 billion
Chime, the largest digital bank in the United States, increased in popularity by offering free checking accounts without overdraft fees and offering cash advances to its customers. According to a source familiar with the matter, Chime was preparing for an IPO early this year, but delayed the IPO in the middle of a rocky stock market. CEO Chris Britt says Chime gained more new customers in the first quarter of 2022 than in any other quarter in the bank’s ten-year history.
Co-founders: CEO Chris Britt, 49, who did previous stints on Green Dot and Visa; CTO Ryan King, 45.
| 5 |
Ripple $ 15 billion
Ripple simplifies international payments and transfers through blockchain technology and through its dedicated cryptocurrency, XRP. The company has more than 300 institutional clients, including Standard Chartered, Santander and MoneyGram, which use Ripple for 10% of their cross-border transactions to Mexico. The SEC is suing Ripple for alleged illegal securities bidding through the sale of XRP. CEO Brad Garlinghouse says he may consider publishing the company once the lawsuit is settled.
Co-founders: CEO Chris Larsen, 59; Jed McCaleb, 49; Arthur Britto, CEO: Brad Garlinghouse, 49, a former AOL president.
| 6 |
Blockchain.com: $ 14 billion
The UK cryptocurrency exchange is the world’s most popular cryptocurrency wallet that allows users to manage their private keys for multiple currencies. It has expanded to the United States and can now serve customers in 35 states, including California. The company was founded in 2011, and claims that a third of the world’s bitcoin transactions are performed on Blockchain.com, with 83 million wallets and over $ 1 trillion transactions since its launch.
Co-founders: CEO Peter Smith, 32, an early bitcoin enthusiast; and Deputy Chairman Nicolas Cary.
| 7 |
Plaid: $ 13.4 billion
Plaid was founded in 2012 and helps fintech apps such as Venmo and Coinbase connect customers’ bank accounts, making payments and deposits easier. Earlier this year, Plaid acquired identity verification and KYC (know your customer) provider Cognito for $ 250 million. Plaid increased its customer base from around 4,500 at the end of 2020 to 6,300 by the end of 2021.
Co-founders: CEO Zach Perret, 34, and former CTO William Hockey, 32, co-founder of the new Fintech 50 membership column. The couple met as junior Bain consultants before founding Plaid in 2012.
| 8 |
OpenSea: $ 13.3 billion
A big winner in 2021’s NFT craze, OpenSea is a peer-to-peer platform where users can create, trade, buy and sell NFTs. The company, which was founded almost five years ago, maintains a 2.5% cut in each sale and has processed around $ 3 billion in NFT transactions monthly, earning approximately $ 75 million in monthly revenue. With over 1.5 million accounts trading on the platform, OpenSea maintains dominance in the NFT market, but key competitors such as Coinbase, which launched its NFT exchange in May, are trying to close the gap.
Co-founders: CEO Devin Finzer, 31, and CTO Alex Atallah, 30. They became the first NFT billionaires in January 2021.
| 9 |
Brex: $ 12 billion
Corporate Banking Product Suite Brex provides FDIC-insured cash handling accounts and corporate credit cards without account fees, travel rewards and built-in expense tracking. The electronic dashboard offers expense management software and facilitates companies’ payment process. In August, the San Francisco-based company launched a lending service aimed at venture-backed technology companies and made its biggest acquisition to date in April – spending $ 90 million on a software startup to help users with budgeting and financial estimates. Its tens of thousands of customers include ClassPass, Airbnb and Carta.
Co-founders: Co-CEOs Henrique Dubugras, 26, and Pedro Franceschi, 25, launched Brex after dropping out of Stanford.
| 10 |
GoodLeap: $ 12 billion
California-based GoodLeap makes it easier for users to do green home upgrades. It has provided $ 13 billion in financing to around 380,000 homeowners – half of it over the past year – through partner banks, including Goldman Sachs, which provide the loans and then securitize the debt to sell to investors, using the software to track loan performance. . Contractors and suppliers use GoodLeap’s point of sale app to get customers’ project loans immediately approved for the installation of solar panels, and from last year have more than 20 other categories of sustainable improvements, including battery storage, energy-efficient windows and water-saving peat.
Co-founders: Chairman and CEO Hayes Barnard, 50, and Chief Revenue Officer Matt Dawson, 48, two longtime executives at SolarCity (now Tesla Energy); and Chief Risk Officer Jason Walker, 48, a veteran mortgage broker.
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