Nyca Partners, a firm with investments in financial technology businesses including PayRange, Trellis, Affirm and Acorns, has collected another $210 million for its third venture capital fund.
Located in New York, Nyca’s debut fund closed on $31 million in 2014. Its second fund, a similarly focused fintech effort, raised $125 million in 2017.
Venture capital investment in fintech is poised to reach new heights in 2019, according to PitchBook. So far this year, investors have bet $8.6 billion on U.S.-based fintech upstarts. Last year, investment in the space reached an all-time high of more than $12 billion, with Robinhood, Coinbase and Plaid all raising multi-hundred-million-dollar rounds.
“Much has changed since we launched Nyca,” the firm wrote in a blog post announcing the fund. “In 2014 the fintech landscape was still a relatively small community of investors and several hundred companies, dominated by credit and payments strategies, and incipient crypto enthusiasts. Most regulators around the world were generally uninformed about the dramatic changes taking place in financial technology and with it the potential impact on banking, investing and insurance practices. In mid-2019, we estimate there are fifteen thousand funded fintech start-ups. Some have become very large companies extremely quickly, and entrepreneurs are creating new models and ideas with breathtaking speed.”
Nyca managing partner Hans Morris has a long history in the financial space. Most recently, he was managing director at General Atlantic; before that, he served as president of Visa and spent nearly three decades at Citigroup in roles including chief financial officer and head of finance.
The firm is also led by Ravi Mohan, partner and chief operating officer, who spent 25 years at Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase .
As part of the new fundraise, Nyca has promoted David Sica to partner. Prior to joining Nyca, Sica was a director at Visa.
Nyca announces its new fund just days after Oak HC/FT, another fintech-focused fund, raised $800 million to invest in the space.