Key European RegTech investment stats in Q1 2026:
- European RegTech deal activity dropped by 6% QoQ ins Q1
- UK firms accounted for 23% of all European RegTech deals, reinforcing the countries’ position as the main RegTech hub in the region
- Cleafy, a Milan-based RegTech company specialising in banking fraud prevention and regulatory threat intelligence, raised $13.9m in a Series B round, making it one of the biggest European RegTech deals of the quarter
European RegTech deal activity dropped by 6% QoQ ins Q1
European RegTech raised $275.6m across 44 deals in Q1 2026, unchanged in volume from the 44 transactions recorded in Q1 2025, though funding climbed by over 2x from the $133.6m raised in that period.
Against Q4 2025, deal activity dipped 6% from 47 transactions, while funding fell 43% from $487.2m.
The sharp sequential decline in funding alongside stable deal volumes suggests that the large transactions which drove the Q4 2025 figure were isolated rather than indicative of a sustained trend, with Q1 2026 returning to a level of capital deployment more consistent with earlier quarters.
UK firms accounted for 23% of all European RegTech deals, reinforcing the countries’ position as the main RegTech hub in the region
UK retained its position as the most active European RegTech market in Q1 2026, recording 10 deals and a 23% share of total activity, up marginally from nine deals and a 20% share in Q1 2025.
France climbed into second place with seven deals and a 16% share, a new entrant to the top three having not featured in the equivalent ranking a year earlier.
Spain also entered the ranking for the first time, taking third place with five deals and an 11% share.
Both Germany, which had held second position in Q1 2025 with five deals and an 11% share, and the Netherlands, which had sat third with four deals and a 9% share, dropped out of the top three entirely.
The wholesale change below the UK suggests a meaningful shift in where European RegTech investment is concentrating, with southern and western European markets gaining ground at the expense of the region’s historically stronger technology hubs.
Cleafy, a Milan-based RegTech company specialising in banking fraud prevention and regulatory threat intelligence, raised $13.9m in a Series B round, making it one of the biggest European RegTech deals of the quarter
The round was co-led by United Ventures and eCAPITAL.
Cleafy’s platform helps banks and financial institutions meet their compliance obligations around fraud detection and customer protection by identifying hostile infrastructure and attacker intent before any damage occurs.
Its proprietary engine, backed by more than 85 international patents, draws on web, mobile, backend and network telemetry to reconstruct how attacks originate and spread, giving risk and compliance teams the foresight to act weeks ahead of a breach.
The company serves more than 150 financial institutions across Europe and Latin America, protecting over 250 million end users, with clients including ING, BCC Iccrea Group, Illimity Bank and BPS (Suisse).
The recent launch of Cleafy for Workforce extends the platform to detecting insider threats and compromised accounts within corporate systems, an area of growing regulatory scrutiny.
The fresh capital will fund expansion of its predictive capabilities and deeper penetration into key banking markets across Europe and Latin America.
Keep up with all the latest RegTech news here
Copyright © 2026 RegTech Analyst
Copyright © 2018 RegTech Analyst
