Callum Turcan, Research Analyst and M&A Writer - Corum Group
Dealmaking activity in the FinTech sector is healthy—492 deals were announced in the first half of 2025. If that transaction pace continues, 2025 volumes will easily exceed 2024’s total of 672 transactions by a wide margin.
What does this brisk pace of M&A dealmaking mean?
It signals a strong market. There are serious buyers out there that are willing and able to pay good valuations for FinTech businesses. There are six trends powering M&A activity in the FinTech sector: blockchain, cross-border payments, AI, investment platforms, expense management and compliance. These trends are having a profound impact on the FinTech sector and will continue to play a star role in influencing M&A activity going forward.
Let's look at recent transactions illustrating these trends.
Starting with our first trend, blockchain. At its core, it’s a secure, decentralized way to record transactions—kind of like a digital ledger that’s shared across a network. What makes it powerful is that once something’s recorded, it can’t be changed. This tech is opening the door to tokenizing real-world assets, making them easier to trade and manage. Highlighting this trend, Tokeny, a provider of compliant tokenization offerings to financial institutions, sold a majority stake to Apex Group in May. The acquisition is a move aimed at transforming asset servicing by leveraging Web3 blockchain technology.
Moving on to our second trend, cross-border payments. Organizations and government entities operating in multiple countries need efficient ways to transfer money across national boundaries as do individuals looking to send money back to their families. Illustrating this trend, AZA Finance, a specialist in cross-border payments and foreign exchange solutions in Africa, was picked up by dLocal for $169.2 million in June to provide it with increased scale in Africa and to support its remittance operations.
Pivoting to our third trend, AI. Deploying AI to automate tasks such as transaction processing, data entry and compliance checks greatly improves efficiency by ensuring that information is entered correctly. Showcasing this trend, Finoux, a specialist in AI-driven digital transformation for financial industries, was acquired by Magellanic Cloud for $4.6 million at 1.4 times revenue in May to drive digital transformation across high-growth industries.
Shifting to our fourth trend, investment platforms. These investment platforms connect investors with companies seeking capital, helping to fuel early-stage growth and offering the potential for significant returns. Highlighting this trend, Sums Capital, an early-stage investment platform, was bought by Charli AI in April to enhance its ability to provide AI-powered financial insights, streamline capital flow and decision-making across both private and public markets.
Our fifth trend is expense management. Understanding what and how much is being spent on each item or service is essential to keeping a lid on operating expenses. Without tracking what’s being spent, there is no way for companies to truly understand their cost structure. Illustrating this trend, Dice, an AI-driven enterprise spend management platform, was picked up by Zaggle for $14.3 million at 9.4 times revenue in June. With the acquisition, Zaggle will offer a more comprehensive set of spend management solutions to customers.
Lastly, our sixth trend is compliance. Financial services is one of the most heavily regulated industries out there—so staying compliant isn’t optional. It’s key to avoiding major fines and keeping your reputation intact. Additionally, trust is essential in business and that’s doubly true for banks and insurers. Showcasing this trend, Gatenox, a compliance and verification platform, was purchased by Zebec Network in April to bring core regulatory infrastructure in-house and expand into more tightly regulated markets.
Buyers are sitting on trillions of dollars that they must deploy and are eager to grow their exposure in the sector, as indicated by the robust transaction volumes in the first half of the year. These six trends will continue driving M&A activity in the sector. Companies that map to any of these trends are seeing interest from acquirers flush with cash.
