As 2019 enters its final weeks, it seems timely to start looking at what sectors are poised to close out the year with a bang.

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For this first installment, were concentrating on industries that attracted both high funding totals and a lot of individual funding rounds. The methodology, which well detail more below, 1 focuses most heavily on North American startups and attempts to avoid the distortive effects of single supergiant rounds on funding totals.

We ended up focusing on four sectors that are attracting rising funding: Fintech, real estate, insurance and automation. All are seeing particular traction at the late stage, where checks are largest.

Below, we unpack the numbers and trendlines for each industry in more detail:

Fintech And Banking

This seems to be the year that every startup decided to become a bank. And every venture capitalist decided to write a check to one or more of those startups.

Much of the funding went to neobanks, a fancy term to describe upstart digital banks working on everything from savings and checking accounts to mobile debit cards. Many are focused on bringing banking services to both consumers and businesses that have previously been underserved by traditional banks.

Investors are apparently banking on some big returns. Companies focused on fintech, banking and mobile payments in North and South America brought in $11.7 billion in 2019, per Crunchbase (see query). Thats up from $9.2 billion in all of 2018, per Crunchbase.

It wasnt just a handful of giant investments either. This years funding was spread across more than 700 known rounds for startups.

Still, supergiant rounds did help boost the totals. One of the best known upstart banking brands, Chime, pulled in an astonishing $700 million across two mega-rounds this year, pushing its valuation to $5.8 billion. Brazils Nubank, meanwhile, raised a whopping $400 million in a single July round.

Real Estate And Property Management

The single biggest headline generator in the venture-backed real estate space for 2019 was undoubtedly the implosion of WeWork and its ill-fated IPO. But setting that debacle aside, other trendlines for the real estate startup sphere this year have been pretty positive.

As of early December, investors had pumped just over $5.2 billion into an assortment of U.S. startups. The largest funding recipients include Knotel, the furnished workspace rental provider, Knock, the online home-selling platform, and Compass, a tech-enabled real estate brokerage. Altogether, those three companies raised nearly $1.2 billion in funding rounds this year alone. Other potentially less capital-intensive areas of proptech also attracted investors favor, including a bevy of property management software providers.

Insurance

Insurance is a startup sector thats been growing steadily for a few years now, and it hit its highest funding levels to date in 2019.

As of mid-December, U.S. companies in the insurance and insuretech categories secured just over $4.75 billion in seed through late stage funding (see query). Thats up from $3.4 billion in 2018.

A huge wave of seed-stage insurance startups launched three to five years ago, and thats one of the reasons big financings and investment totals are rising so much. Hot companies in that cohort are rapidly maturing, and theyre seeking ever-larger later-stage rounds. Corporate venture arms of established insurance companies are also active in the space, contributing to rising valuations.

Clover Health, a provider of health plans for Medicare recipients, closed the largest funding round, a $500 million Series E. Root Insurance, which offers car insurance with rates tied to driver behavior, raised $350 million, while Lemonade, a home and renters insurance provider, pulled in $300 million.

Automation

Automation is essentially shorthand for getting technology to do something that used to require a human. In the dawn of the industrial age, this generally entailed huge, heavy machines voraciously sucking down fuel. Today, its likely a software program capable of running on a pocket-sized device.

To that end, automation software developers are securing rising sums of venture capital. In 2019, U.S. companies in the space pulled in $2.89 billion in known funding, per Crunchbase data. (See query.), exceeding 2018 levels. This years total is expected to rise higher in coming months as more late-reported funding rounds get added to the database.

Familiar names topped the list of largest funding recipients. UiPath, which develops software to automate repetitive tasks for office workers, pulled in $568 million in Series D financing, bringing total funding to date to $1 billion. Rival Automation Anywhere, meanwhile, closed on a fresh $290 million last month.

Its Not All Up

Overall, 2019 is shaping up as yet another really strong year for U.S. venture funding. The rise of supergiant funding rounds, a robust fundraising environment for well-regarded venture firms, and growing momentum across a host of hot sectors are all factors contributing to keeping the investments flowing.

But while this piece highlights standout sectors, it wasnt all rosy in startup-land this year. Thats why, for the next installment in this end-of-year series, well look at sectors that posted significant declines in 2019.

For now, though, well end on an optimistic note, observing that while everything was up, automation, real estate, fintech and insurance all posted pretty impressive venture funding tallies.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias.

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This Was A Big Year For Fintech, Real Estate, Insurance, And Automation - Crunchbase News