Why embedded finance firms like Railsr are bucking the wider trend of shrinking fintech funding

The raise: Embedded finance firm Railsr has landed $46 million in Series C funding, according to a company press release.

• The raise consisted of $26 million in equity and $20 million in debt.
• The UK-based fintech, formerly called Railsbank, said it was a “significant step” on its way to turning a maiden profit.

The market picture: Despite a decline in fintech funding, embedded finance has been one of the more resilient areas of financial services for growth and fundraising. Within the last month:

• British software as a service (SaaS) provider Toqio snagged €20 million ($23.6 million).
• London-based embedded finance small business lender Liberis secured $140 million in debt financing.
• Further afield, Pakistani embedded finance platform Neem raised $2.5 million and Australia’s Shaype bagged A$33 million ($25 million).

Room to grow: The relatively upbeat funding environment for embedded finance firms can be partly explained by its predicted growth.

• It powered around $2.6 trillion of US financial transactions in 2021, and that number is expected to hit $7 trillion by 2026, per Bain.
• And embedded-finance-driven business lending will skyrocket in popularity to grow sixfold over the next five years to reach $1.3 billion by 2026.

Embedded finance firms like Railsr will keep attracting investors because of the huge potential of the technology and its uses, which are central to super-app development and extend beyond banking into payments, investing, insurance, and cryptocurrency. Fintechs can partner with financial institutions and banks to let them embed financial services to improve the customer experience and better personalize products.

Attempts by Google and Apple to embed financial service products within their commerce platforms show that Big Tech realizes its potential and is ready to compete with banks to become leaders in the space.

This article originally appeared in Insider Intelligence’s Banking Innovation Briefing—a daily recap of top stories reshaping the banking industry. Subscribe to have more hard-hitting takeaways delivered to your inbox daily.

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