Nous Launches New Trading App TIQL for a Safer Way to Trade

Nous Launches New Trading App TIQL for a Safer Way to Trade

Screen Shot 2016-08-24 at 12.07.22 PM

Nous Global Markets continued in its mission to make financial markets globally accessible with today’s launch of TIQL (pronounced tickle), a consumer-friendly way to trade.

Nous is touting its new app as the “safest way to trade.” Some of TIQL’s distinguishing features include:

  • $5 minimum to open an account
  • $0.01 minimum investment per trade
  • Free downside protection makes it impossible to lose more than was invested
  • Receive returns of up to 20x

TIQL launched in beta in April of this year, and has since received an OGRA license to operate by the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission. The app’s early users from “many countries around the world” have invested $280,000 on the platform. The London-based company plans to raise funding to expand the already-growing platform, which is available on PC, iOS, and Android devices.

Screen Shot 2016-08-24 at 12.59.59 PM

At FinovateEurope 2014, the company debuted its flagship product, SparkProfit. The free-to-play, virtual trading game now has 400,000 users from more than 200 countries. In late 2015, Nous closed a $750,000 funding round, bringing the company’s total funding to $1.36 million.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Financeit Launches Direct-to-Consumer Financing Platform, Financeit Direct
  • Meet The ID Co.: miiCard Rebrands as DirectID Spurs Growth
  • Nous Launches New Trading App TIQL for a Safer Way to Trade
  • Check out this week’s FinDEVr APIntelligence

Around the web

  • Uber partners with Betterment to offer drivers flexible retirement accounts that will be fee-free for a year.
  • CU Broadcast features NopSec CTO Michelangelo Sidagni.
  • True Potential teams up with UBS Asset Management to launch five, new multi-asset funds.

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 Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Tink to Test PFM App with 10,000 ABN AMRO Customers”
  • “Bizfi Closes on $65 Million in Debt Financing”
  • “Nous Closes In On £350,000 Fundraising Goal” [Update: Nous Exceeds Original Goal, Raises $750,000].

Around the web

  • “TIS Closes 550,000 Euro Deal with Leading German Health Insurance Provider”
  • Trustly partners with payment solution iDEAL in the Netherlands.
  • TechCrunch looks at OnDeck and the future of alt-lending.
  • USA Today features how Simple is a different type of bank.
  • TechCrunch considers how TransferWise is a better way to send remittances.

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

Nous Closes In On £350,000 Fundraising Goal [Update: Nous Exceeds Original Goal, Raises $750,000]

Nous Closes In On £350,000 Fundraising Goal [Update: Nous Exceeds Original Goal, Raises $750,000]

NousScreenshot

[Update] Nous has closed the round, exceeding expectations by raising $750,000 from angels and crowdfunding. This is $223,000 more than its original goal of $527,000.

Nous, a startup that builds products for global financial market enthusiasts, announced last week it has raised 88% of its £350,000 ($527,000) goal in its second external round of funding. The London-based company is currently raising funds on SyndicateRoom, a professional angel-crowdfunding site.

The campaign has two weeks remaining. Nous anticipates it will achieve and possibly exceed its goal amount to reach its overfunding limit.

Nous plans to use the funds to launch an ultra-low-risk trading app to serve a demographic overlooked by current financial products.

The founders of Nous bootstrapped the company with $500,000, and raised $605,000 in funding last year.

At FinovateEurope 2014, Nous launched SparkProfit, a financial data service and gamified market-prediction platform that combines human predictions and quantitative finance to better anticipate future market outcomes.

NousPresenting

From left: CEO Justin Short, founder, and Mick Horgan, co-founder, presented the Nous product for global financial markets at FinovateFall 2014.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Banking Suite Provider Urban FT Acquires Wipit” Come see Urban FT at FinovateFall September 16 & 17.

Around the web

  • Niklas Adalberth steps down as Klarna’s deputy CEO.
  • ShopKeep to offer discounts to members of the MasterCard Easy Savings program.
  • Yodlee partners with Salesforce to offer advisers a comprehensive view of their clients’ financial accounts. Come see Yodlee’s presentation at FinDEVr, 6/7 October.
  • Monex to incorporate corporate-actions data from Markit. See Markit at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco.
  • Bank Innovation takes note of the Moven approach to displaying transaction histories.
  • Tech Vibes features Trulioo in a look at Vancouver, British Columbia, as a home for fintech innovation. See Trulioo at FinovateFall 2015 in New York.
  • Investment News looks for the next robo-adviser acquisition in the wake of BlackRock’s deal with FutureAdvisor.
  • Waters Technology highlights Nous, StockViews, AnalytixInsight, and Xignite in a review of how innovators are using market data. See Xignite at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco.
  • Flint enhances Android app to include immediate electronic receipts via SMS.

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 Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Four Finovate Alums Land on Inc. Magazine Top 100″

Around the web

  • Check out Utah Business’s video interview of Ryan Caldwell, MX CEO, honored as one of Utah’s Fast 50. Come see what MX has for developers at FinDEVr this October.
  • Silicon Republic names WePay, Betterment, and OnDeck as companies to follow on Twitter.
  • Pymnts examines how Ripple Labs’ partnership with Earthport enables payments between global trading partners in real time.
  • TSYS hires Patricia Watson as Senior EVP and CIO.
  • Finovate, FinDEVr alums make Let’s Talk Payments’ list of payment companies raising money in 2015.
  • Waters Technology looks at the use of sentiment analysis by investment-oriented startups like Nous and Market Prophet.
  • BankNXT profiles the partnership between two disruptive businesses, Uber and Zopa.
  • Klarna valued at more than $2.25 billion after secondary offering.
  • Fidor Bank CEO Matthias Kroner calls bitcoin a “natural part of the digital lifestyle.”
  • TIO Networks initiates a non-brokered private placement of up to 2.1 million Common Shares priced at $1.08 CAD per share.
  • AcceptEmail names Ron Averett as president and CEO for U.S.A. and Canada.

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.

Nous Announces $600,000 Angel Round Investment

Nous Announces $600,000 Angel Round Investment

Thumbnail image for nousHiResLogo.jpg

With an investment of $600,000 (£375,000) financial data startup Nous is now that much closer to its goal of leveraging the insights of the crowd for the benefit of real-world professional investors at banks, hedge funds, and other financial institutions.

Nous CEO Justin Short noted that the investment would provide more than just new capital for a company that was “self-funded, pre-revenue, and pre-launch” when we met them at FinovateEurope 2014 in London. “All of our investors will contribute not just capital, but also their considerable industry experience,” Short said. “We now have even stronger connections to the forward thinking hedge-funds that can make the most of our unique data feeds.”

The investors for this angel round of funding were not disclosed.
Noushomepage1
Nous has developed a trading simulator, SparkProfit, that allows thousands of users to predict the price direction of a wide variety of instruments, such as bitcoin, international currencies, stock market indices, and commodities. Top performing predictors on the platform can then compete for weekly cash prizes.
But this is only the beginning. By monitoring the predictions on the platform, Nous is able to offer a sentiment indicator called SparkFeed. SparkFeed works in real-time and according to the Nous provides a better sense of the emotions driving market behavior than that offered by either traditional sentiment algorithms as well as newer “social media” based sentiment measures. Nous calls this “crowd-sourced alpha.”
SparkProfithomepage
A few metrics on Nous:
  • 84,000 users in 200 countries
  • 250,000 predictions a week
  • More than $61,000 paid in weekly prizes since May 2013
Nous was founded in September 2012 and, after operating in Japan initially, is now headquartered in London. The company hopes to grow its user base to 250,000 over the next six months, and plans to use the funding to add both new markets and social features to its platform.

Alumni News– October 20, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgNous raises $600k to help drive its SparkProfit stock market prediction platform.
  • Lending Club selects the NYSE for its IPO.
  • Currency Cloud releases Connect API 2.0.
  • InComm partners with CardCash to integrate its online gift card exchange at InComm’s retail partners nationwide.
  • Compass Plus completes its TranzAxis integration with Klarna.
  • ID Analytics names Scott Carter Chief Operating Officer.
  • CAN Capital closes its first capital markets asset-backed notes offering.
  • Coinbase now available in 6 additional languages.
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 Alumni News– May 22, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgDigital Insight named a 2014 Confirmit ACE Award Winner.
  • Quisk describes their FinovateSpring experience.
  • Betterment CEO Jon Stein talks with Mad Money’s Jim Cramer about its automated investing service.
  • BankersLab’s CreditLab takes gold at 2014 LearnX Impact awards.
  • Nous adds Spark Feed to trading app to help players analyze market sentiment.
  • Xero ranked No #1 by Forbes in its list of the World’s 100 Most Innovative Growth Companies.
  • Authentify announces expanded biometric support for Samsung Galaxy S5 Fingerprint Reader.
  • InComm and Peoples Trust launch reloadable pre-paid card for m-payments in Canada.
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 Alumni News– April 23, 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.jpgNous launches two-month pilot program with Hong Kong hedge fund. Launched at FinovateEurope in February, Nous’ Spark Profit has 25,000 registered users in 194 countries.
  • Heritage Bank of Nevada to deploy Fiserv’s deposit reclassification solution, ReserveLink.
  • AmeriServ signs real-time account processing agreement with FIS to deploy TrustDesk.
  • TSYS to discontinue operations in Japan after almost 14 years.
  • Billhighway & RallyBound partner to make multi-channel fundraising a reality for nonprofits.
  • Zendesk customer service software partners with Xero.
  • PerformanceIn interviews Linkable Networks CEO, Tom Burgess.
  • Insuritas working with Overstock.com to launch its virtual insurance agency solution. Come see Insuritas at FinovateSpring next week.
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 Alumni News– February 21, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgBanking Day reports: SocietyOne to take next step in development next month, when it announces the involvement of a strategic investor.
  • ThreatMetrix announces frictionless, context-based authentication to prevent unauthorized access to enterprise applications.
  • TSYS announces increased investment in Central Payment Joint Venture.
  • Fiserv Premier platform picked by New Jersey-based Sussex Bank.
  • CRIF acquires OFWI, aka, Teledata, from Axon Active Holding AG.
  • ZenPayroll brings in $20 million in Series A funding from General Catalyst and Kleiner Perkins.
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.

FinovateEurope: Behind the Scenes with AdviceGames, Nous, and Yseop

Somewhere between the live Tweeting, live blogging, and watching demos at FinovateEurope, we found a bit of time to sit down and chat with a handful of the demoing companies one-on-one to get a closer look at what they were unveiling to the audience.

Here is the first set of companies we spoke with. Stay tuned next week for more behind-the-scenes insight:
 



AdviceGamesLogo.jpg


What they do
AdviceGames provides a solution to help banks, insurers, and independent financial advisors to be a virtual “guardian angel” of their customers’ finances. This includes everything from tailored advice such as when they should switch car insurance to advising them on mortgage decisions. In addition, it is dynamic, so it adjusts advice provided when a users’ circumstances change.
AdviceGames is currently focused on selling to larger banks in the European market, and has plans to expand to the U.S. in the future.
Stats
  • Offices in Amsterdam, London, and San Francisco 
  • Created with funds from the sale of eyeOpen to Ageon/Transamerica
The experience
Because the financial guardian angel provides a tailored, personal touch for each customer, users benefit from the customized approach. They are also provided the convenience of an anytime, anywhere tool, since they can manage their account from the comfort of their own home, or even on-the-go.
Below is a sample of a users’ homepage for AngelBank. Note the personalized greeting located at the middle of the page.
HomeView.jpg
If a user is interested in a particular service, such as a mortgage, AdviceGames will walk them through the decision-making process to bring them the best product. In the below picture, the user is asked to identify which one of the four views matches how they feel about personal finance.  
UserServiceReview.jpg
After the user answers the self-guided questions, they are provided with a recommendation. The below screenshot shows the users’ personal preference results, followed by a mortgage recommendation. 
UserRecommendation.jpg
Benefits for the financial institution
By providing customers with this service, financial institutions also benefit. It enables them to reduce the number of branches and cut down on staff at existing branches. In fact, the company is currently in talks with a bank that needs to reduce its costs by $1 billion over the next year, and sees Advice Games as one of the tools for reaching that goal. By replacing their banks with intelligent agents, the business case is clear. Additionally, it can help banks decrease their risk profile by applying motivational models.


nousHiResLogo.jpg

What they do
Nous has created a game called Spark Profit that runs on iOS and Android apps. The free game enables any user to make predictions in real-time about stock market behavior. 
Users gain or lose points depending on the accuracy of their predictions. The incentives in the game are real. By making a correct prediction, users can earn real money. In fact, since May of last year, the 851 users have collectively earned almost $17,500.
Stats
  • Self-funded
  • Pre-revenue
  • 5 full time employees
  • Just under 20,000 users
  • Plans to add more than 5 major stock indices before the end of March.
The experience
We were able to get our hands on the app, since it’s now available to the general public. The screenshots below were taken on an iPhone 5S in landscape mode.
Below is the home screen where users can opt to play different markets. There is even a bitcoin market.
SparkProfitHomeScreen.jpg
Users see historical market data, and are prompted to set a profit price and a loss price at any point in the future. If the actual market price touches the users’ profit prediction, then they win. If the actual market price moves away from their prediction and instead touches the loss price, the user loses points.
SparkProfitWinLoss.jpg
Here, users can see a summary of the individual games they’ve played and the points earned and lost.
SparkProfitHistory.jpg
All of these predictions across the entire user base adds up to a massive amount of exclusive data over time. As a secondary use case, Nous is selling this valuable data to financial institutions.

YseopLogo.jpg

Yseop

What they do

In its newest release, Yseop is using its artificial intelligence engine to support sales teams. Based on information gathered from a potential client, the new technology does everything from pre-drafting emails based on client information, to creating talking points for the sales rep to bring up in a follow-up call.
Stats
  • Privately self-funded
  • 30 employees
  • Largest customer is a retail bank with 12,500 daily users
  • Recently opened an office in London
The experience
The intelligence software guides the user through a set of questions to determine their potential interest in a bank’s products and services. Below, they provide information regarding their marital status and number of dependents.
YseopSalesforceProductivityScreenShot.jpg
After the client’s information is submitted, the salesperson receives an alert, such as the one below, that informs them of the client’s demographic and financial situation, as well as their contact information for follow-up.
YseopSalesforcealert.jpg
Then, the system provides the salesperson with a call script that includes responses to possible objections that the client may bring up during the call.
Yseopcallscript.jpg
The system can also provide the salesperson with a prep-to-meeting report, meeting assistance, and will even draft an email to the client on the salesperson’s behalf (see below).
meetingemail.jpgKeep in mind that banks can use YseMail in selected, individual pieces– they do not need to use all six aspects of the service.

Stay tuned next week for another behind-the-curtain view of FinovateEurope 2014.