• • The Million Dollar Club ($1-10 M) – While there’s a larger re-bundling trend that has swept the neobanking segment – with larger neobanks expanding their product portfolio across financial and lifestyle products – the unbundling phenomenon still continues. A plethora of early-stage neobanks raised pre-seed and seed investments in 2021. Neobanks like Daylight, First Boulevard, Chqbook, etc. raised funding with a proposition of providing inclusive finance for underserved segments like the LGBTQ+, black community, and micro-enterprises respectively. Nigerian fintech Prospa’s $3.8m pre-seed investment from Global Founders Capital and Liquid 2 Ventures; sustainable bank Ardo’s $6m seed capital round; and Visa’s $5m investment in Indian neobank Open make for some notable names under this category.

• • Taking It Up A Notch ($10-100 M) – A diverse set of players were observed to raise funds in the next series of rounds. e-Commerce Banking platform Juni was amongst the few who made it to this list – with raising $73m in its Series A funding round. Other names include those of Aussie neobank Volt, who landed a $37.7m deal in alliance with Australian Finance Group Ltd.; US-based SMB-focused neobank Novo, who closed a round of $40.7m in its latest Series A funding round; and the securing of $17m in a pre-Series B funding by the Philippines’ credit-focused neobank Tonik.

• • Raising The Bar ($100-500 M) – As we move up the neobanking funding pyramid, we observe the names of some of the head-turners of this season. UK-based Monzo’s fresh $500m funding round helped jump its valuation to a booming $4.5b. On similar lines was Open’s October $100m fundraise by Temasek, valuing the neobank at an overall $500m. South Africa’s TymeBank has also raised a total amount of $180m, thanks to its recent Series B extension—led by Tencent and CDC group—which helped raise the neobank $70m. UK-based Zopa, US challenger bank Mercury, and Danish neobank Lunar were also amongst those who walked home with a nifty sum.

• • Reaching The Crescendo ($500M+) – Amongst the big 5 mega-neobanks who made it to the top of the fund-raising pyramid, Latin America’s beloved Nubank took headlines by the storm with its multiple rounds of investments within the same year. Its Series G funding of $750m in June 2021 swelled its total valuation to a thriving $30b. Revolut also became UK’s most valued digital bank – in securing its recent Series E funding of $800m, thereby shooting its valuation all the way up to $33b. N26’s record-breaking $900m raise at a $9b valuation topped the charts, entering the German challenger bank in the list of the top 20 Fintechs in the world. US-based Chime and Varo also made their own headline-worthy funding rounds, placing each at billion-dollar valuations. Among the big 5, only Chime still operates in partnership with a couple of sponsor banks, while the remaining four have obtained full-fledged banking licenses to challenge the incumbents’ business from the ground up.

The most extraordinary triumph that the year 2021 has held for these neobanks was the ability to grow and expand their businesses through multiple funding rounds witnessed within short spans of time, i.e. within the same year. The next year may hold even more game-changing opportunities for these challengers to implore – with emerging trends of embedded finance, SuperApps, DeFi, etc., paving their way into the field of finance – where the landscape remains open to the medley of interplay.