Once the darling of European VC, fintech today often plays second fiddle to sectors it once bested for funding and deal count, such as healthtech and deeptech.
In the first quarter of 2025 alone, there were only 164 deals in Europe’s fintech sector, less than half of the 352 deals in the B2B software-as-a-service vertical, Sifted previously reported.
The fall in deal count and funding for fintech comes as many of its larger players hit profitability and forgo raising primary funding to opt for secondary share sales. Smaller fintechs are also having a trickier time raising at valuations and funding round sizes of the pre-2021 period, as investors opt to allocate capital to nouveau buzzy sectors such as AI, climate tech and healthtech.
But investors haven’t abandoned the sector altogether. While the number of investments may pale in comparison to the deal tallies for healthtech or B2B SaaS, fintech companies in Europe still won €2.6bn through debt and equity funding rounds in the first quarter of the year.
While that’s almost half the €4bn that went to healthtech startups, it’s more than the €2bn that went to consumer startups — last quarter’s worst-performing sector.
There are also some bright spots so far in Q2. €1.6bn has so far been funnelled to startups in the sector, second only to consumer. With that in mind, we compiled a list of European fintech’s most active investors according to Sifted data.
Tenity
HQ: Zürich, Switzerland
Fund focus: Tenity is an early-stage investor and accelerator investing in the financial technology space.
Q1 deal count: 10
Notable deals: Particula, a Munich-based startup offering data analytics in the digital asset space; Klaimy, an AI-powered SaaS platform for insurance companies.
SFC Capital
HQ: London, UK
Fund focus: SFC Capital only backs startups eligible for SEIS and EIS funding — a UK government scheme which aims to incentivise support to early-stage UK companies by offering them income tax relief. SFC is a generalist investor and typically writes tickets between £100k-£500k.
Q1 deal count: 6
Notable deals: Ryft, a payments platform for marketplaces and digital platforms pushing into web3.
Motive Partners
HQ: New York, United States
Fund focus: Motive Partners is a private equity firm which focuses on growth equity and buyout investments in software and information services companies. It also has a venture arm focusing on financial technology investments in North America and Europe.
Q1 deal count: 6
Notable deals: Navro, a London-based payments fintech enabling businesses to send and receive international payments; Dfns, a digital asset custody platform HQ’d in France.
Antler
HQ: Singapore
Fund focus: Antler invests in a wide range of companies, from B2B and healthtech to property tech and consumer.
Q1 deal count: 4
Notable deals: Klearly, a Dutch-based payments fintech focused on the small and medium business segment; Tapline, a revenue-based financing fintech based in Berlin, Germany.
Fuel Ventures
HQ: London, UK
Fund focus: Fuel is a pre-seed and seed investor, backing startups across B2B SaaS, marketplaces and fintech. It raised a £100m fund in July last year and writes cheques between £2m-5m.
Q1 deal count: 4
Notable deals: Curve, a London-based consumer payments fintech; Prosper, a wealthtech company offering consumer pensions and investment portfolios.
Super Capital
HQ: Paris, France
Fund focus: Super Capital is a venture capital fund focused on pre-seed to Series A stage investment. It’s previously backed fintechs such as Revolut and Klarna.
Q1 deal count: 4
Notable deals: Faktus, a French fintech focused on offering financing options for the construction business; Opsima, which provides an algorithm to companies so they can reduce spend on cloud infrastructure.
Y Combinator
HQ: Mountainview, California, US
Fund focus: The storied San Francisco-based accelerator has also been a big backer of European startups over the years. YC is a generalist investor writing cheques across a variety of sectors including AI, deeptech and fintech.
Q1 deal count: 3
Notable deals: Nsave, a fintech offering trusted bank accounts to individuals from nations with dysfunctional banking systems; Bluebook, a Swedish company building AI agents for accounting firms.
EQT Ventures
HQ: Stockholm, Sweden
Fund focus: EQT Ventures is the venture capital arm of Swedish investment manager EQT. The firm primarily invests in Series A-C stages and has backed fintechs such as AI financial assistant Cleo and business banking fintech Juni.
Q1 deal count: 3
Notable deals: Stacks, an automated accounting platform founded in the Netherlands; Paid, a platform managing pricing and subscriptions for AI agents.
Golden Egg Check
HQ: Enschede, Netherlands
Fund focus: Golden Egg Check is a Dutch startup analyst firm, which invests in startups and scaleups together with angel investors and VC funds.
Q1 deal count: 3
Notable deals: The Social Handshake, a fintech startup making it easier for employees to donate to charities from their salaries.
Bpifrance
HQ: Paris, France
Fund focus: France’s sovereign investment arm, which also operates as a development bank and export credit agency, continues to be a major backer of startups, particularly in the fintech space.
Q1 deal count: 3
Notable deals: Swan, an embedded banking fintech based in Paris; Dalma, an insurtech geared toward the pet insurance space.
Startup Wise Guys
HQ: Tallinn, Estonia
Fund focus: Startup Wise Guys is an accelerator fund focused on startups building companies with B2B business models. It writes €100k-sized cheques for startups and has supported over 15 exits, with notable acquisitions including Estonian farm management software company VitalFields’s purchase by Climate Corporation in 2016 and Cypryus’s video editing app Vochi by Pinterest in 2021.
Q1 deal count: 3
Notable deals: Blue Auditor, a sustainability management tool for real estate portfolios; Monkee, an Austrian financial planning application.
Maven Capital Partners
HQ: Glasgow, UK
Fund focus: Maven is a generalist investor, backing startups across SaaS, fintech, energy, healthtech, transport and marketing sectors. It typically invests at an early stage, but can write cheques of up to £20m per deal.
Q1 deal count: 3
Notable deals: Kani, a reporting and reconciliation tool for financial institutions, based in Newcastle, UK; Blackdot Solutions, a company providing open source intelligence tools to help analysts understand and identify financial crime.
Acurio Ventures
HQ: Bilbao, Spain
Fund focus: Acurio Ventures is a European VC firm that’s previously backed fintechs such as revenue-based finance provider Uncapped and US-based proptech Roofstock.
Q1 deal count: 3
Notable deals: Crescenta, a Spanish company enabling easier access to private equity fund exposure; PassEntry, a UK-based company issuing digital wallet passes.
Portfolio Ventures
HQ: London, United Kingdom
Fund focus: Portfolio Ventures is an angel fund which invests in fintech, SaaS and AI companies at seed stage.
Q1 deal count: 3
Notable deals: Firenze, a B2B wealthtech enabling wealth managers access to lombard lending; Bourn Technologies, a London-based fintech offering financing options for SMEs.
BlackFin Capital Partners
HQ: Paris, France
Fund focus: BlackFin Capital Partners is a private equity firm focusing on financial services buyouts and fintechs.
Q1 deal count: 3
Notable deals: ETFBook, a Swiss platform offering the ability to search and compared European exchange-traded funds; Wealthcome, a French startup providing a software platform for wealth management professionals.
DN Capital
HQ: London, UK
Fund focus: DN Capital is a growth capital investor focused on Seed to Series B stages and invests across the software, fintech, marketplace and consumer internet sectors.
Q1 deal count: 3
Notable deals: Fimple, a Turkey-based fintech providing financial institutions with a cloud-native core banking platform; Napo, a London-based insurtech offering insurance coverage for pet owners.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/europes-most-active-fintech-investors-vcs-q1/
