Investors flock to AI and PayTech ventures, GlobalData

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the emerging technology that attracted the largest number of investors during 2018, according to GlobalData.

More than 1,900 investors funded 1,000 AI-based companies in 2018, including Horizon Robotics, Beijing SenseTime, Zoox, Yitu Technology and Pony.ai. AI actually had the lowest investors-to-idea ratio (number of venture capital investors/number of funded companies) among emerging technologies. On the other hand, companies working in the payments space held the top position with 2.4 investors-to-idea ratio in 2018 as mobile payments, digital transactions, cryptocurrency and digital wallets gained traction.

Payments technology is also ahead of other emerging technologies on average deal size front. This is driven by a $14 billion funding received by Ant Financial Services – the parent company for Alipay. Also of note are Bitmain Technologies, Revolut, Coinbase and Tradeshift.

Aurojyoti Bose, Financial Deals Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “With expanding technology-driven disruption across industries, we expect further growth in disruptive tech companies’ funding in coming years. These technologies will play a central role in the companies’ future strategies, with early adopters likely to emerge as winners.” 

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