Financial technology is growing exponentially in the 21st century. We list the world’s top 10 fi ntech companies

Fintech, a portmanteau of ‘fi nancial technology’, refers to fi rms using new technology to compete with traditional fi nancial methods in the delivery of fi nancial services, AI, blockchain, cloud computing and so on

T he fi ntech industry is estimated to be worth over $130 billion as of 2022, with predictions of the valuation surpassing $400 billion by 2027. With this in mind, which of these fi ntech giants dominating the industry is the most valuable?

Th e team at Utility Bidder has revealed which fi ntech companies reached a $1 billion valuation the fastest, which fi ntech companies are the most valuable, and which countries are home to the most fi ntech companies.

+UNICORN STATUS

In business, a unicorn is a privately held startup company valued at over $1bn. The term was fi rst published in 2013, coined by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures.

Since then, ‘Unicorns’ with over $10 billion in valuation have been designated as ‘decacorn’ companies. For private companies valued over $100 billion, the terms ‘centicorn’ and ‘hectocorn’ have been used.

SpaceX is in the forefront to reach the elusive ‘superunicorn’ status, to reach over $1 trillion valuation while remaining as a private company.

1 Stripe USA San Francisco $95bn 2 checkout.com UK London $40bn 3 Revolut UK London $25bn 4 Chime USA San Francisco $25bn 5 Ripple USA San Francisco $15bn 6 blockchain.com UK London $14bn 7 Plaid USA San Francisco $14bn 8 Brex USA San Francisco $12bn 9 Deel USA San Francisco $12bn 10 Bolt USA San Francisco $11bn

*FTX had been listed as the fourth largest fi ntech company in the world, valued at $32bn until investigations for massive fraud closed the company in November 2022. See page 22 of this month’s Platinum for the full story.

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Th e research revealed: • Stripe has been revealed as the most valuable fi ntech company in the world, with a total valuation of $95 billion. After being established in 2010, it took the company four years to achieve unicorn status in early 2014. • Checkout.com’s $40 billion valuation places them in second place - after being founded in 2009, the company took 10 years to achieve unicorn status. • Tying up the top three is Revolut with a $33 billion valuation – the fi ntech company reached a $1 billion valuation in 2018, taking fewer than three years from launch.

Th e research also revealed the following: • Pacaso reached unicorn status the fastest out of all the companies on the list - taking fewer than six months to reach a valuation of $1 billion. Th ey are followed by Magic

Eden who achieved the status in just over nine months. • Th e United States takes the crown for fi ntech capital of the world - home to 132 companies with a unicorn status; the fi ntech companies in the US make up over 50% of all companies in the list. • Th e UK has the second highest number of fi ntech companies valued at over $1 billion with a total of 26. Apart from one of these being based in Peterborough, all are based in

London. www.utilitybidder.co.uk

Stripe Inc. is currently listed as the world’s largest fi ntech company, dual-based in Dublin and San Francisco.

It was founded by Irish entrepreneur brothers John and Patrick Collinson in 2009 in Palo Alto, California. Through growth, acquisition and investment – including £2m from PayPal founders Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, Irish entrepreneur Liam Casey, and others – Stripe achieved ‘unicorn’ status in January 2014.

In 2021, former Bank of England governor Mark Carney was appointed to the board of Stripe.

The Wall Street Journal reported in July 2022 that the company’s internal share price had fallen causing its implied valuation to drop from $95 billion to $74bn. In November 2022, the company announced it intended to initiate layoff s, believed to be around one in seven of their workforce.

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2837 BOLT

Whenever a male Prime Minister newly takes offi ce, there is inevitably the excessive, maybe even slightly invasive interest in their wife or girlfriend. Or both, in some cases.

Samantha Cameron had to put up with ‘Sam Cam’. Skipping over Theresa May, we come to Boris Johnson’s wife / partner / muse Carrie, and probably wished we hadn’t. So what of Akshata Murty?

Akshata Narayan Murty, was born in Nubli, India in April 1980 and, as wife of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has attempted to assimilate into something approaching an ordinary life in the UK. Or at least as normal a life as a wealthy heiress whose husband holds the highest offi ce in the country can ever ascribe to.

Early life for Akshata Narayan Murty in Jayanagar, a suburb of Bangalore, was middle class and comfortable. Her father NR Narayan Murty’s software company, Infosys, was in its infancy in those days. While fairly successful, it was not yet the billion-dollar leviathan it is today.

Th e work ethic for which Narayana is famed is often cited as an infl uence on Akshata and her own business ambitions. Yet more believe it’s her mother, Sudha, a writer who runs the Infosys charitable foundation, who ‘is really the underestimated force in her daughter’s life’.

In the 1990s, Murty attended Baldwin Girls’ High School, Bangalore, and in 1998 studied economics and French at Claremont McKenna College in California. She has a diploma in clothes manufacturing from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, and a Master of Business Administration from Stanford University, California.

It was while she was at Stanford University that she met Rishi Sunak. He was studying for a Master of Business Administration postgraduate as a Fulbright Scholar. Th ey married in 2009.

Rishi Sunak, although born in Southampton to a wealthy family, entered Parliament for the safe Conservative seat of Richmond (Yorks) in 2015. Every step of the way, Akshata has been there with him. But now, with his rapid elevation to the top job, how will she fulfi l her distinctly unoffi cial role?

Continued over >

Kirby Sigston Manor and Lake

The then President of India, Dr. APJ. Abdul Kalam presenting the Padma Shri Award to Dr. Sudha Murty

Akshata’s father Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy

LOW KEY HOME LIFE

For example, if you found yourself on a train from King’s Cross to Darlington, there’s a chance you may sit near or opposite a fairly anonymous woman in her early 40s, with a ponytail, tucked under a baseball cap, with two daughters being encouraged to get on with their homework. Mathematics, presumably.

If by chance you do see these three, there’s a chance that you are peering at Akshata. Doubtless there will be a curtain of security (whether they’re visible or not is down to the trained eye) in the vicinity, but this is an example of ‘SUMMER OF CHAOS’ how the Prime Minister’s wife wishes to get on with life. Summer 2022 was a bruising time personally and profes-

Home – aside from No.10 – is Kirby Sigston Manor in sionally for the family. With Boris Johnson’s eventual resigSunak’s own constituency of Richmond (Yorks). A relative- nation as PM (brought about in part by Chancellor Sunak’s ly modest manor house - as manor houses go - it was bought own resignation leading to an unprecedented governmental for an equally modest £1.5m, and is located in a beautiful collapse), the hustings were open for the new leader. spot - to use a colloquialism - in the Despite Sunak’s predictions of ecomiddle of nowhere. Th e county town of nomic chaos if they chose Liz Truss as Northallerton, for reference, is a little leader, the Conservative party voted over three miles away. her in as Prime Minister. Th e family

It has proved itself, say friends, to be assumed that their political elevation a shelter from the rough and tumble of was over, or at least stalled, and Murty politics. Renovations are said to have was said to have told friends that, decost £400,000 for a swimming pool, spite the disappointment on behalf of gym and a lavishly verdant garden. her husband, she could look forward to

It has also given Akshata and her quieter times. family the refuge away from the hur- Th e fact that Sunak’s predictions ly-burly of Westminster politics that she wishes to be no came frighteningly true within the fi rst few weeks of her real part of. tenure off ered no respite for the City, nor for the UK economy as a whole. It also meant that Truss’ brief reign was over and Sunak’s appointment as Prime Minister was more or less a coronation. Th e couple now offi cially reside at No.10, which Akshata refurbished when Sunak was Chancellor. Yet even in higher echelons of Government, she is still something of an enigma. Jeremy Hunt, a close ally of Rishi Sunk, still had not met Akshata a few weeks into his tenure at No.11.

PERSONAL WEALTH

For those who do have access to her, Akshata is said to be very guarded about her public persona. She is painfully aware of how she is judged in numbers. A personal wealth of £730m sets her apart from, well, almost everyone. Th at level of comfort doesn’t make it easy to show a caring face, especially during a cost of loving crisis, infl ation, recession, strikes and more.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty promote Poppy Day

Akshata Murty off ers the waiting press some tea - in £38 mugs

Th e money – the eye-watering sum above – comes from being one of two children of NR Narayana Murty, one of India’s richest men and founder of the Infosys tech company, which he started in Pune with seed capital of $250 more than 40 years ago and is now valued at $85 billion.

Most of her fortune is derived from a holding of just under 1% in the company, supplemented by her own investments in Catamaran Ventures, the family’s private investment arm.

Th e spoils of inheritance are an easy stick be beaten with. Th is is not helped by Rishi Sunak wearing his wealth like a huge banner, in stark contrast to what is supposed to be the conservative (with a small ‘c’) archetype of the Prime Minister, who is supposed to be leader for everyone in the UK, and that his salary is paid for by the public purse.

Akshata, on the other hand, reveals herself to a pointedly muted style in comparison. When supervising the removal team into Downing Street, she wore a fl uff y gilet, leggings and faux-fur sliders. Her low-key look has been rumbled on occasion, however. When she brought out a tray of tea for photographers outside their Kensington home, it was served in mugs, noted the Daily Mail, that cost £38 each.

+NON-DOM STATUS In early 2022, newspapers reported that Murty had non-domiciled status, meaning she did not have to pay tax on income earned abroad while living in the UK. The status costs approximately £30,000 to secure, and allowed her to avoid paying an estimated £20 million in UK taxes.

None of this is illegal, of course, but with a husband who was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and himself being a US citizen, it wasn’t a good look. To avoid further political fall-out, Murty herself made a statement in April 2022 that she would pay UK taxes on her global income, adding that she did not want the issue “to be a distraction for my husband”. ‘FIRST LADY’

Observers are waiting with keenness for when Akshata makes her fi rst public moves as - to use an imported phrase - ‘First Lady’. Insiders say the plan is to distance the Sunaks from Boris Johnson’s leadership; Downing Street needs to change from a place regarded as a fi efdom of the sycophantic in-crowd of the Johnson era, run by the ‘Court of Carrie’ clique.

Specifi cally, Akshata intends to use the couple’s connection to Yorkshire to bring ‘more of the north to Downing Street’, promoting British crafts and trades as a USP of post-Brexit Britain.

As for No.10 itself, Akshata has designs on it in a more literal sense. Under Sunak’s chancellorship, she set about redecorating the residence, commissioning exquisite fabrics, including fi ne damask.

Th e upholsterers made long, fully interlined curtains, hand-pleated and held back with heavy coordinating tassels in red, gold and the ivory of the damask. Th e ornate cornicing was hand-gilded, as it would have been originally, and a rug was commissioned to almost fi ll the room.

Akshata, it was said, was very involved and keen to see how things are made. She was also not afraid of getting stuck in and helping either. Having a diploma in clothing manufacturing does help make the appropriate informed choices, one supposes.

If this apparent opulence concerns as you ‘more of the bloody same’, especially given the Johnsons’ outrageous refurbishment of No 11, and the pilfering of the public purse to fund it, this was all paid for by the Sunaks, at a very substantial cost. It’s almost as if the ambitious chancellor guessed he might return to Downing Street one day…