Financial start-ups (fintech) in Germany are experiencing a record year in 2021, having received venture capital of more than 3.2 billion euros ($ 3.6 billion) between January and the end of September.
The study carried out by the Comdirect bank together with the consulting firm Barkow Consulting and the investor Commerzbank Main Incubator indicates that the newly created companies had already obtained 1,500 million euros from investors above what they obtained in the whole of 2019, which already recorded a record.
The report points out that at the end of September there had been 137 investment rounds, only a few operations less than the previous record year, with 150 rounds. Between January and September, 84 new startups were created. In total, more than a thousand young financial companies, called “fintech”, were counted for the first time in Germany.
“More than 15 years after the appearance of the first German fintechs, the sector is experiencing a second spring,” says Alena Kretzberg, director of digital banking at Commerzbank. “Digital financial offerings are benefiting greatly from changes in consumer and banking habits as a result of the pandemic,” she noted.
Matthias Lais, director of the Research and Development Unit at Commerzbank, notes that only a small part is likely due to the recovery effects of the coronavirus crisis in 2020.
Fintechs on the road to success
Venture capital funds and large companies provide capital to start-ups (known as “start-ups”) in the hope that their business ideas will flourish. In times of low interest rates, there is also a greater contribution of money.
Some investment robots have also grown strongly, which automatically invest assets in the stock market, and digital banks that only operate online, without physical offices. But online brokers for the purchase of securities via app and insurance companies have also proliferated strongly.
Among those raising large sums in 2021 are online broker Trade Republic, digital insurer Wefox, asset manager Scalable Capital and Berlin-based Solarisbank.
Source: dpa
