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CB Insights: global fintech funding amounted to $75.2B in 2022, down 46% YoY, but up 52% compared to 2020; US fintech funding was down 50% YoY to $32.8B in 2022

TechCrunch Mary Ann Azevedo

Context & Ripple Effects

After fintech's blowoff year — the record $131.5B across nearly 5,000 deals documented in CB Insights' 2021 tally — this report marks the correction arriving in earnest: global funding down 46% to $75.2B, with the US hit harder at minus 50%. The number is less dire than it sounds against the longer series: 2022's total still sits 52% above 2020's $49B and roughly doubles the $33.9B raised in 2019, when the sector was already shrinking.

What follows in the related coverage frames why this print matters: funding kept bleeding to a multi-year low by early 2024 before recovering — 2025 closed at $51.8B per Crunchbase, above pre-pandemic levels but still nowhere near the 2021 peak.

First-order effects

  • US fintech startups lose access to half the capital they raised in 2021 ($32.8B vs. ~$65B implied), forcing the sector that drove the 2021 deal boom to stretch runways or raise on reset terms.

Second-order effects

  • With capital scarce, deal count becomes the pressure valve — a pattern the later data confirms, as H1 2026 shows funding up 22.7% YoY while deals fell 25.7%, concentrating dollars into fewer rounds rather than reviving the long tail.

Third-order effects

  • If the post-2021 pattern holds, fintech settles into a structurally smaller market than its peak — 2025's $51.8B recovered above pre-pandemic levels yet remained far below 2021's ~$141.6B — with capital consolidating around fewer, later-stage winners instead of the broad deal volume that defined the boom.

The trend: Fintech venture funding is cycling out of its 2021 supercycle into a lower, more concentrated baseline — recovering above pre-pandemic levels by 2025 without approaching the peak, and increasingly flowing into fewer deals.

Discussion

  • @bayareawriter Mary Ann Azevedo on x
    There were only a handful of new fintech unicorn births in Q4 2022 https://techcrunch.com/...