Road to next
A quarterly report exploring emerging investment trends in private financial markets and the venture capital ecosystem.
Q1 2025
Revolutionizing fintech: A pivotal moment for digital assets
Fintech is evolving. From AI-driven valuations to a resurgent crypto market, the financial landscape is transforming in real-time. The latest Road to Next report, produced in collaboration with Deloitte and PitchBook, breaks down the forces driving this shift.
Four things to know now:
Cryptocurrency, blockchain, and digital assets (CB&DA) are gaining momentum in fintech, with rising bitcoin prices, potential regulatory shifts in 2025, and lessons from past disruptions driving increased integration, while 2024 expansion-stage dealmaking approached $1 billion.
Despite lingering hesitancy due to volatility and short track records, retail and individual investors are increasingly embracing digital assets, though expansion-stage deal values remain lower than pandemic-era highs.
Fintech expansion-stage dealmaking is stabilizing, with nearly 500 deals in 2024, as AI fuels valuation growth and reverses two years of stagnation.
Fintech valuations are normalizing in 2024, with buyouts representing a larger portion of exits and YoY exit value showing an encouraging uptick for investors.
Fintech must evaluate internal systems for efficiency and transparency as the industry moves past hypergrowth into sustainable expansion.Heather Gates, Audit & Assurance Private Growth leader
Q1 2025
Exit momentum creates ripple effects
The fintech sector is seeing renewed exit strength, with Q4 2024 logging $6.8B in exit value—the highest quarterly figure since Q2 2022. While strategic acquisitions dropped by nearly 25 percent year-over-year, private equity firms are filling the gap with buyout activity increasing by one-third in the same period. This shift may signal a maturing fintech landscape where more companies are evolving into attractive buyout targets.
Digital assets generate fresh excitement
Cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and digital assets are gaining unprecedented momentum heading into 2025, driven by record-high bitcoin prices and anticipated favorable regulatory shifts. The expansion-stage ecosystem demonstrated resilience with 91 deals totaling nearly $1B in 2024, while distressed transactions remained low at less than 2 percent of deals. Enterprise adoption also is expanding beyond cryptocurrencies into areas like smart contracts, digital rights management, and pharmaceutical royalties.
Small cities gain big traction
While New York and San Francisco maintain their dominance in fintech dealmaking, emerging hubs are showing remarkable growth. Cleveland tripled its deal count year-over-year, while Salt Lake City doubled its activity. Most notably, Atlanta and Philadelphia each saw deal value surge by over 400 percent compared to 2023, significantly outpacing growth in traditional centers. This geographic diversification suggests that fintech innovation and talent are successfully expanding beyond conventional tech hubs.
$106.3M
median fintech valuation (2024)
331
CB&DA deals since 2022
10.3%
of 2021 fintech expansions exited
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