Swych Seals Series A Funding

Swych Seals Series A Funding

Digital gifting platform Swych has closed its Series A round with a “major strategic capital investment” from UAE Exchange Group. The amount of the investment was undisclosed.

“Swych’s global gifting technology and vision fits well with our strategy to foster purpose-based money transfers,” UAE Exchange Group CEO Promoth Manghat said. “As a group, we are always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with organizations that drive innovation, provide differential services and promote digital initiatives,” he added. “In Swych, we see a unique value proposition that checks all these boxes.”

Swych’s platform gives users the ability to send “swychable” digital gifts from their mobile device that are redeemable for electronic gift cards from more than 120 retail partners. Users can also upload their plastic gift cards to the Swych mobile app and checkout using their smartphone to scan the bar code at the register. They can also earn rewards points that can be used to buy “swychable” gift cards. Businesses can use the company’s GiftBot platform or its “Gifting-as-a-Service” APIs to produce their own customized digital gift cards.

UAE Exchange and Swych will work together to develop digital gifting services for international markets, with a U.S.-to-India service under consideration as an initial launch. Swych founder and CEO Deepak Jain underscored the opportunity of leveraging UAE’s international reach, saying it would “greatly accelerate Swych in its mission to become the leader in digital cross-border gifting services globally.” A money transfer, foreign exchange, and payments solutions provider, UAE Exchange has in excess of 200,000 agent locations in more than 160 countries and 15+ million customers worldwide. UAE Exchange was established in 1980 and is headquartered in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Plano, Texas-based Swych won Best of Show for its demonstration of the Swych Mobile Gifting Platform at FinovateFall 2016. The mobile app is available for free at both the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Swych Seals Series A Funding.

Around the web

  • Pendo Systems Launches the Pendo Machine Learning Platform.
  • The Wall Street Journal features GreatHorn CEO Kevin O’Brien.
  • Neustar Partners with KUBRA to Deliver TCPA Compliance Data Verification Solutions to Utility Clients.

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.

Best of Show Winner Swych Unveils P2P Gifting Bot

Best of Show Winner Swych Unveils P2P Gifting Bot

Swych_homepage_February2017

Fresh off its Best of Show winning performance at its debut at FinovateFall last September, mobile gift card innovator, Swych, has announced the beta release of its P2P gifting bot. The technology enables the user to generate and send e-gifts to any desktop, smartphone or tablet from within a chat, messaging, or virtual assistant app. Swych’s GiftBot preserves the same functionality as the mobile app, including the ability to “swych” the gift for another item from more than one hundred of Swych’s retail partners. GiftBot identifies recipients by first name, makes gift recommendations, and lets the sender add a personalized message.

“Most mobile usage studies show that consumers prefer to interact with friends, family, and colleagues predominately in social media apps such as Facebook Messenger, Skype, Snapchat, Instagram, Slack, or WhatsApp,” Swych Chief Revenue Officer Robert Sabella explained. “The use of virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Home is also growing at a very fast clip. Swych’s GiftBot platform opens the door for our gifting brand partners to take advantage of this trend and connect to their consumers in an entirely new way,” he said.

Swych_stage_FF2016

Pictured (left to right): Swych co-founders Deepak Jain (CEO) and Robert Sabella (CRO) demonstrating the Swych Mobile Gifting Platform at FinovateFall 2016.

Swych CEO and co-founder Deepak Jain sees his company’s GiftBot technology as part of a wave of technologies – including artificial intelligence and virtual/augmented reality – that are “gearing up to overtake traditional web- and app-based commerce.” He added, “We are proud to be the first mobile gifting service to bring machine learning, AI, and advanced data analytics into the fast growing digital gifting space.”

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Plano, Texas, Swych took home Best of Show honors during its Finovate debut last fall for its mobile gifting platform. Swych is a private-held company funded by veteran angel investors from the banking, financial services, and enterprise computing industries.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • CrowdFlower Brings AI to Business Processes via Partnership with Microsoft
  • Fintech Trending: Bots Break Out, AI Gets Personal, and Blockchain Buys the Farm
  • SocietyOne Strikes Up Partnership with Beyond Bank, Reeling in $1.5 Million

Around the web

  • Payoneer to facilitate cross-border payments for e-commerce marketplace, Rakuten, in new partnership.
  • eWise unveils its new financial transaction Categorization-as-a-Service (CaaS) API for FIs.
  • Let’s Talk Payments interviews Swych CEO Deepak Jain. See video of Swych’s Best of Show winning performance at FinovateFall.
  • Bank of America, Santander, and the Royal Bank of Canada to form global blockchain payments network with distributed ledger technology from Ripple.
  • Azimo’s Facebook Messenger bot is now live.
  • Project Juno highlights Featurespace in its European Machine Intelligence Landscape.
  • Larky partners with Credit Union Association of the Dakotas (CUAD).

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.

See What You Missed at FinovateFall: Demo Videos Now Available

See What You Missed at FinovateFall: Demo Videos Now Available
29175062613_79b8fac89a_kAbove: MX jumps for joy to celebrate the company’s Best of Show win.

I should start this post by admitting that I missed FinovateFall this year. My wedding was the weekend after the show and there was no way to swing both. While I think I chose wisely, I certainly felt FinovateFall FOMO after reading Twitter highlights and press coverage.

If you, like me, missed out, we have the next best thing to being there. All of the 70 demos from FinovateFall are now available for free in our video archives and event photos are posted on Flickr. Also, there’s still time to catch more fintech this fall at our developer’s conference, FinDEVr (October 18 & 19) and our first event in Hong Kong, FinovateAsia (November 8).

The best place to start is by watching the six demos that won Best of Show:

AutoGravity

Backbase

Clinc

MX

Swych

Trusona

Thanks again to all the presenting companies who braved the Finovate stage and to all who attended. We’ll see you next year!

FinovateFall 2016 Best of Show Winners Announced

FinovateFall 2016 Best of Show Winners Announced

img_2018

Innovations in automobile financing that leverage mobile technology to empower buyers. Omnichannel solutions that enable customer onboarding in less than a minute. Intelligent personal assistants that hear and respond in natural, conversational language.

The Best of Show winners of FinovateFall 2016 are a compelling tribute to the diversity of our industry. From new strategies that help financial institutions leverage their data to provide better services, to platforms that transform the gift card from a present-of-last-resort to the perfect gift, to a multifaceted identity-solution capable of securing everything from your email account to SWIFT wires, it is an exciting time to be a part of this dynamic fusion of finance and technology.

And while we give due credit to those demos that drew the most enthusiastic praise from our record-breaking FinovateFall audience, know that our Best of Show winners represent the tip of the spear, the vanguard of a movement whose innovations will shape the way we save, spend, invest, and engage the financial world for years to come.

Here are our Best of Show award winners for FinovateFall 2016 (in alphabetic order):

AutoGravity Logo copyAutoGravity for its app that harnesses the power of the smartphone to enable users to take control of the automobile buying and financing experience.

Backbase---Hi-ResBackbase for its omnichannel banking platform that leverages optical character recognition and facial recognition to deliver 60-second onboarding.

clinc-logo-finovate-new copyClinc for its personal assistant for mobile banking, “Finie,” that uses advanced artificial intelligence and deep learning to communicate with users in natural, conversational language.

 

MX Logo copyMX for its innovative technology that enables FIs to acquire new data, as well as better and more effortlessly understand and analyze the data they already have.

 

Swych Logo copySwych for its mobile gifting platform that makes it easy for users to buy, send, upload, redeem, and exchange gift cards instantly and conveniently from their mobile devices.

Trusona Logo copyTrusona for its insured cloud identity suite with offerings that run the gamut from securing everyday logins to protecting the world’s most sensitive assets.

We had a great time at FinovateFall 2016 and hope you enjoyed our two-day conference, as well. A thousand thanks to our sponsors, our partners, our presenters, and, last but not least, the 1,600+ attendees who made this year’s FinovateFall our biggest event yet. We’ll see you again next year!


Notes on methodology:
1. Only audience members NOT associated with demoing companies were eligible to vote. Finovate employees did not vote.
2. Attendees were encouraged to note their favorites during each day. At the end of the last demo, they chose their three favorites.
3. The exact written instructions given to attendees: “Please rate (the companies) on the basis of demo quality and potential impact of the innovation demoed.”
4. The six companies appearing on the highest percentage of submitted ballots were named “Best of Show.”
5. Go here for a list of previous Best of Show winners through 2014. Best of Show winners from our 2015 and 2016 conferences are below:
FinovateEurope 2015
FinovateSpring 2015
FinovateFall 2015
FinovateEurope 2016
FinovateSpring 2016

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Swych

FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Swych

Screen Shot 2016-08-30 at 12.52.27 PM

FF2016-Logo-wdate-largeA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500+ fintech professionals on September 8 & 9, 2016. Register today.

Swych’s patent-pending mobile gifting platform enables users to send “Swychable” gifts from their mobile device or social chat bot that can be instantly redeemed for electronic gift cards.

Features:

  • Integrated gifting chat bots
  • Easily buy, send, manage, and exchange gift cards from your mobile device
  • Conversational commerce platform with easy-t0-implement APIs

Why it’s great
The innovative Swych mobile gifting digital platform elegantly modernizes, digitizes, and simplifies gifting on the mobile device and within a user’s social networks.

PresentersScreen Shot 2016-08-30 at 12.55.07 PM

Deepak Jain, CEO, Co-founder
Jain is a strategic leader with over a decade of experience launching and transforming early-stage startups. He specializes in bringing innovative technologies to market and holds more than 55 patents.
LinkedIn

Robert Sabella, CRO, Co-founder Screen Shot 2016-08-30 at 12.55.50 PM
Sabella is a serial entrepreneur, investor, inventor, and author. He has started and invested in many companies and invented a few patents-pending products along the way.
LinkedIn

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Behalf Raises $27 Million in New Funding
  • Backbase Partners with Entersekt to Deliver Authentication Technology
  • EyeVerify Teams Up with BioConnect to Boost Payment Security.

Around the web

  • PittsburghPost-Gazette feature on local fintech incubator SteelBridge Laboratories quotes Om Kundu, CEO of InSpirAVE. See InSpirAVE at FinovateFall in New York next week.
  • Massachusetts-based Randolph Savings Bank re-ups with Fiserv for front- and back-office technology.
  • Wipro announces partnership with Stibo Systems to offer Master Data Management (MDM) solutions.
  • PYMNTS.com looks at TransferWise and its growing independence from bank partners.
  • Jack Henry & Associates Awarded by Aite Group for Core Processing.

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.

Ready for a Sneak Peek? How to Best Prepare for FinovateFall

Ready for a Sneak Peek? How to Best Prepare for FinovateFall

StageIMG

To give you a sense of the many new ideas at the upcoming FinovateFall conference in New York, we’ve launched our Sneak Peek series. Eight companies are featured each week leading up to the 8/9 September event (tickets now available).

In the meantime, here is a quick summary of the 66 announced companies (six more are in stealth mode). It’s a lot to take in; pace yourself!

  • Agreement Express offers an an end-to-end platform that helps traditional financial institutions automate labor-intensive parts of the customer onboarding process to remain compliant while quickly opening customer accounts.
  • Aleo’s marketplace uses e-procurement, e-commerce and supplier financing bundled in a single open platform to offer small and medium enterprises an online procure-to-pay solution.
  • AutoGravity’s mobile-first digital marketplace helps digitally minded customers, looking to buy and finance a vehicle, circumvent the inefficiencies of the auto-financing process by leveraging the full potential of their smartphone.
  • Avoka’s customer-acquisition platform integrates multiple fintech services to help banks, wealth managers and insurers use mobile and digital channels to onboard customers.
  • Backbase offers 60-second onboarding for financial services companies to accelerate customer acquisition with a simple, fast, and seamless omnichannel onboarding journey.
  • Bankjoy offers developers a banking API for a modern, real-time, holistic interface for credit unions and community banks.
  • Bitbond’s automated, international credit-scoring mechanism compares small business-loan applicants from different countries by using machine learning and data from the applicant’s business accounts.
  • Bluescape offers large financial services companies a highly interactive, visually collaborative platform that uses real-time, cloud-based architecture that’s ultra-scalable, all-capturing, and accessible anytime from any device.
  • BondIT offers financial advisers and portfolio managers a data-driven solution that uses machine learning advanced algorithms to manage fixed-income portfolios and solve optimization challenges.
  • brandCrowder has developed an alternative investment platform focusing on branded franchises. It leverages 45+ years of franchise-operations experience to help retail investors finance franchises, helping to bring them to market quicker.
  • Clinc’s mobile, voice-activated personal financial adviser uses artificial intelligence to help consumers get answers to financial questions and tasks.
  • Consdata offers banks and financial institutions a comprehensive platform for e-form management and customer-communication complexities.
  • Currencycloud’s dedicated API services use intelligent APIs to help businesses with the cost, limitations, and boundaries of existing payment infrastructure.
  • Daon bridges convenience and security by offering financial services companies a mobile biometric authentication platform that turns a smartphone into a mobile capture device.
  • Divy’s app and social investing community uses an approachable interface and engaging content to help first-time and emerging investors access direct marketing and financial literacy material.
  • Dynamics offers issuers and their cardholders interactive payment cards and an authorization-based, real-time loyalty processing system.
  • ebankIT’s platform offers financial institution clients an omnichannel experience.
  • Econiq’s Conversation Hub uses color-coded conversations to help bank and insurer frontline staff, and operational management and executives avoid disconnected customer conversations in branches and contact centers.
  • Envestnet | Yodlee offers millennials a solution for measuring financial health and promoting a healthy financial lifestyle.
  • Experian CrossCore is a single platform that helps manage customer identities, fraud-prevention tools, workflows and decision strategies in an easy-to-use and scalable format.
  • EyeVerify’s Eyeprint ID offers banks and other financial services companies eye biometrics via smartphone cameras for convenient, secure and private authentication.
  • Featurespace’s ARIC Engine helps financial services clients spot and prevent fraud attacks in real time using adaptive behavioral analytics.
  • Finicity offers an API for companies to build financial apps.
  • Fiserv helps financial institutions enable social finance by providing customers access to a safe, collaborative bank-secured social funding product.
  • Full Profile uses the blockchain and smart contracts for real-time settlement and reporting of physical agri-commodities to help farmers, buyers, banks and government counter party and credit-risk exposures.
  • FutureVault’s cloud-based filing cabinet helps financial service providers and their clients organize asset documents and accounts using a secure, structured and collaborative B2B2C cloud environment.
  • GainX’s SaaS platform uses decades of market research and leading-edge technology to help large financial institutions overcome innovation and adaption failures.
  • GoodData helps large banks, credit-card processing and insurance companies commercialize and monetize their data using a scalable, manageable and secure platform that is exclusively designed for data products and embedded analytics.
  • iBank Marketing offers millennials a multifunction digital wallet to help them achieve personal goals around life events by using its local eco-system that bridges consumers and small- to medium-sized enterprises.
  • identitii uses tokens and blockchain to help financial institutions with KYC, CTF and AML compliance using an information layer over legacy systems.
  • InSpirAVE’s social e-commerce platform curates advice and financial support from the user’s friends and family, financial institutions, and merchants. It helps multiply savings, for big-ticket purchases for customers who otherwise may not be able to afford them, by placing important goals for life’s special moments within reach, without the crushing burden of debt.
  • KORE’s platform transforms enterprise applications, online banking and mobile apps into personalized, conversational engagements to help financial institutions meet customer-experience expectations using the power of bots and simplicity of messaging.
  • LendingFront’s lending platform leverages a cloud-based system that furnishes small businesses with capital using their cashflow data.
  • Lidya offers African small- to medium-sized enterprises access to finance using online receivables-based lending and proprietary credit scoring.
  • Liferay’s Digital Experience offers banks a richer understanding of customers by orchestrating personalized customer experiences.
  • M1 Finance places assets held in low-yielding cash accounts into an asset-linked bank account and intuitive investment platform.
  • MapD’s Immerse helps quantitative hedge fund and asset managers query datasets with billions of rows in real-time by applying the parallel processing power of GPUs to the challenges of databases, visualization and analytics.
  • MarketX’s cross-border investment platform helps international investors with the lack of liquidity for U.S. startup shares and limited access to U.S. pre-IPO investment opportunities.
  • ModoPayments offers financial companies a digital payments hub to connect disparate sources of value to diverse destinations using Modo’s COIN technology.
  • Moonraft Innovation Labs helps banks innovate and evolve by rapidly adapting to changing market needs using Catamera, its unique customer experience delivery framework.
  • Moven’s growing platform reaches the millennial, mobile first, digital native audience by bringing banking (specifically savings) into the moment.
  • MX helps financial institutions become true advocates for their account holders by using analytics to power a revolutionary category of data-driven money management.
  • nanoPay offers a payments and loyalty solution for merchants.
  • Overbond’s digital platform offers transparency, efficiency, and liquidity in the fixed income market for corporate issuers, investors, and dealers.
  • Personetics offers financial services providers a digital personalization platform that uses real-time, ultra-scalable predictive analytics to keep customers engaged in the digital age.
  • ProActive FinTech uses a phone app and debit card featuring unlimited mini bank accounts and pre-purchase categorization to help millennial moms with cash-flow management.
  • QE Data offers commercial banking systems a real-time predictive model for net cash-flows that uses machine learning, rich visualization, speedy deployment and real-world banking experience.
  • Qumram uses 100% real-time, video-like recording of every mouse movement, keystroke and button click to help financial services organizations with compliance and transparency issues relating to digital business.
  • RightCapital’s financial and tax-planning platform helps advisers deliver unbundled, quality financial planning and tax-planning services. It works to efficiently and digitally help consumers with the lack of viable business and technology solutions.
  • SaleMove offers financial institutions a live engagement platform to help sell and service complex financial services products online. The platform uses instant video chat and guided browsing with no downloads or installations.
  • Sindeo’s self-directed consumer rate quote and prequalification tool simplifies home financing and refinancing using an integrated platform that offers consumer, real estate partner, and adviser tools that conform to CFPB regulation and ensure a simple and easy consumer experience.
  • SpeechPro’s customer onboarding solution offers multichannel access to help CTOs, developers and other technologists focus on KYC, identity and verification.
  • Swych’s mobile gifting platform offers gift-card recipients a better way to buy, gift, and manage gift cards.
  • Tango Card’s RaaS API 2.0 uses simple-yet-complete delivery technology and domain expertise to help enterprises deliver incentives efficiently and effectively.
  • TokBox’s Financial Services Accelerator Pack offers banks and financial organizations secure and easy-to-embed, real-time communications technology.
  • TransUnion’s interactive data-visualization solution uses big data and analytics to connect and interpret consumer financial data for lenders.
  • Trulioo’s GlobalGateway uses traditional and cyber ID data sources to offer banks, financial services providers, and online marketplaces secure access to reliable, global data sources for instant ID-verification.
  • Trusona’s anti-replay and TruToken technology offers an insured identity platform for sensitive assets.
  • Unbill’s API enables companies to offer bill pay in their app or technology platform without complicated integration or high costs.
  • Uniken’s REL-ID, a card-not-present approval solution, uses mobile API tool kits and DMZ software appliances to help enterprises secure mobile communications.
  • Urban FT’s enhanced, white-label digital banking platform gives financial services organizations, wireless carriers, and other consumer-facing organizations a long-term, competitive advantage that makes their brand integral to customers’ daily financial and online social activities, financial tools, and social features.
  • Xentral Station’s supply-chain funding app helps vendors of all sizes receive cash for trade financing within 24 hours.
  • Zenmonics uses a single, common platform to help banks and their customers minimize friction in customer engagement with channelUNITED.
  • Zooz offers an agnostic, cross-border payments platform to help merchants act on payment processes and save money to maintain their client base.

Stay tuned on the blog for more detailed descriptions. And don’t forget to register now to reserve your spot.