Thanks to all who tweeted and followed #Finovate throughout the last week’s event. On Tuesday afternoon there was enough activity to propel #finovate to the top of the trending subjects in San Francisco. Here are some of our favorites.
Year: 2013
Cardlytics Pulls in $40 Million
Card-linked offers platform, Cardlytics, announced last week that it has raised $40 million from undisclosed, existing investors.
The Boston-based company’s president and COO, Lynne Laube, explained that the $40 million will be used to expand its international presence. Cardlytics already has plans to launch with bank partners in Europe, Australia, Canada, and Brazil. Specific bank partners are still undisclosed.
To learn more about Cardlytics, watch its FinovateEurope 2013 demo.
Wipit Powered Wallet Now Available to Boost Mobile Customers
Boost Mobile customers soon will find themselves part of the mobile payments movement, as the non-contract wireless provider adds a mobile wallet feature to its smartphones.
That mobile wallet will be powered by Wipit, a mobile payments company with a focus on providing service to the underbanked. Founders of the company include veterans of the prepaid wireless industry: John Tantum, former President of Virgin Mobile USA, Michael Lanzon, former VP of Sales and Marketing for Boost Mobile, and Job Tucker, former Director of National Sales and Distribution for Boost Mobile.
Wipit’s CEO is Richard Kang, who is also a co-founder.
The company’s technology allows users to create a free mobile wallet either online or on their smartphone. The wallet can be loaded with prepaid funds at any one of more than 10,000 retail locations in the United States.
Boost Mobile reaches more than 270 million people via its Nationwide Sprint Network. The company’s handsets are sold at almost 20,000 retailers nationwide, and its Re-Boost cards can be found at 100,000 locations in the U.S.
Based out of California and founded in 2010, Wipit demoed its technology as part of FinovateSpring 2012. Watch the presentation here.
SimpleTuition Announces $4 Million Series D Round
SimpleTuition’s job of providing resources to help students responsibly borrow, maintain, and retire student debt just got $4 million easier.
The $4 million in venture funding comes from a trio of previous investors in the company: Atlas Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, and North Hill Ventures. The additional capital brings SimpleTuition’s funding total to more than $21 million, excluding $5 million in debt financing from August of last year.
With tools like Student Loan Comparison, SmarterBank, and SmarterBucks, SimpleTuition provides students and their families with resources to help them make informed decisions about financing higher education. The company’s recent acquisition of ValoreBooks allows them to help students minimize the cost of textbooks, as well.
SimpleTuition plans to invest its new capital in marketing and development initiatives in each of its three main lines of business: student loans, textbooks, and rewards. They presented their technology as part of FinovateStartup back in 2008. Learn more about them here.
Big Banks Boost Capital Access Network’s Line of Credit By More than 50%
Capital Access Network announced that it has secured an additional $165 million credit line. The additional funding will extend the company’s lending capacity to nearly $500 million from its current level of $295 million.
Participating in the syndicate are:
- Capital One
- Amalgamated Bank
- Regions Bank
- Capital Source
- AloStar
- Wells Fargo Capital Finance LLC
- Goldman Sachs
- Brown Brothers Harriman
- Key Equipment Finance
- Fifth Third Bancorp
Stimulating rapid growth is the primary goal for the company given the increased credit capacity. In addition to the funding announcement, Capital Access Network is making news with a pair of major management moves: naming co-founder of Capital One Nigel Morris Vice Chairman, and promoting Daniel DeMeo to CEO. DeMeo had been serving as CAN’s chief financial officer since 2010.
A specialist in small business lending, Capital Access Network has provided small businesses with more than $3 billion in working capital since inception in 1998. Targeting financing needs of $150,000 or less, CAN’s technology enables the company to look beyond credit scores to provide funding based on their own assessment of likely business performance.
Headquartered in New York City, Capital Access Network was among the presenters at FinovateEurope 2011 in London. To see the presentation, click here.
Update: Original copy edited to specify Nigel Morris as co-founder of Capital One, and the company’s headquarters in New York City.
Swipely Earns $12 Million in Series B Funding
Shasta Ventures led the financing round. Joining them were current investors First Round Capital, Greylock Partners, and Index Ventures.
Swipely plans to use the $12 million in new capital to help finance growth nationwide, as well as building the network of merchants who use their payment marketing technology. This latest round of funding brings the company’s total to more than $20 million.
Some additional metrics:
- Manages more than $700 million in annual sales.
- Maintains service to merchants in 130 cities and towns in the U.S.
- Provides consumer behavior analytics on more than 2 million customers
Swipely targets merchants with more than $30,000 in monthly credit card sales.
Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, Swipely launched its Payment Marketing solution in 2012. The company earned a spot on Forbes’ list of “America’s Most Promising Companies” and was named one of the “Best Places to Work in Rhode Island” by Providence Business News.
Swipely was among the companies to debut its technology at FinovateSpring 2012. See its demo here.
Finovate Alumni News– May 21, 2013
Birdback teams up with Braintree for 3-day payments hackathon.
- Indiana Members CU chooses Jack Henry & Associates’ Symitar for in-house core processing.
- Keynote DeviceAnywhere adds mobile scripting, UI enhancements.
- VoiceTrust moves operational headquarters to Canada, opening offices in Toronto and Montreal.
- Figlo expands partnership with Yellowtail Consulting to enable stronger focus on South Africa.
- Wipit partners with Sprint/ Boost Mobile to bring mobile payment capability to cash-preferred consumers.
- Virtual Piggy signs first UK partners, Toy Galaxy and Toadstool.
- eToro granted UK financial regulation approval from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
- Silicon Republic features Holvi.
- Tyfone releases Connected Smart Card solution to allow FIs to enhance user ID info used to access sensitive data.
- Tradeshift partners with Invoiceware International to deliver compliant e-invoice validation in Latin America.
- BillGuard to integrate with Google Wallet for transaction monitoring.
- SigFig Portfolio adds support for Windows Phone.
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.
FinovateSpring 2013 in the Press
Last week’s FinovateSpring 2013 received great coverage through blogs, tweets and articles. Here are the highlights:
Full conference live blogs
—————
Three contributors risked carpel tunnel to cover all 72 demos. Thanks to Erin McCune and William Mills III and Phillip Ryan for going the extra mile!
Bank Innovation
by Phillip Ryan
FinovateSpring recap and ratings
Day one morning recap
Day one afternoon recap
Day two morning recap
Day two afternoon recap
PaymentsViews
Live Blogging Finovate Spring 2013 San Francisco
by Erin McCune
William Mills blog
Live Blog: FinovateSpring 2013 San Francisco by William Mills III-DAY ONE
by William Mills III
Other coverage
———————————————————————————————————–
Affluent Strategies
What About the Overbanked?
by JP Nicols
American Banker
5 Most Intriguing Companies at Finovate
by Sean Sposito
Bank Security Top Focus at Finovate
Banno Launches Data-Analytics Marketing Feature
by Sean Sposito
Crowdfunding Startups Pose New Competition to Commercial Lenders
by Sean Sposito
EyeVerify Rolls Out Authentication Service for Mobile Banking
by Brian Browdie
GoBank to Go Live on the Fourth of July
by Sean Sposito
The Buzz at Finovate: New Security Tech
by Sean Sposito
Bank Marketing Strategy
Musings of a Finovate Virgin
by Jim Marous
Bank Systems & Technology
Digital Marketing Solutions Stand Front and Center at Finovate Spring
by Jonathan Camhi
Banking 2020
FI Spotlight: USAlliance FCU Sees Cross-Selling Success
Barron’s
Algorithms for the Masses
by Theresa W. Carey
Bloomberg Businessweek
Kabbage Expands Its Cash Advances to Brick-and-Mortars
by Patrick Clark
Celent
How to give a killer Finovate presentation
by Dan Latimore
Credit Union Magazine
Finovate Unveils Best of Show Winners
Finovate Highlights Industry’s Best and Brightest
by Steve Rodgers
Look into the Future of Finance
by Steve Rodgers
Scenes from FinovateSpring 2013
by Steve Rodgers
Credit Union Times
5 Things You Don’t Know Because You Weren’t at Finovate
by Robert McGarvey
Onsite Coverage: Finovate Crowns the Winners
by Robert McGarvey
Onsite Coverage: New Security Tools Take Finovate Stage in Numbers
by Robert McGarvey
Onsite Coverage: No Clear Winners at Finovate Day 2
by Robert McGarvey
Threat of the Week: DDoS Back at You
by Robert McGarvey
Tomorrow’s Ideas Spark Interest But Fail to Excite
by Robert McGarvey
Des Moines Register
Banno launches marketing product for banks
by Marco Santana
Ecommerce Bytes
ZooZ Lets Mobile Shoppers Tap an Ad to Buy
By Ina Steiner
FamZoo blog
My Finovate Scorecard Winners Plus Snarky Tweet Highlights
by Bill Dwight
Spend Money Like a Pop Star…Or Not: FamZoo’s FinovateSpring 2013 Demo
by Bill Dwight
Filene blog
Filene Five: Promising Products from Finovate
Finews.ch
Neues aus der Finanzwelt der Zukunft
Finextra
Banno unveils marketing tool Kernel
Forrester blog
FinovateSpring Fling 2013: Another Year of Dazzling Financial Services Delight!
by Tiffani Montez
Hotwire blog
Innovations inspire at Finovate Spring 2013
by Annette Leach
IntelliResponse blog
IntelliResponse Takes Center Stage at Finovate Spring 2013
by Dwayne Weppler
Investment News
Quantopian launches trading platform pilot program
by Davis D. Janowski
Kabbage blog
Kabbage and Intuit Partner to Fund Small Businesses!
Lisa LaMagna’s Slideshare
Finovate SF in 60 Seconds
by Lisa LaMagna
MainStreet
Kabbage Expands Small-Business Financing
by Laurie Kulikowski
Man in Ranks blog
I attended Finovate Spring in San Francisco
by Christopher Perrien
Intuit
by Christopher Perrien
Newfination
Finovate Spring 2013: Expensify Is At The Forefront Of Innovation In Business Expense Management
Finovate Spring 2013: On Finovera You Can Store Your Bills, Statements, And Financial Documents
Finovate Spring 2013: GoBank Is A New Finance Bank That Enables Smart Personal Money Management
Finovate Spring 2013: GoodApril Helps You With Your Taxes All Year Round
Finovate Spring 2013: In San Francisco At The Center Of The New Finance World
Finovate Spring 2013: Kabbage Approves And Lends Money To Small Businesses in 7 Minutes or Less
Finovate Spring 2013: Leaf.me Is A Multiprocessor Payment Platform For Merchants
Finovate Spring 2013: Prestadero Is A Mexican Peer To Peer Lending Marketplace
Finovate Spring 2013: Realty Mogul Is A Crowdfunding Platform For Real Estate Investing
Finovate Spring 2013: Refundo’s App Is For The Under and Unbanked
Finovate Spring 2013: Start A Trust Fund For Each Of Your Kids At TrustEgg
Finovate Spring 2013: Virtual Piggy Is A Safe Payments System For Your Kids to Spend their Allowance
Finovate Spring 2013: Walla.by Is A Full Service Credit Card Advisor
Newsday
Banking Up Launches at FinovateSpring, Lets Any Business Offer Customers a Trusted Alternative to Traditional Banking
PandoDaily
Finovate: Quantopian debuts live data trading for consumer quants
by Michael Carney
Pymnts.com
A VC’s Inside Look At FinovateSpring 2013
by Dan Rosen
GoBank Announces Timing of General Availability and National Distribution Relationships at FinovateSpring
Kabbage Extends Loan Services To Offline SMBs
TipRanks Wins Best of Show Award at Finovate
TransCard Congratulates FamZoo, Winner of One of Five 2013 FinovateSpring Best of Show Awards
The Paypers
InvoiceASAP, Zebra Technologies
partner for mobile invoicing solution
partner for mobile invoicing solution
Refundo blog
FinovateSpring 2013 Trip – Demo Day
by Michael de Senna
SF Gate
ZooZ Previews “In-Ad Payments”™ at Finovate Spring
Silicon Prairie
Onstage at Finovate, Banno unveils ad platform for banks
by Danny Schreiber
TechCrunch
Mobile Payments Startup ZooZ Debuts In-Ad Payments (Yes, “Ad” Not “App”)
by Sarah Perez
VentureBeat
Expensify takes on Freshbooks with invoicing & billing features
by Sean Ludwig
Kabbage expands its loans business, now supports Quickbooks
by Christina Farr
Y Combinator Blog
LendUp (YC W12) wins Finovate 2013 Best in Show for consumer loan platform to help the underbanked build credit
We’ll continue to add coverage throughout the next few weeks. If you have FinovateSpring press coverage you would like to add, please email the link to [email protected].
EyeVerify Earns $2.3 Million in Series A Funding
The latest investment in the biometric-identity innovator brings the company’s total funding to $3.7 million. Participating in this latest round were Think Big Partners, Mid-American Angels, Nebraska Angels, and other individual, angel investors.
EyeVerify plans to use the additional funding to add sales and marketing talent, as well as invest in research and development. Founded in January 2012, the company is based in Kansas City, Kansas, and has eleven employees.
The technology uses the unique vein patterns in the whites of the eyes to create an “eye print” with fingerprint-level accuracy, according to the company. Eyeprints can be taken with a smartphone camera rather than requiring specialized hardware.
EyeVerify demoed their Eyeprint technology as part of the show at FinovateSpring in San Francisco this month. You can read our live coverage of their presentation here.
OpenCoin Wins Investment from Google Ventures, IDG Capital Partners
For the second time in as many months, open source payment network innovator, OpenCoin is closing another round of funding. This time the company has earned investment from Google Ventures and China-based IDG Capital Partners.
The total amount of the angel funding round has not been disclosed, though Google Ventures is rumored to have contributed less than $200,000.
The announcement comes one month after the company reported funding from a quintet of investors: Andreessen Horowitz, FF Angel IV, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Vast Ventures, and Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. OpenCoin’s technology, Ripple, is a decentralized, virtual currency convertible into dollars, euros, yen, or Bitcoin.
OpenCoin’s CEO is Chris Larsen. The company presented its Ripple technology as part of FinovateSpring this month in San Francisco. Read our live coverage of their demo here.
Finovate Alumni News– May 20, 2013
- Quantopian featured in the print edition of Barron’s Electronic Investor column.
- Software company Malauzai, technology partner with Allied Payment Networks, talks mobile photo bill pay adoption rates.
- CardNotPresent takes a look at OneID’s two-factor authentication technology.
- Palo Alto Software collaborates with MasterCard to provide lean planning and management software solutions to small businesses.
- Lendio interviews BBC Easy founders in a podcast on its blog.
- CommunityLend’s FinanceIt launches paperless document function.
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 17, 2013
- Serverside Group grants license for its US card customization patents to financial services provider, DimpleDough.
- CashStar announces year-over-year growth in Mother’s Day eGifting cards sold.
- MobilePaymentsToday takes a look at Zooz In-Ad Payments service.
- FlexScore provides waiting list for access codes to beta version of their web-based financial advisor platform.
- American Banker features crowdfunders LendUp and Realty Mogul.
- TransCard congratulates technology partner FamZoo on winning FinovateSpring 2013 honors.
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.