Alumni News– August 6, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgYahoo! Germany looks at financial innovation in Kreditech.
  • Prosper earns a spot on the 2014 AlwaysOn Global 250 Top Private Companies roster.
  • Feedzai launches anti-fraud, transaction scoring apps for Shopify and Big Commerce.
  • Forbes.com features Betterment, FutureAdvisor, Kapitall, LearnVest, Motif Investing, Personal Capital, SigFig, and Wealthfront in a discussion on Millennial generation investment habits.
  • Richard Hagen, CEO of TradeKing Advisors, named to WealthManagement.com’s “Ten to Watch in 2015”.
  • Insuritas announces partnership with Financial Partners CU to open and manage its turnkey insurance solution.
  • Bank Innovation highlights alums SigFig and Ripple in a discussion on “8 under the radar fintech startups you should know.”
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.

Alumni News– August 6, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgYahoo! Germany looks at financial innovation in Kreditech.
  • Prosper earns a spot on the 2014 AlwaysOn Global 250 Top Private Companies roster.
  • Feedzai launches anti-fraud, transaction scoring apps for Shopify and Big Commerce.
  • Forbes.com features Betterment, FutureAdvisor, Kapitall, LearnVest, Motif Investing, Personal Capital, SigFig, and Wealthfront in a discussion on Millennial generation investment habits.
  • Richard Hagen, CEO of TradeKing Advisors, named to WealthManagement.com’s “Ten to Watch in 2015”.
  • Insuritas announces partnership with Financial Partners CU to open and manage its turnkey insurance solution.
  • Bank Innovation highlights alums SigFig and Ripple in a discussion on “8 under the radar fintech startups you should know.”
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.

Finovate Alums Raise More than $600 Million for Second Quarter in a Row

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In the first quarter of 2014, 23 Finovate alums raised more than $592 million

And as the second quarter draws to a close, it’s clear that a comparable cohort of alums have kept the pace.

Over the course April, May, and June, 28 alums raised significant amounts of capital ranging from Gremln’s $100,000 to the $65 million raised by Lending Club. The quarterly total of $594 million is almost exactly the same as the previous quarter.

And given that some amounts are undisclosed (I’m talking about you, Holvi, RevolutionCredit, and Tuition.io), we’re confident that Finovate alums have notched their second $600 million fund-raising quarter in a row.
How does this compare with the less recent past? Very well, indeed. 
In the second quarter of 2013, 15 alums raised more than $200 million. This was a major improvement on the second quarter from 2012, which featured 14 companies raising more than $120 million. 
Total raised for Q2 2014 = $594 million
April — $217 million raised by 11 companies
May —  $226 million raised by 11 companies
June — $151 million raised by six companies

Note: Funding prior to becoming a Finovate alum not included. Questions? Comments? Email us at David@Finovate.com or Julie@Finovate.com

Alumni News– June 25, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgKreditech raises $40 million in series B round.
  • Charge! LoopPay launches its iPhone ChargeCases.
  • Fiserv announces new partnerships and renewals with four credit unions.
  • Navy FCU chooses Select Mobile Money prepaid mobile app from Cachet Financial Solutions.
  • P2Binvestor adds three Colorado companies to its portfolio in June.
  • Ian McKenna examines how Yseop’s artificial intelligence can help financial advisors.
  • Vaamo launches Goal-Based Savings Platform on Invite-Only Basis.
  • Oink (formerly VirtualPiggy) and SafetyPay partner to enable Oink to accept local payments as they expand into Europe and Latin American markets.
  • ReadyForZero launches API to enable partners to deploy its debt-management platform on their own sites.
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.

Kreditech Raises $40 Million in Series B Round

Kreditech Raises $40 Million in Series B Round
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In a round led by Värde Partners and featuring participation from existing investors Blumberg Capital and Point Nine Capital, Kreditech has raised $40 million in new funding.

This latest capital infusion brings Kreditech’s total to more than $63 million. This includes $15 million in debt financing from Kreos Capital the company secured in the fall of 2013 and at the beginning of 2014.

As reported in TechCrunch, Kreditech will be looking to put the money to use expanding into new markets and further developing its product line.
Kreditech_homepage
Kreditech specializes in developing and marketing advanced underwriting tools that leverage big data – and 10,000 data points per application – to determine creditworthiness “within minutes.” The technology means that potential borrowers can apply for loans online or on mobile without having to visit a bank branch. Consumers whose loans are approved can have funds in their accounts in ten minutes.
Here are a handful of interesting metrics from Kreditech:
  • Revenue run rate of more than $15 million
  • Issued loans run rate of more than $55 million
  • Average loan loss in established, profitable core markets of less than 10%
Kreditech was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. Founder Sebastian Diemer is CEO. The company demoed its technology in San Jose as part of the FinovateSpring 2014 conference. See Kreditech in action here.

Kreditech Puts Big Data Scoring to Work to Improve Credit Decisioning

Kreditech Puts Big Data Scoring to Work to Improve Credit Decisioning
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This post is part of our live coverage of FinovateSpring 2014.

All the way from Hamburg, Germany, here is the team from Kreditech with its proprietary big-data scoring and underwriting technology.

“The self-learning proprietary algorithm scores on applicant’s creditworthiness within less than a minute. Without having to go to a bank, the customer can apply for his loan online or mobile, whenever and wherever. If accepted the loan is paid out to their bank account within 10 minutes. Compared to traditional rating organizations like Schufa or FICO, the Kreditech Algorithm only studies the financial situation of the customer in the moment of the application and does not use historical data.
The technology is therefore flexible and can quickly enter and adapt to new markets. There are 5 billion people in the world that have no access to financial products, and our technology is able to provide that to them.”
Presenting: Sebastian Diemer (CEO & Founder) and Alexander Graubner-Müller (CTO & Founder)

Product Launch: September 2012 (in first market Poland)
Metrics: 10,000 data points per loan application; less than 1 minute average decision time per loan application; >$15M revenue run rate (as of March 2014); >$55M issued loans run rate (as of March 2014); <10% average loan loss in all established, profitable core markets (Poland, Spain, Russia, Czech); industry average emerging markets: >30%; 70% – 90% growth per quarter; over 600,000 applications processed in total; various credit products available in Poland, Spain, Czech, Russia, Australia & Mexico; releasing further retail banking products in 2014 (e.g. Prepaid Credit Cards, e-Wallets0; over 80 full-time employees from 26 different countries; Kreditech is launching in 4 to 6 countries in 2014; company (groupwide) profitable by Mid 2014; $22.5M raised by most influential European business angels (Samwer Brothers, Michael Brehm, Stefan Glaenzer, Heiko Hubertz, etc.) and funds (Global Founders Capital, Point Nine Capital, Kreos Capital, Greycorp, etc.)
Product distribution strategy: Direct to Consumer (B2C)
HQ: Hamburg, Germany
Founded: February 2012
Website: kreditech.com
Twitter: @kreditech

FinovateSpring 2014 Sneak Peek: Part 2

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This year’s return to California for FinovateSpring will feature both new and old faces, as innovative startups make their fintech debuts and established veterans continue to remind us all that they’ve still “got it.”

Maybe your interests in FinovateSpring lie in something specific like security or mobile payments. Or maybe you are just looking forward to taking in all that this year’s crop of FinovateSpring presenters has to offer. 

Whatever your fintech appetite, we think you’ll find our Sneak Peek series a helpful way to get to know the entrepreneurs that will be taking the stage next month in April.

So today we introduce you to another set of six companies: Interactions, Kreditech, Market Prophit, Personal Capital, Yseop, and ZenPayroll. And if you missed the first installment of our FinvoateSpring 2014 Sneak Peek series, click here.

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Interactions Corporation is the only truly conversational, self-service solution to move more activity to self-service and free up agents for higher order tasks.
Features:
  • Delivers a fully unstructured, open-ended conversation between businesses and their customers
  • Understands with an unrivaled 95% accuracy in both speech and text
  • Deploys in 12 to 18 weeks
Why it’s great: We put customers first by engaging them in a free form dialogue, allowing them to solve problems quicker, and with less effort.
Phil Gray
Responsible for leading business development. Phil is a successful startup executive with extensive experience in natural language understanding and contact center technologies. 
Dan Fox, Marketing Manager

Kreditech uses Big Data and complex machine-learning algorithms to enable faster, better, and more sustainable credit decisions.
Features:
  • Developing self-learning, self-calibrating Big Data scoring
  • Building the “Amazon for consumer lending”: 24/7, always and everywhere available lending platform
  • Innovative FinTech products
Why it’s great: Based on Big Data scoring, Kreditech is building a centralized and global online lending service for innovative consumer finance products.
Sebastian Diemer, Co-Founder and CEO
Started building one of the most innovative global Big Data technology companies in 2012. Today, Kreditech is innovation leader in Big Data scoring.
Alexander Graubner, Founder and CTO
Combines cloud-based big data infrastructure and machine learning to build the world’s consumer scoring technology.

Market Prophit empowers every investor with real-time intelligence into what’s moving the market by quantifying global, financial-related conversations in social media.
Features:
  • Real-time sentiment and buzz in stock-related social media chatter
  • Identify the “mavens” in the “crowd” with our quantitative blogger ranking system
  • Track stocks and bloggers you care about
Why it’s great: Klout + Morningstar for social media financial influencers
Igor Gonta, CEO
Extensive experience on Wall Street in sales and trading, and brings that to the intersection of Big Data and finance.

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Personal Capital’s One Click Investment Proposals enables our advisors to efficiently analyze prospective clients’ finances and deliver investment recommendations tailored to their unique needs.
Features:
  • Advisors generate 90% of a client’s portfolio with one click
  • Clients see their complete & up-to-date household financial data and a comparison of their existing portfolio to an optimal one
Why it’s great: We’re making it digital – while keeping it personal.
Bill Harris, CEO
Has spent his career dragging the financial industry into the 21st century. He’s developed financial technology for 25 years – including as CEO at Intuit and PayPal.
Jim Del Favero, CPO
Has spent his career designing and building consumer financial software. Before Personal Capital he was head product manager for Quicken at Intuit.

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Yseop is natural language generation software based on artificial intelligence that boosts sales productivity and turns each financial advisor into an expert without additional training.
Features:
  • Yseop automates the sales process from lead generation to the writing of pre-to-meeting reports, customer follow-up and personalized marketing communications — automatically.
Why it’s great:
Yseop turns data into text, leads into clients, and salespeople into experts. Double your sales force productivity overnight with the power of artificial intelligence.
Elizabeth Farabee
Has a background in inbound and direct marketing. She is passionate about Yseop’s personalized marketing potential in both the B2C and B2B markets.
Matt Rauscher
Is a consultant at Y
seop. He lived nine years in the United States, and graduated with a Master’s Degree in Finance.

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ZenPayroll is modern, delightful payroll. Our mission is to make payroll as simple and intuitive as possible using the principles of modern software.
Features:
  • Makes payroll as simple and intuitive as possible
  • Helps business owners build stronger teams
  • Empowers employees by enabling them to be equal stakeholders
Why it’s great: Payroll should be about people, not payments. ZenPayroll is unearthing the human side of compensation currently buried under layers of complexity and government bureaucracy.
Joshua Reeves, CEO and Co-Founder
Believes in the power of software to solve complex problems, and founded ZenPayroll to deliver delightful, modern payroll to businesses everywhere.

Stay tuned for the next edition of our Sneak Peek series coming next week.