Startups in London raised more funding than in any other European city this year
Forget Brexit fears: London's startup community is alive and well, new research has suggested – with startups in the capital receiving more investment in the first half of this year than in any other European city.
This chart, put together for City PM by Statista using figures from EY's Startup Barometer Germany report, shows London startups received €1.3bn (£1.1bn) in the first six months of the year, up from €1bn during the same period last year.
That's more than €300m higher than Stockholm, the next-biggest city for startup funding, where companies raised just over €1bn.
Read more: Nine up-and-coming fintech startups to watch (and Lloyds thinks so too)
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Although funding rose across most of Europe, in Berlin it fell by almost two-thirds, from €1.5bn in the first half of 2015 to just €520m this year.
Germany followed Berlin's lead, with investment dropping by more than half in the last year, from just under €2bn in the first half of 2015 to €957m in the first half of this year.
Meanwhile, UK startups received €2.2bn (£1.9bn) funding in the first six months of the year, up from €1.5bn in the first half of 2015, while in Sweden startups received €1bn of funding, up from €872m last year.
That said, fintech funding has fallen in the UK, with the value of funding declining 12 per cent to $103m (£78.4m) in the second quarter of the year, according to figures published last week by KPMG and CB Insights.
Although that was put down to a "more cautious environment", Warren Mead, KPMG's global co-head of fintech added: "Regardless of Brexit, the UK will not give up its role as Europe’s fintech leader easily.
“Traditional financial institutions and banks of all sizes are realising that the opportunities associated with fintech aren’t about who has the deepest pockets – and so they’re intensifying their innovation efforts. Therefore, despite the global decline in quarter two, overall fintech funding remains on track to surpass 2015 levels.”