Could 2024 be the year for fintech IPOs? Quite possibly, according to F-Prime Capital’s State of Fintech 2024 report.
F-Prime — a VC firm with over $4.5 billion in assets under management that tracks the performance of emerging, publicly traded and privately held financial technology companies — naturally remains bullish on the fintech space, noting that: “In aggregate, fintech companies have captured <10% of financial services revenue, yet many scaled private fintech companies are generating $1B+ revenue, still growing rapidly, and expected to list in public markets.”
“Many sizable companies are now filing or considering going public,” says F-Prime.
To be clear, when F-Prime refers to fintech, it lumps together financial technology and crypto/blockchain startups. Here at TC, we have tended to separate our coverage of the two, although arguably, crypto undoubtedly falls under the fintech umbrella. For the purposes of this article, though, we are going to focus on just some of the the non-crypto focused companies that have the potential to go public this year.
Whether any of these companies actually take the plunge remains to be seen; we have to say we’d be excited for even just one to file that S-1 to give us greater insight as to just how much money these companies are (or are not) really making.
Apex
As reported by Dallas Innovates last December, “two years after attempting to go public via a SPAC merger that valued it at $4.7 billion post-money, Apex is looking to do it the old-fashioned way with a direct SEC filing…The stock trade clearance firm filed confidentially with the SEC, saying that “the total number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined.”
Stripe
In January of 2023, it was reported that Stripe had set a 12-month deadline for itself to go public, either through a direct listing, or to pursue a transaction on the private market, such as a fundraising event and a tender offer.
Well, it’s been 12 months and we haven’t heard anything about an IPO. But the payments giant did raise more capital last year. Last March, Stripe announced that it had raised over $6.5 billion in Series I funding at a $50 billion valuation. It had been previously valued at $95 billion, giving it the status as one of the highest valued privately held fintech companies in the world. In November of 2022, Stripe laid off 14% of its staff, or around 1,120 people. But the fintech continues to branch out. Last June, TechCrunch reported that Stripe had acquired a (non-fintech!) startup and announced an expansion of its issuing product into credit.