Spanish Fintech Startups Need Funding To Flourish

While Spain has one of the largest fintech ecosystems in the world, there is no organized way of funding them:

Spain has one of the largest fintech ecosystems in the world – over 300 fintech companies and more than 200 insurtech firms. The numbers, however, do not convey the state of health of the sector as there is a huge challenge in terms of investments and quite a few of the startups are very small in terms of funding and operations. Many of them have not even completed the initial round of funding. But the hope is when funding comes in some of them can really flourish and even become unicorns.

Spanish laws do not have any restriction on fintechs in securing funding. However, most of the fintechs in the country are funded through equity and there are several investors - PE firms, VCs, angel investors and financial services institutions, which have come forward to fund them. Crowdfunding too is another source and there are several incubators and accelerators. In addition, fintechs can approach banks, but this source is not very popular as these entities as startups do not have the required creditworthiness in the eyes of banks.