KPMG: UK-based fintech companies raised $37.3B in 2021, up from $5.2B in 2020, across 601 deals; global fintech investment rose 70% to $210B+ in 2021
Biannual analysis of global fintech investments. — Biannual analysis of global fintech investments. John Reynolds / altfi.com : Fintech “strategically important to UK” as figure show record investment in 2021
Context & Ripple Effects
KPMG's biannual fintech tally lands at the top of the cycle: the UK's $37.3B across 601 deals is a sevenfold jump from 2020's $5.2B, extending the run that began with the record $15B UK tech startups raised in 2020 and accelerated when fintechs worldwide pulled in $54.1B in just the first half of 2021.
The headline needs a methodology caveat — CB Insights separately counted $131.5B in global fintech funding for the same year, well below KPMG's $210B+ — but both trackers agree on direction: 2021 set records on every measure they publish.
First-order effects
- UK fintech founders and their backers enter 2022 holding a sevenfold annual increase in deployed capital, and KPMG's VC-plus-PE-plus-M&A framework becomes the benchmark other national tallies are measured against.
- Report consumers face materially different headline numbers for the same year depending on tracker — KPMG's $210B+ versus CB Insights' $131.5B — forcing anyone citing 'global fintech investment' to name their source.
Second-order effects
- Deal counts grew far slower than dollars — CB Insights logged deals up roughly 42% against funding up roughly 168% — tilting capital toward fewer, larger rounds and raising the bar for sub-scale fintech fundraises.
- KPMG extends the same reporting template to other markets, as its later Canadian tally of $353.7M across 57 H1 2023 deals shows, making quarter-by-quarter cross-country comparisons of fintech capital flows routine.
Third-order effects
- The 2021 spike proves to be a cyclical peak rather than a new baseline: subsequent KPMG/PitchBook data shows UK fintech investment down to almost $11B in 2025, resetting the sector's planning assumptions after the boom.
- Concentration of capital into fewer, larger checks — visible in both trackers' 2021 figures — becomes the structural pattern fintech funding measurement tracks, favoring scaled category leaders over the long tail of startups.
The trend: Fintech funding moves in tracker-measured boom-and-contraction cycles, with 2021 established as the peak year against which every subsequent slowdown is judged.