The opportunity ship has sailed for personal finance management, lending, or robo advisory sectors of fintech, according to Rebecca Lynn, co-founder of venture capital firm Canvas. So where are investors looking for new opportunities?
“Startups that are addressing the infrastructure issues of banking, whether it’s blockchain, or fraud prevention, or compliance,” she said during the Future of Fintech conference this morning. Compliance, in particular, is an area of focus for Lynn. “Banks really need help with claims, and complaints, and especially on the fraud front.”
There are a lot of regulatory issues that are coming down the pipe for banks, she added. “And you look at how much money these banks spend on, what are basically ‘body shops,’ to help them with fraud, and it’s not sustainable, as fraud intensifies.”
The sentiment was shared by Satya Patel, partner at venture capital firm Homebrew, during the panel. “We’re looking at infrastructure companies that are enabling innovation in a different way than it was done before,” he said. “Especially innovation around compliance.”
On the other hand, insurtech is “very overheated,” according to Patel, with companies “that shouldn’t exist” potentially “causing trouble for companies that are doing things right.” A similar trend is happening in the lending space. “But it’s a great time to invest in lending,” he said. “Like in any market, a rash of companies emerged in the space, but the market is clearing, and we’re looking at the second generation of those companies that are coming along now.”
Those lending fintechs, however, are currently competing for the same customer, which drives up the acquisition costs, making harder for startups to scale, Lynn said. “The market is very saturated at this point, and new entrants should bring in either different data for underwriting, or some new ways to score customers, if they want to succeed.”