4 USA-based FinTechs that reached unicorn status in 2022

By Edlyn Cardoza

The term ‘unicorn’ is what most people in the financial sector call a privately owned start-up with a value of over $1 billion. Until 2021, the USA had 105 FinTech unicorns. North America’s continued growth in the number of FinTech unicorns is driven by the extensive funding the sector has received.

In the US, the investor frenzy is mainly driven by the realisation that Big Finance is ready for a tech makeover. Hence, the leading FinTech unicorns populating the US ecosystem come from sub-sectors like Payments, WealthTech, and Challenger Banks, as the region is witnessing a rising appetite for digital financial services.

Below are 4 US-based FinTechs that reached unicorn status in 2022:

• Caribou

Caribou believes taking control of your car payments should be a simple, transparent process. Too many people drive around with a bad deal on auto loans and car insurance. What’s more, many people don’t realise it or don’t know what to do about it. Caribou’s partnerships with local and community lenders bring customers competitive rates and lower monthly payments for both their auto loans and car insurance.

Caribou, the auto FinTech whose mission is to help people take control of their car payments, recently announced it has closed $115 million in an oversubscribed Series C funding round, bringing its valuation to $1.1 billion. The round was led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, with participation from new investors, including Innovius Capital and Harmonic, and existing investors, including Accomplice, CMFG Ventures, Curql Fund, Firebolt Ventures, Gaingels, Moderne Ventures, Motley Fool Ventures, and others.

• Clear Street

Clear Street is building a modern infrastructure for capital markets. Clear Street started with a prime brokerage, an industry that has struggled to see any real innovation in decades. Their cloud-native, prime brokerage platform has redefined what it means to work with a prime broker – improving their clients’ access, speed, and service. Today, they offer institutions, professional traders, and brokers everything they need to trade U.S. equities and options. In the future, Clear Street will give all types of investors access to every major product in every major market.

Clear Street, a FinTech building with better access to capital markets, announced the completion of a $165 million Series B round to accelerate the launching of its platform. The round was led by Prysm Capital, LLC, a growth equity firm that partners with disruptive, category-leading companies in the technology, consumer, and healthcare sector.

• Dock

Dock offers a global platform in payments and banking for disruptors of any industry, size or segment. Dock is one of the leaders in technology for payment and banking as a service in Latin America. The company adds value, innovation, and scalability to its customers’ businesses by gathering card issuance, digital banking and acquiring on a single and comprehensive platform.

Dock’s modular solutions enhance critical processes that accelerate the ability of companies to create payment media and digital banking services. The result is a wider range of innovative products, greater consumer access to financial services and a better customer journey.

Dock, leading full-stack payments and digital banking platform across Latin America, recently announced that it has raised $110 million in growth funding led by Lightrock and Silver Lake Waterman, with participation from existing investors Riverwood Capital, Viking Global Investors and Sunley House Capital, bringing its valuation to over $1.5 billion.

• Unit

Unit is building the platform to power the next generation of financial services. Their simple and powerful banking-as-a-service API helps companies launch new banking products in weeks – not years. Unit’s Dashboard and a suite of APIs, SDKs, and white-labelled UIs enables developers to build financial features into their product — cards, accounts, payments, lending, and more.

Unit has raised a $100 million Series C led by Jeff Horing of Insight Partners at a $1.2 billion valuation. Joining Insight Partners are existing investors Accel, Better Tomorrow Ventures, and Flourish, as well as new investors Stepstone, Moving Capital (Uber alumni syndicate), and prominent fintech angels.

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