THE SCARCE ASSET IN FINTECH ISN’T THE SOFTWARE. IT’S THE RECORD BEHIND IT.
FinTech deal volume fell 21% versus H2 2025. Disclosed value fell 67%. But four deals show exactly where the money still goes.
H1 2026 saw 194 FinTech transactions, down from 245 in H2 2025. Aggregate disclosed value dropped to $15.9bn from $47.7bn. Public company valuations kept falling too: the average forward revenue multiple across the sector is now 4.2x, down from 6.1x six months earlier.
Yet capital didn’t disappear. It relocated. Deutsche Börse took full ownership of ISS STOXX for $1.3bn, at roughly 20x adjusted EBITDA. Morningstar bought CRSP (the index business behind over $3trn of US equities) for $365m, 6.6x revenue. Fitch paid $1.0bn for Trepp’s structured finance and commercial real estate data. MSCI paid $120m for First Street’s physical climate risk models.
None of these four targets sell software you could rebuild with a competent engineering team. They sell a primary dataset: an index rulebook, a ratings series, a climate model validated against observed events. AI has made analysis cheap. It hasn’t made the underlying record cheap to recreate.
If your business’s value sits in a workflow rather than a dataset, what happens to your multiple when a well-funded competitor copies the workflow?
Author: Chris Brooke
Partner
Highly experienced M&A advisor with a particular emphasis on the FinTech sector, market data, and analytics, including ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) software and data globally; assignments include working with leading privately held and listed businesses covering the FinTech, market data, and ESG spectrum. Over a career spanning more than 25 years, I have advised on FinTech M&A transactions in over 17 countries worldwide, working with both buyers and sellers of FinTech businesses.
Prior to joining Goldenhill, Chris held senior positions in business and corporate development, marketing, and product management at several FinTech companies.
If you are an owner or senior executive of a FinTech business interested in discussing how M&A could help you accomplish your objectives – please get in touch.