Fintech's 2021 peak and 2024 trough are two different measures

The record

CB Insights published its State Of Fintech 2021 Report on 25 January 2022, describing 2021 as a record year in which global fintech funding more than doubled year over year, fintech accounted for one dollar in every five of global venture funding, and $100 million-plus mega-rounds tripled year over year. Three years later, its State of Fintech 2024 Report, published 14 January 2025, states that annual fintech deals fell 17 percent year over year to 3,580 and funding fell 20 percent to $33.7 billion in 2024, both seven-year lows.

What the sources establish

Both figures come from the same provider using its own fintech category across two separate report editions, which makes the comparison more consistent than a cross-provider one, though neither retrieved page restates whether CB Insights' fintech taxonomy itself changed between the two editions. The 2021 report frames fintech's peak as a share of global venture dollars; the 2024 report frames the decline in absolute deal count and dollars, a different unit for describing the same sector's trajectory.

Scope and revision

The 2024 report also states that median fintech deal size rose 33 percent year over year to $4 million even as deal count fell, with banking's median deal size rising 70 percent to $8.5 million, and that fintech merger and acquisition exits rose 6 percent to 664 for the year. A falling deal count alongside a rising median deal size means the composition of fintech dealmaking shifted toward fewer, larger, more selective checks rather than an even contraction across all deal sizes. The report also notes the 2024 annual funding decline was fintech's smallest in three years, meaning the two prior years fell further.

The decision in front of you

Anyone citing fintech's 2021 peak to frame a later year's numbers should be explicit about which measure is being compared: 2021's share-of-market framing, or 2024's absolute deal-and-dollar framing. Editorially, a founder pitching a fintech company today should expect evaluators to reference the tighter, more selective 2024 baseline rather than the 2021 peak.

• Is the comparison being made in absolute dollars, deal count, or share of total venture funding?
• Has the provider's own sector definition stayed the same across the years being compared?
• Does a falling deal count alongside a rising median deal size change what a single headline number implies?

Fintech's 2021 record and its 2024 seven-year low come from the same provider's own consistent lens, and read together they describe a market that got smaller in volume while its remaining deals got larger, not a uniform reversal of the 2021 boom.