Global Fintech Funding Slides 20% as Crypto Declines

Global fintech funding experienced a decline in the second quarter of 2026, with deal volume dropping 25% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) to 726 transactions and overall volume seeing a more modest decline of 20% QoQ, amounting to US$11.7 billion, according to new data released by CB Insights.

Cryptocurrency emerged as one of the most severely impacted fintech verticals, with a significant QoQ decline of 28.9% in volume and a 19.5% decrease in deal counts. Fintech exits also saw a decline, marking the fewest quarterly initial public offerings (IPOs) in over four years, along with a reduction in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activities.

In contrast, digital banking stood out as the bright spot of Q2 2026, with funding doubling despite a slight dip in deal counts.

Mega-rounds lead digital banking

Digital banking emerged as a standout in fintech funding during Q2 2026. Funding surged 100% compared to the previous quarter, reaching US$2.6 billion, despite a slight decline of 4% in the number of deals.

Deal sizes increased significantly, with the average deal size rising 53% from 2025 to US$52.5 million, while the average media deal size saw a growth of 16% from 2025 to US$10.9 million.

Three mega-rounds played a pivotal role in driving this growth. Ramp’s US$750 million round in June, Airwallex’s US$320 million Series H, and Mercury’s US$200 million Series D collectively accounted for 49% of the total funding in digital banking.

Ramp is a corporate expense management platform, serving over 70,000 including Visa, Uber, Shopify, Anduril, Figma, Notion, Cursor, Stanford Athletics, and The Boys and Girls Club.

In the past few months, the company has launched over 70 products and major features, closed two acquisitions, including Billhop, a payment platform catering to the UK and EU markets, and Juno, a guest travel and expense platform.

Airwallex is a global payments and financial platform for businesses. The company reached a US$1.3 billion in annualized revenue in March 2026, up 74% YoY, and US$287 billion in annualized transaction volume, representing a 120% YoY increase.

To further accelerate its expansion into autonomous finance and agentic commerce, Airwallex has introduced new product initiatives: T:0, a new AI-native financial platform designed to run the full finance function of a business end-to-end; and Airi, a agentic consumer wallet which it aims to develop into broader infrastructure for agentic commerce.

Airwallex said it will use the proceeds from its Series H to accelerate product development across autonomous finance and agentic commerce, expand its infrastructure and regulatory footprint into new markets, and continue scaling the teams building its next generation AI native financial software.

Finally, Mercury provides digital banking and financial workflow services tailored for startups, tech companies, and small businesses. The company now serves more than 300,000 customers, including one in three US startups and a rapidly growing share of AI companies.

Mercury has recently launched several new products, including Mercury Command. This innovative solution streamlines the end-to-end completion of financial tasks using artificial intelligence. Additionally, Mercury is actively working towards becoming a fully regulated national bank. In April 2026, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) granted Mercury conditional approval for this endeavor.

Mercury has consistently demonstrated its financial prowess, achieving consecutive GAAP net income and EBITDA profitability for the past four years. As of Q3 2025, the company reported an impressive annualized revenue of US$650 million

Crypto looses steam

Cryptocurrency faced significant challenges in Q2 2026, with volume declining 28.9% QoQ to US$2.7 billion and deal counts dropping 19.5% to 173 transactions.

In Q2 2026, the focus of crypto funding shifted from speculative consumer and token projects to financial infrastructure, institutional crypto, and compliance. This is evident from the quarter’s most substantial rounds.

Vietnam Prosperity Crypto Asset Exchange (CAEX), a member of VPBank’s financial ecosystem, raised US$380 million in April 2026 to meet capital requirements to pursue entry into Vietnam’s regulated crypto pilot program as it aims to establish itself as a leading crypto asset trading platform for Vietnamese investors. The round was the largest in the crypto vertical for the quarter.

Another example of the growing emphasis on institutional adoption of crypto is the round secured by Elliptic. A British blockchain analytics firm, Elliptic secured in May 2026 a US$120 million Series D round, marking the fifth largest round in the crypto space for Q2 2026.

Founded in 2013, Elliptic develops cryptoasset anti-money laundering (AML) and sanctions compliance tools based on blockchain analytics. Its clients are primarily financial institutions and crypto businesses, although it also provides blockchain investigation tools and data to government agencies. Customers have included cryptocurrency exchanges, banks, and government agencies.

The recent fundraising round aims to accelerate Elliptic’s mission to deliver enterprise-grade on-chain analytics to the world’s largest and most demanding banks, fintech startups, government agencies, and crypto and payments companies.

Finally, SignalPlus, a Hong Kong-based provider of institutional-grade digital asset options and derivatives trading infrastructure, closed a US$50 million Series B1 funding round in June 2026. This round ranks as the 10th largest in the crypto space during Q2 2026.

SignalPlus builds institutional-grade derivatives trading infrastructure to cater to the evolving capital markets. Its platform provides professional options analytics, real-time risk management, and execution tools to hedge funds, market makers, proprietary trading desks, and asset managers across digital and traditional financial markets.

The capital injection will accelerate SignalPlus’s global expansion efforts and broaden its product suite back into traditional finance asset classes, starting with structured commodity derivatives. Furthermore, the proceeds will power the launch of the SignalPlus 2.0 platform upgrade, which aims to integrate agentic AI into trading workflows.

Asia leads wealthtech funding

In wealthtech, Asia led the way in total funding, securing US$600 million through 14 deals. This surpasses the US, which secured US$500 million through 30 deals, and Europe, which raised just US$100 million through 22 deals.

CRED, a fintech platform from India, raised the largest wealthtech deal of Q2 2026, securing a US$500 million Series H in June 2026 to accelerate growth, build institutional muscle, and extend its leadership across categories as it works towards a potential initial public offering (IPO).

CRED offers a comprehensive suite of services to its members, enabling them to manage their credit cards and other payments, track and enhance their credit scores, and monitor their financial activities across various accounts. The company serves 17 million Indians, processes over 40% of credit card bill payments in India, and its lending business has grown to INR 240 billion crore (US$2.5 billion) in assets under management (AUM) for the top financial institutions in India.

Another Indian startup, Sahi, also made waves in the wealthtech sector by raising the seventh largest round of funding in the quarter. Sahi, a stock-trading and wealth tech startup, successfully secured US$33 million in a Series B funding round in April 2026, reports Live Mint.

Since its launch, Sahi has reported a number of operational milestones, including the processing of 130 million trades, and the opening of 400,000 digital accounts.

Q2 2026 was a disappointing quarter for wealthtech funding. Despite a 40% increase in funding volume compared to Q1 2026, reaching US$1.4 billion, the overall level of funding remained low compared to the same period last year, declining by 41.7%.

Fintech exits decline

Fintech logged its fewest quarterly IPOs in more than four years, down 64% QoQ and a sharp reversal from the high of 25 in Q4 2025. The largest IPO in Q2 2026 was OnEMITechnology in India valued at US$305 million.

M&A fell too, reaching 203 and marking its own low for the period.

The quarter’s largest exit was Russian neobank Tochka, acquired by Russian private investment conglomerate Interros Holdings for US$1.1 billion. Tochka is a digital bank that provides a range of financial and non-financial services for entrepreneurs and businesses. The bank operates under its own universal license, and reportedly serves around 800,000 clients.

After Tochka, Trepp followed suit, acquired by financial information services provider Fitch Group for US$1 billion in cash.

Founded in 1979, Trepp is a leading provider of data, insights, and technology solutions to the structured finance, commercial real estate, and banking sectors. Its solutions and analytics help primary and secondary market participants enhance operational efficiencies, information transparency, and investment performance.

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange platform Kraken, led the two next biggest M&A deals. In April, it announced its acquisition of Bitnomial for US$550 million in a mix of cash and stock.

Bitnomial is a fully Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)-licensed derivatives company in the US built for digital assets. This acquisition provides Payward with the foundation to offer regulated spot margin, perpetuals and options to eligible US clients on Kraken and NinjaTrader.

In May, Payward acquired Reap for up to US$600 million payable in a mix of cash and Payward stock. This transaction valued Payward’s equity at US$20 billion.

Reap is a stablecoin-native, card issuing and payments infrastructure company enabling global money movement. The company’s stack connects traditional financial systems with digital assets, enabling businesses to move money globally. Its platform integrates card networks, traditional finance rails, and stablecoin-native settlement into a single API-driven infrastructure, supporting corporate cards, cross-border payouts, and stablecoin-enabled treasury management.

This acquisition expands Payward Services, the company’s business-to-business (B2B) infrastructure platform.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Switzerland, based on image by Quickgraph via Magnific

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