Hey Fintech Friends,

Happy Q4. More importantly, welcome back to our quarterly round-up!

For new readers, Signals is the premium subscriber edition of TWIF designed to get you away from the headlines and to explore the larger trendlines. Each quarter, we break down four key questions on fintech activity:

1. Which concepts are getting funded? 
2. Where are exits, M&A, and SPACs concentrated? 
3. Which firms are raising debt and venture funds for fintech? 
4. Which products were launched over the last quarter? 

If you haven’t already, subscribe to future editions here!

Overall activity

Fintechs raised a total of $4.13 billion in Q3, down 16% from the prior quarter and down 29% Year-over-Year. The number of rounds raised dropped 7% QoQ, and rounds shrank 10% in average size QoQ.

Across financial markets recession fears are abating, but the NASDAQ still fell 4.12% over the past quarter as investors came to terms with the prospect of interest rates persisting at or near their current levels through 2024.

These stabilizing market conditions prompted Instacart, Klaviyo, Better, and others to go public, with mixed results. Overall, total proceeds from IPOs are still up 159% relative to last year, which could spur further public listings in 2024 (👀 Stripe, Plaid*, Klarna, Checkout, Revolut..?). 

In other news:

• Cannabis businesses may soon be allowed to use financial and banking services in the US, pending Congressional approval of a bill that the US Senate Banking Committee advanced to the floor last week.
• The US Fed launched FedNow, its real-time payments network (not to be confused with The Clearing House’s RTP, an existing platform run by a private consortium of banks) (for a deeper dive on US real-time payments, highly recommend this run-down by Jenny Johnston).

Let’s dive into fintech activity in Q3.