Author: David Penn

Sezzle Adds Former PayPal Executives as Advisors

Sezzle Adds Former PayPal Executives as Advisors
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Sezzle

Sezzle_homepage_July2016

A pair of former PayPal vets are joining Team Sezzle.

Sezzle_ScottGuilfoyle

Scott Guilfoyle and Annick Fuchs will serve as advisers for the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based payments innovator. Guilfoyle, who was SVP and CTO of PayPal from 2008 to 2012, will join Sezzle as an adviser. Fuchs, former head of legal at PayPal, will be Sezzle’s new legal adviser.

In addition to his work with PayPal, Guilfoyle (right) was CIO of LendingTree, CIO of General Electric, and CIO of Consumer Products at Bank of America. Sezzle plans to leverage Guilfoyle’s diverse background to take on “the giants of payment processing,” said Sezzle CBDO Paul Paradis. Fuchs (below), who launched her law firm fuchsLAW this spring, pointed to her background in fintech in general and payments in specific as one reason why Sezzle was a good fit. “The plans and stage of the company match perfectly with what we specialize in at fuchsLAW.”

Sezzle_AnnickFuchs
       

Founded in 2016, Sezzle demonstrated its Sezzle Pay solution at FinovateSpring 2016. The company uses bank sign-on and ACH rails to provide lower-cost, immediate payments for retailers. And in charging 1.5% plus 15 cents, Sezzle is half the cost of credit and debit card processing. Sezzle Pay also enables rewards through debit card purchases, providing a 1% reward for consumers that pay via the platform.

Sezzle earned a semifinalist spot in the 2016 Minnesota Cup, the biggest, statewide, new-venture competition in the country. Currently in fundraising mode, Sezzle picked up an investment from Brussels-based E-Merge in June, the same month the company made major additions to its technology team.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Zopa Taps Ronen Benchetrit for CTO

Zopa Taps Ronen Benchetrit for CTO
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Zopa

Zopa_homepage_July2016

With more than 20 years’ experience in software and management, most recently as CTO for online gaming firm PokerStars, Ronen Benchtrit becomes the new chief technology officer for Zopa. Benchetrit will direct Zopa’s overall, growth-oriented technology strategy.

“I believe that Zopa is leading by example, with great innovative products and an award-winning team,” Benchetrit said. “I hope to use my experience and skills to drive rapid growth for Zopa, making it accessible to an ever-growing number of customers and leading Zopa as a fintech pioneer.”

Zopa CEO Jaidev Janardana praised Benchetrit’s record in promoting business growth, as well as his IT and technical skills, and says the new hire is “yet another building block in our drive to continue and accelerate Zopa’s growth in changing the landscape of consumer financial products.”

Before his work at PokerStars, Benchetrit was senior R&D projects manager and architect for Avaya. He was also vice president of R&D and co-founder of Trinity Computing Systems, and spent six years as a software engineer and team leader for the Israel Defense Forces. Benchetrit holds degrees in computer science from Mamram—IDF Computer Science Academy and The Open University of Israel—and graduated from the Cranfield Leadership Programme at Cranfield University’s School of Management in 2013.

Founded in 2007, Zopa demonstrated its technology at FinovateSpring 2008. In May, the company began offering auto-loan refinancing through its Zopa CarReFi program and in February, Zopa launched three new lending products: Classic, Access, and Plus to replace a number of existing solutions. The company has raised more than $56 million in funding, and includes among its investors Augmentum Capital, Benchmark, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Wellington Partners.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Actiance, BehavioSec, Boku, CardFlight, Lendio, Lighter Capital, Misys, NCR Corporation, NICE Systems, Polly Portfolio, Ripple, Sezzle, True Potential, Zopa

On Finovate.com

  • Polly Portfolio Launches Investment Chatbot for Facebook Messenger
  • Check out this week’s FinDEVr APIntelligence.
  • Zopa Taps Ronen Benchetrit for CTO
  • Sezzle Adds Former PayPal Executives as Advisers
  • Actiance Now Supports Compliance for Instagram

Around the web

  • Boku expands carrier billing service with new partnerships in Germany.
  • NCR and Wells Fargo partner to develop next-generation ATM technology.
  • Mizuho Financial Group to pilot Ripple for cross-border payments.
  • NICE Actimize teams up with Tableau Software to combine business intelligence with financial crime-compliance technology.
  • True Potential opens multi-asset portfolios to adviser market.
  • Lendio partners with Townsquare to promote its alternative small business financing solutions.
  • Misys relocates Texas office from Richardson to Plano to expand operations.
  • CardFlight reports that more than 64% of its merchants are now EMV-enabled, more than 3x the national average.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Capriza Raises $23 Million in Series C

Capriza Raises $23 Million in Series C
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Capriza

Capriza_homepage_July2016

In a round led by Andreessen Horowitz, enterprise-mobility specialist Capriza has raised $23 million in new capital. Participating in the round, which takes the company’s total to $73 million, were existing investors Charles River Ventures, Harmony Partners, and Tenaya Capital, as well as new investors Entre Capital and Vintage Investment.

“In the last 24 months, we have made enormous strides, and this latest round of funding is a testament to our momentum and our world-class customer list,” Capriza CEO Yuval Scarlat said. “The world is shifting from mobile-first to mobile-only, and we believe organizations who make mobile applications a priority today are the ones that will win.”

Capriza_stage_FF2014

Left to right: Stephen Insdorf, senior solution engineer, and Ivan Prafder, VP, regional business development demonstrated the Capriza platform at FinovateFall 2015 in New York.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Capriza demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2015. The company specializes in turning business workflows into mobile applications without requiring coding, APIs, upgrades, or integrations. The technology enables legacy applications to be used on multiple channels including tablet, smartphone, and desktop. Capriza’s solutions are compatible with widely used applications like Oracle, Salesforce, and SAP, and can also be custom-configured. For more, check out our Finovate Debuts profile of Capriza from earlier this year.

Recent headlines for Capriza include earning a finalist spot in the City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge sponsored by Amazon web services in June, and news of the company’s new CMO, Lance Walter, hired in May. The City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge is an initiative to help local governments become more efficient through innovative technologies in areas ranging from city planning to healthcare. Capriza made it to the finals with its enterprise-mobility platform, which helped the City of Los Angeles build a suite of mini-mobile apps called Zapps for its 48,000 employees and city officials

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

MaxMyInterest Unveils Laser App Integration to Speed Onboarding

MaxMyInterest Unveils Laser App Integration to Speed Onboarding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: MaxMyInterest

MaxMyInterest_homepage_July2016b

MaxMyInterest unveiled a new integration to make it easier for financial advisors to bring smart cash management to their clients. Leveraging forms automation and management technology from Laser App Software, advisors will be able use their own CRM systems to “pre-onboard” clients to the Max platform. The client’s new Max account is linked to the advisor, whose read-only access to cash balance data ensures a holistic overview of cash and other accounts.

According to founder and CEO Gary Zimmerman, the integration helps advisers who are using leading CRM platforms to add MaxMyInterest as an option for their clients. Robert Powell, VP marketing and sales for Laser App, calls the technology a “one-of-a-kind front-end system” and says the partnership is a “great opportunity for us to learn from leading innovators.”

MaxMyInterest’s intelligent cash-management platform helps savers earn higher yields while maintaining FDIC protection. Like a robo-adviser intelligently rebalancing a stock portfolio, MaxMyInterest tracks interest rates and reallocates cash toward higher-yielding accounts as part of an automated monthly optimization. Customers can also move cash between accounts on their own using MaxMyInterest’s Intelligent Funds Transfer feature. The company reports that those saving with Max “typically can earn 0.70% to 0.90% more than traditional ‘brick-and-mortar’ banks” and favorably compares its 0.99% average to the national average of 0.11%

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in New York, MaxMyInterest demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2014. The company celebrated its third anniversary this month, announcing support for TD Bank, and launched its client invitation Feature—another onboarding enhancement—in May. Read more about MaxMyInterest in our Finovate Debut profile.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Expensify Unveils ReceiptBurner and Price-to-Beat

Expensify Unveils ReceiptBurner and Price-to-Beat
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Expensify

Expensify_homepage_July2015

With the summer travel season in full swing, expense-management specialist Expensify is busy launching new solutions to make it easier for business travelers to manage expenses. Last week, Expensify unveiled ReceiptBurner, a new integration platform that automatically pulls data from receipts regardless of source. And this week, the company announced a new feature, Price to Beat, that gives companies insight into how an employee’s spending on typical travel items—flights, hotel reservations, and rental cars—compares to the average cost. Employees with below-average spending can be given a portion of the savings via Expensify Rewards.

Expensify CEO David Barrett (founder) says both Price to Beat and Expensify Rewards offer ways to “gamify corporate travel by giving employees a share of their company’s cost savings.” He said the combined features bring transparency to corporate travel and spending, pointing out that beyond expense reports, his company is dedicated to “streamlining business travel so that organizations can spend time focusing on building their teams and products instead of getting bogged down by the hassles of travel logistics.”

Expensify_stage_FS2013

Left to right: Expensify Director of Strategy and Marketing Ryan Schaffer and founder/CEO David Barrett demonstrated Expensify Invoices at FinovateSpring 2013 in San Francisco.

Businesses need both Price to Beat and Expensify in order to create the employee reward, which appears as a reimbursable item on the worker’s expense report. The procedure is straightforward; employees or administrators simply forward their travel receipts to receipts@expensify within 24 hours of incurring charges and Expensify automatically calculates any potential savings and processes the reward. Price to Beat is still officially in beta and Expensify made the announcement during the annual Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) convention.

Note that Expensify’s ReceiptBurner has already been launched by partners Uber, Revel Systems, and Fujitsu ScanSnap. The solution automatically creates an expense report when an Uber ride is completed and when a transaction is made with a merchant using a Revel Systems POS system. “Our dream is for receipts to become the next floppy disc,” Barnett said.

Founded in 2008 and headquartered in San Francisco, Expensify demonstrated its Expensify Invoices solution at FinovateSpring 2013. This spring, the company announced that it would power Uber’s new Auto-Expense feature. And in May, Expensify announced that it had forged a strategic partnership with fellow Finovate alum, Xero. The company in 2015 was called one of the hottest startups by Forbes, and named to Fast Company’s Top 10 Most Innovative Company list.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Debuts: Walletron Helps Brands Build a Presence in Digital Wallets

Finovate Debuts: Walletron Helps Brands Build a Presence in Digital Wallets
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Debuts, Walletron

Walletron_homepage_May2016

If you like having your boarding pass on your smartphone, then you’re going to love Walletron.

With a background in payments as well as loyalty, coupons, and rewards, CEO Garrett Baird and the Walletron team are trying to finish off paper statements for good. Walletron already leverages the technology that puts your boarding pass in your digital wallet to do the same for gift cards. Now they are doing the same thing for paper bills.

Baird says Walletron’s proposition is delivering their (brand) presence in the digital wallet, as well as “the communication that goes along with it, with the actual payment relying on the billers themselves to process.” Baird emphasized this point, insisting that FIs and organizations use their existing processes to complete the payment. “We are the communication part,” he underscored, “piggybacking on top.”

Walletron_stage_FF2015

Walletron CEO Garrett Baird presented moBills at FinovateFall 2015 in New York.

At FinovateFall 2015, Walletron CEO Garrett Baird demonstrated moBills, the new billpay component of Walletron. moBills enables billers to open a payment and communication channel on their customer’s smartphones through which everything from payment reminders to confirmations can be provided. Payments can be made with a few taps on the app, and users remain authenticated after enrolling in moBills, so there is no need for a subsequent login process.

“People have been waiting for electronic payments to take over since 2000,” Baird said. “But it hasn’t happened yet. There are still very tiny adoption rates. This solution will finally move the needle.”

Company facts:

  • Founded in 2013
  • Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Wallets as commerce and communication channel

For Baird, it all begins with the digital wallet and the idea that people cling to paper statements because they are both a reminder and a source of information to complete the transaction: account numbers, user names, routing numbers, and so on. “There are not enough brands taking advantage of the mobile wallet and other wallets,” Baird said. “Airlines have nailed it—great use-case for boarding passes.”

Walletron_mobills_imageThe irony is that mobile devices excel at both of these functions, without the cost and inefficiency of paper. All that is needed is an intermediate layer. And that layer is Walletron. “There is a new communication channel in these wallets,” Baird said. “[It’s] very easy for brands to get up and running. [And] billing data is all Walletron needs.”

Within the digital wallet, the user sees all the billing relationships that have been set up: auto loans, mobile phone company, and so on. On the front of the individual card is basic billing information, with links to pay the bill, read the statement, or change notification preferences on the back. Customers enroll in the moBills program by visiting the company’s online billing website and selecting the moBills option for either Apple Wallet (formerly Passport) or Android Pay (formerly Google Wallet).

As soon as a customer makes a selection, the current billing statement appears in their digital wallet. The customer then makes notification preferences (i.e., due-in-five-days reminder, payment-received notification, etc.). “And there’s no app for the customer to download because they already have the app on their phone,” Baird said from the Finovate stage. “And now the relationship lives in the (digital) wallet.”

Walletron’s growth strategy involves working with the largest billers, including FIs, mortgage and auto loan companies, as well as processors (and fellow Finovate alums) such as FIS, Jack Henry, ACI Worldwide, and Fiserv. In March, the company inked its first deal with Australia-based FlexiGroup, which will offer moBills to hundreds of thousands of customers. “The industry hasn’t yet seen a mobile option which truly eliminates the need for a paper statement,” Baird said during the announcement, “We believe moBills has.”

Check out Walletron’s demonstration video from FinovateFall 2015.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

SuiteBox Appoints Isaac Young as CTO

SuiteBox Appoints Isaac Young as CTO
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: SuiteBox

SuiteBox_homepage_July2016

With more than 10 years experience in financial services technology, Isaac Young will be the new CTO for SuiteBox. Young comes to the New Zealand-based fintech startup after working with global banks like Commerzbank, Rabobank, and UBS. At SuiteBox, he will be responsible for directing the company’s integration initiatives with large channel partners.

“It is a key strategy of ours to bring on channel partners through which the SuiteBox offering can be deployed to large groups of financial advisers,” SuiteBox CEO Ian Dunbar said. “Isaac’s global technology management experience makes him ideally suited to leading these critical projects.” As a software architect for major financial services firms, Young helped design, develop, maintain core banking platforms, automated trading systems, and other critical systems. He was educated at Victoria University of Wellington, where he earned a bachelor of science in chemistry.

SuiteBox_stage_FEU2016c

SuiteBox CEO Ian Dunbar demonstrated his company’s platform at FinovateEurope 2016 in London.

The SuiteBox platform gives financial professionals a secure, virtual workspace in which to engage their clients. The technology supports video conferences, document collaboration and screen sharing, meeting recording, e-signatures, and embedded web forms. Available as a standalone solution as well as an API, SuiteBox reduces reliance on emails and databases while increasing the quality of client engagement especially for financial professionals with a growing, and/or geographically diverse, client base.

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, SuiteBox demonstrated its platform at FinovateEurope 2016. In May, the company announced a partnership with Midwinter to give investment advisers new tools to make compliance easier, and in April, SuiteBox took home the Best Technology award at the Melbourne Showcase. That was the company’s second award-winning performance of the year, having won the Mobile category of the KPMG Fintech Innovation Challenge in January.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Braintree, Chain.com, Concur, CSI globalVCard, Expensify, Guardian Analytics, Lending Club, Markit, MoneyHub, Ripple, Sberbank, Simple, SuiteBox, Walletron

On Finovate.com

  • MoneyHub Teams Up with Unbiased to Help People Manage their Finances
  • Expensify Unveils ReceiptBurner and Price-to-Beat
  • Finovate Debuts: Walletron Helps Brands Build a Presence in Digital Wallets

Around the web

  • Concur to deploy SilverRail API to enable European travelers to search, plan, and schedule travel by rail.
  • CSI globalVCard moves global partnership-operations team to Dallas; Nan Dawson promoted to SVP of partnership operations.
  • Lending Club announces new Chief Capital Officer, Patrick Dunne.
  • CoinTelegraph names Braintree, Chain, and Ripple as three companies that will shape the future of money.
  • Sberbank Capitalizes On Pokémon Go Marketing Opportunity
  • Over the last year, 50 new customers added Guardian Analytics Wire to protect their customers from the Business Email Compromise scam.
  • Simple celebrates its 7th anniversary, now with 300,000 customers and a little over 300 staff.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Neustar Taps Former Walmart Executive Venkat Achanta as First Chief Data Officer

Neustar Taps Former Walmart Executive Venkat Achanta as First Chief Data Officer
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Neustar

Neustar_homepage_July2016

Cloud-based information services specialist Neustar hired former Walmart Chief Data Officer Venkat Achanta to be its Chief Data and Analytics Officer. Achanta will develop and manage Neustar’s identity and attribution platform

Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Steven Wolfe Pereira called Achanta “a real thought leader” and pointed out that attracting top data-science talent is no easy feat. Pereira said that the position, newly created for Achanta, was a “great match” in part because of the way data science interacts with the entire company, from marketing and financial services to security and telecommunications.

Neustar_VenkatAchantaAchanta comes to Neustar after working as Chief Data Officer for Walmart since 2014 where he was responsible for enterprise-wide data and analytics delivery and platforms. Before that, Achanta served as SVP, global head of analytics and big data at AIG; vice president of enterprise data services at Capital One; and VP, global product development and delivery for Experian. Achanta has a bachelor of science in computer science and systems engineering from Andhra University; and MBAs from the National University of Singapore and the UCLA Anderson School of Management. In his role as chief data and analytics officer for Neustar, he will report to company CEO and president, Lisa Hook, who called Achanta “uniquely qualified to lead Neustar’s data science innovations.”

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Sterling, Virginia, Neustar demonstrated its PlatformOne solution at FinovateSpring 2016. The company announced in June that it would split into two companies—one based on call-routing for telecoms and the other on information services. This month, Neustar reported that it was working with Experian to make data onboarding easier for marketers by combining its strength in real-time information services with Experian’s vast national consumer database.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

CREALOGIX Wins Best Web Development at Systems in the City Awards 2016

CREALOGIX Wins Best Web Development at Systems in the City Awards 2016
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CREALOGIX

crealogix_wins_systems_in_the_city_awards

In 2015, CREALOGIX CEO Dr. Mike Bradford won a Lifetime Achievement Award from Systems in the City. Today we learn that the Swiss digital banking software innovator is back in the Systems in the City winner’s circle, having earned top honors for “Best Web Development”.

“The winning of the award means a huge amount to the entire CREALOGIX team,” said Ben Mann, head of web development for CREALOGIX. “It is a testament to the dedication and commitment of the company as a whole, as well as serving as a challenge for us in the year ahead, to continue to be at the forefront of quality web development in the fintech arena.”

Specifically, CREALOGIX won accolades for its implementation of its Digital Banking Hub with Tilney Bestinvest, a U.K. brokerage firm with 240 financial planners, 120 investment managers, and 20 billion pounds under management. With newly added features to improve the platform’s utility to brokerages, CREALOGIX’s Digital Banking Hub offers wealth managers the ability to readily integrate personalized advice into all systems.

Nominees for the Systems in the City Awards are made by members of London’s financial services sector, including stockbrokers, wealth managers, and investment bankers. An independent panel of “prominent City professionals” determines the final award. CREALOGIX’s Bradford said that the award helped highlight his company’s “technical excellence and position at the forefront of fintech in the U.K.”

Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, CREALOGIX demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2016. The Systems in the City award news comes just a week after the announcement that CREALOGIX had partnered with fellow Finovate alum, Entersekt, to build a new authentication solution. The company began the year by forging a digital banking partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Mudra Bank Chooses i-exceed’s Appzillon for Mobile Banking App

Mudra Bank Chooses i-exceed’s Appzillon for Mobile Banking App
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: i-exceed

iexceed_homepage_July2016

i-exceed technologies has paid off with a mobile app, Mudra Mitra, that provides both banking services and information. Using Appzillon, the app was able to go live “in record time” on both mobile phone and tablet interfaces and is now available for download at both the Apple iTunes and Google Play stores.

Pointing to the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in obtaining financial assistance, i-exceed Managing Director Joseph John praised Mudra Bank for being the “financial support provider for the bottom-of-the-pyramid customers” and “filling the void” between would-be business owners and the financing they need to get started. “i-exceed looks [forward to] a long-term association with Mudra Bank in their journey of fostering entrepreneurship,” John said.

i-exceed_mudramitra_itunes

Mudra CEO Jiji Mammen highlighted the app’s user-friendliness and said more features would be added over time with the goal of creating “an end-to-end solution for the borrowers to access micro finance in a hassle-free manner.” Mudra, which stands for Micro Unites Development & Refinance Agency, was created by the Indian government to help support the country’s micro-enterprise industries with micro and small business loans.

Headquartered in Bangalore, India, i-exceed demonstrated its Appzillion app-development platform at FinovateAsia 2013, and participated in FinDEVr New York earlier this year. The company, which celebrated its fifth anniversary in May, announced a partnership with Mindtree in February, the same month it earned a spot in Gartner’s 2016 look at MADP vendors around the world.

Looking to make a splash in Asia with your latest fintech innovation? Join us this fall as FinovateAsia moves to Hong Kong for a one-day conference on November 8. Email us at asia@finovate.com for information on presenting. Want to be a part of our audience of fintech professionals? Visit our FinovateAsia registration page and save your spot today.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook