UK and India Technology Destination

Despite the global slow down and an ailing financial sector, India’s fintech start-ups have shown a positive increase raising $2.6 billion in 2019, a number for sure to cheer about as this is the highest ever in any calendar year.

Indian tech companies attracted tech investments worth USD 9.36 billion in 2019, a massive 95 per cent increase compared to the last year.

The partners to this research were London & Partners which is the Mayor of London’s official promotional agency. London and Partner's collaborated with the Tech Nation by Dealroom.co to officiate the research findings. The study corroborated that London holds its strong mark as a strong tech lead with its tech companies attracting USD 9.7 billion funding in 2019, a number which puts any other European city far behind.

Global Strongholds of Power

Global cities like London, Mumbai and Bengaluru are marching ahead challenging the status quo by creating game-changing enterprises which will compete on the global stage. There are a lot of untapped opportunities in India especially focussing into smart cities and fintech sectors. Hemin Bharucha, Chief India Representative for London & Partners asserted, “in this period an interesting juncture was observed where investments from Asia into the UK increased significantly in 2019, proving London’s and UK’s tech supremacy”.

The maximum investments were seen by OakNorth a fintech company headquartered in London, headed by Indian-origin entrepreneur Rishi Khosla. OakNorth recorded an investment of $440 million in funding for the FY 2019.

The UK Supremacy

“London's tech sector is a global success story and one that I continue to champion, particularly as it reflects our city's diversity and entrepreneurial spirit,". Our city is the undisputed tech capital of Europe and the record $9.7 billion of investment in this sector clearly shows London open to talent and investment from all over the world. London's successful digital economy is not only an important source of jobs for Londoners but is also bringing prosperity and growth to the rest of the UK,".

London Mayor Sadiq Khan

The UK economy has steered high, despite the Brexit vote and UK’s scheduled departure from the European Union (EU) group of countries. The UK attracted the maximum investment from Asia which was higher than any other European country, with the likes of superpowers like France and Germany behind.

The Indian Story

E-commerce has been the powerful magnet in the Indian subcontinent attracting most of the funding in 2019. Local tech start-ups raised about $14.5 billion in 2019, beating their own previous best of $10.6 billion last year. 2019 saw investments into, 170+ horizontal marketplaces, 160+ fintech start-ups, 150+ education learning apps, 120+ trucking marketplaces, 80+ ride-hailing services, 40+ insurance platforms, 30+ used car listing providers and 10+ start-ups bridging the gap between businesses and working capital secured funding in 2019.

As estimated by PYMNTS or the Payments, News & Mobile Payment Trends (a website featuring the latest information related to e-commerce and online payment methods), the fund flows into FinTech, which spans sectors which include logistics, payments and others – stand at a staggering $7.9 billion.

The top Indian FinTech deal in 2019 was a $1 billion investment in Paytm by T. Rowe Price and others. Tencent, Altimeter and others invested $585 million into eCommerce player Udaan, a network centric B2B trade platform, aimed to cater the growing needs of the small & medium businesses in India. Online-to-offline eyewear major Lenskart received an investment of $275 million from SoftBank’s Vision Fund which the eCommerce firm aims to use to boost its supply chain infrastructure.

India's largest integrated ports and logistics company Adani Ports invested $41 million to acquire a 40 per cent + stake in Snowman Logistics.

The new decade has been promising too, watching some traction within B2B. There was $33 million worth of FinTech-related deals in India, which included the likes of Aye Finance. The company focussed to provide business loans to micro and small businesses located primarily in Northern India. Aye Finance secured more than $14 million in debt funding led by BlueOrchard. Another significant investment includes XpressBees, which received $10 million from Alibaba.

India has made its mark as the new Global Investment Destination; we couldn't agree for more.