125 and counting.
That’s how many Georgia FinTech companies we’ve identified competing in a thriving and highly attractive marketplace. These players range from multi-billion, multi-national public entities (First Data, NCR) to fast-growing firms that have recently gone public (Cardlytics, EVO Payments), industry powerhouses headquartered elsewhere with significant local presence leveraging Georgia’s robust FinTech labor force (Fiserv, FIS) to companies that chose to relocate to capitalize on our dynamic ecosystem (Featurespace, FattMerchant) – and more than a few startups that are already earning national accolades (Vital4, GroundFloor, Softgiving).
It’s in this latter category where some scrappy young players have almost certainly escaped our view. If you’re aware of any other firms helping to shape Georgia FinTech, please let us know and we’ll add them to our listing. After all, this is a crowdsourced initiative and our goal is to create and maintain a valuable resource for the benefit of the entire community.
Hopefully some of the figures our research has generated will already look familiar to you- such as the $72 billion in revenue produced by Georgia’s top 20 FinTech companies alone. Atlanta’s longstanding reputation as the epicenter of payments processing (Transaction Alley- remember?) is borne out by our finding that two-thirds of all US payment transactions are handled by Georgia FinTech companies. And our count of 38,000 Georgia FTEs employed in the FinTech space is conservative by design, as we consciously omit adjacent roles such as professional services, call center, bank staffing beyond IT and innovation teams, etc. There is no crisp, single definition of FinTech- it’s a “you know it when you see it” kind of thing.
Through this blog we plan to share with you an ongoing stream of thought leadership- drawing from our own work via TAG FinTech as well as contributions from leaders at the continually expanding network of firms that make Georgia’s FinTech ecosystem so powerful.
Let’s keep the dialogue going- please reach out with any suggestions for coverage, or say hello at one of TAG FinTech’s upcoming Lunch & Learns. And definitely mark your calendar for April 22-23, when FinTech South will again take the field at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
