Year: 2014

Announcing the Full Presenter Lineup for FinovateSpring 2014!

By Eric Mattson Posted on
Categories: Uncategorized

FinovateSpringButtonLogo.jpg

FinovateSpring 2014 is less than two weeks away, and the excitement is building! More and more tickets are selling with every passing hour and on April 29 & 30, we’re expecting to break Finovate’s attendance record for the second year in a row with an audience of over 1,400 industry professionals and entrepreneurs.

You’ve probably already seen a few of the companies presenting at FinovateSpring this year, but a bunch of presenters just came out of stealth mode on Friday to complete the lineup. So, without further ado, here’s the full lineup of 68 companies that will demo their latest fintech innovations in the heart of Silicon Valley in less than 14 days:

  • Artivest
  • Avoka
  • BodeTree
  • ChiaraMail
  • Coinbase
  • CREALOGIX
  • CUneXus
  • D3 Banking
  • Dealstruck
  • defi SOLUTIONS
  • Digital Insight
  • Digital Retail Apps
  • Encap Security
  • Endeavour
  • EyeVerify
  • FinBuddy
  • Fiserv
  • FlexScore
  • ID.me
  • Insuritas
  • IntelliResponse
  • Interactions
  • Jumio
  • Kofax
  • Kown
  • Kreditech
  • LendingRobot
  • LendingTree
  • LendUp
  • Loop
  • LOYAL3
  • Market Prophit
  • Motif Investing
  • MShift
  • Nearex
  • NICE Systems
  • OnBudget
  • Ondot Systems
  • Pellucid Analytics
  • Personal Capital
  • Pixeliris
  • Privatbank
  • Qapital
  • Quisk
  • Radius
  • RealtyMogul
  • Red Giant
  • Rippleshot
  • Roostify
  • SaveUp
  • SmartAsset
  • Spreedly
  • Stockpile
  • StrategyCorps
  • Sureify
  • Tactile Finance
  • TD Ameritrade & LikeFolio
  • TextPower
  • True Link
  • Venovate
  • Verde International
  • Visible Equity
  • Vorstack
  • WePay
  • Wipit
  • Yseop
  • ZenPayroll
  • Zumigo

Please don’t delay! Tickets are selling fast and space is limited so please be sure to register now to make sure you get a seat!

FinovateSpring 2014 is sponsored by: The Bancorp, Capital Source, Financial Technology Partners, Hudson Cook, KPMG, Life.SREDA, UK Trade & Investment, Visa, Xignite and Zions Direct.

FinovateSpring 2014 is partners with: Aite Group, ABA, Bank Innovators Council, BankersHub, BayPay Forum, California Bankers Association, Fin-Tech.org, Government of Canada, Celent, Filene, Hotwire PR, Javelin Strategy, The Paypers, SME Finance Forum, Visible Banking, & Western Independent Bankers.

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Announcing the Full Presenting Lineup for FinovateSpring 2014!

By Eric Mattson Posted on
Categories: Uncategorized

FinovateSpring 2014 is less than two weeks away, and the excitement is building! More and more tickets are selling with every passing hour and on April 29 & 30, we’re expecting to break Finovate’s attendance record for the second year in a row with an audience of over 1,400 industry professionals and entrepreneurs.

You’ve probably already seen a few of the companies presenting at FinovateSpring this year, but a bunch of presenters just came out of stealth mode on Friday to complete the lineup. So, without further ado, here’s the full lineup of 68 companies that will demo their latest fintech innovations in the heart of Silicon Valley in less than 14 days:

  • Artivest
  • Avoka
  • BodeTree
  • ChiaraMail
  • Coinbase
  • CREALOGIX
  • CUneXus
  • D3 Banking
  • Dealstruck
  • defi SOLUTIONS
  • Digital Insight
  • Digital Retail Apps
  • Encap Security
  • Endeavour
  • EyeVerify
  • FinBuddy
  • Fiserv
  • FlexScore
  • ID.me
  • Insuritas
  • IntelliResponse
  • Interactions
  • Jumio
  • Kofax
  • Kown
  • Kreditech
  • LendingRobot
  • LendingTree
  • LendUp
  • Loop
  • LOYAL3
  • Market Prophit
  • Motif Investing
  • MShift
  • Nearex
  • NICE Systems
  • OnBudget
  • Ondot Systems
  • Pellucid Analytics
  • Personal Capital
  • Pixeliris
  • Privatbank
  • Qapital
  • Quisk
  • Radius
  • RealtyMogul
  • Red Giant
  • Rippleshot
  • Roostify
  • SaveUp
  • SmartAsset
  • Spreedly
  • Stockpile
  • StrategyCorps
  • Sureify
  • Tactile Finance
  • TD Ameritrade & LikeFolio
  • TextPower
  • True Link
  • Venovate
  • Verde International
  • Visible Equity
  • Vorstack
  • WePay
  • Wipit
  • Yseop
  • ZenPayroll
  • Zumigo

Please don’t delay! Tickets are selling fast and space is limited so please be sure to register now to make sure you get a seat!

FinovateSpring 2014 is sponsored by: The Bancorp, Capital Source, Financial Technology Partners, Hudson Cook, KPMG, Life.SREDA, UK Trade & Investment, Visa, Xignite and Zions Direct.

FinovateSpring 2014 is partners with: Aite Group, ABA, Bank Innovators Council, BankersHub, BayPay Forum, California Bankers Association, Fin-Tech.org, Government of Canada, Celent, Filene, Hotwire PR, Javelin Strategy, The Paypers, SME Finance Forum, Visible Banking, & Western Independent Bankers.

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TransferWise Hits £1 Billion Mark for P2P Cross Border Money Transfers

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: TransferWise

TransferwiseLogoNew.jpg

In the eleven months since May 2013, TransferWise has seen its cumulative total volume of cash transferred cross-border climb from just over £100 million to £1 billion.

Based in London, TransferWise provides peer-to-peer money transfer services in more than 175 different currencies. The platform works by connecting people looking to transfer money from Country A to Country B, with people looking to make the exact opposite transfer.

TransferWise has raised more than $7 million since its founding in 2010. The lion’s share of the capital has come from a Series A round almost a year ago led by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures.
Said TransferWise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus of the newly-reached milestone: “it shows how much people need modern financial services – something where it is modern, fast and cheap.”
Speaking of modern, fast and cheap, TransferWise is also announcing the launch of its Android app. Said Hinrikus, “there is much more that money on mobile should mean to people and ways they can be in control.”
The latest news from TransferWise shows how the currency transfer business has heated up. Companies like CurrencyFair and Azimo, both Finovate alums also, have announced reaching significant milestones or raising significant VC capital in recent weeks, as well. And now, even more attention is being paid to companies like these as potential partnership with Facebook, should the social networking innovator act on rumors that it is getting into the money transfer game.
TransferWise demoed its technology as part of the FinovateEurope show in 2013. See the company in action here.

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Finovate Alums Make Fast Company’s Top 10 Most Innovative in Finance

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Dwolla, eToro, MasterCard, NICE Systems, OneID, TransferWise

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Who knew? More than half of the world’s top 10 most innovative companies in finance are Finovate alums.

Don’t just take our word for it. Fast Company published its roster of innovation in the financial space as part of their quest to find those companies that are “creating radical new approaches to move cash from one place to another.” 

And among such widely-known and talked-about entities as Square and Bitcoin, we find more than a handful of innovators who have used the Finovate stage to help show their technology to the world.

Take a look at the companies below, accompanied by Fast Company’s take on just what makes each innovator truly unique.

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Fast Company: “For connecting banks and other clients to frazzled end users when problems arise.”

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Fast Company: “For daring to take on the fee-laden credit card establishment.”

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Fast Company: “For slashing pesky foreign-exchange costs by creating a transparent peer-to-peer network.”

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Fast Company: “For establishing a single login for web users and taking a giant leap toward eradicating the scourge of the Internet: passwords.”
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Fast Company: “For luring international customers with a mobile-payment network that lets them purchase with a simple click.”

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#10 eToro
Fast Company: “For creating a social network that lets traders emulate those with skin in the game.”
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Finovate Alumni News– April 16, 2014

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Betterment, Credit Sesame, Nostrum Group, Realty Mogul
  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgWhere the Alums Are: A Remembrance of FinovateSpring Past. Read what the innovators of FinovateSpring 2013 have been up to in the year since.
  • Betterment raises $32 million in Series C round.
  • Realty Mogul crowdfunds Hard Rock Hotel Palm Springs.
  • Partnership with Clearly Loans brings Nostrum Group into the secured loan processing business.
  • Credit Sesame launches free credit and identity protection service.
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.

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Where the Alums Are: A Remembrance of FinovateSpring Past

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Arxan Technologies, Balance Financial, Banking Up, Banno, Better ATM Services, Braintree, CardFlight, Encap, EyeVerify, Finagraph, Finect, FinovateSpring 2013, FinovateSpring 2014, GoodApril, IntelliResponse, Jemstep, Kabbage, Kofax, Leaf, LendUp, LICUOS, Lodo Software, MoneyDesktop, Mortgage Harmony, Narrative Science, NICE Systems, Oink, OneID, OpenCoin, P2BInvestor, PayNearMe, Prestadero, Quantopian, Realty Mogul, SeedInvest, Yseop, Zooz

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It is hard to believe that it is almost time for FinovateSpring 2014.

There’s still plenty of time for you to get your tickets to our upcoming event in San Jose, California on April 29 and 30. Our final Sneak Peek preview post is up, all the companies who were prepping under the radar are now out of stealth, and we can’t wait for you to see what this year’s spring crop of fintech entrepreneurs and innovators has in store.

Before we do, however, let’s take a moment to take a look back at last year’s FinovateSpring alums. As we scrolled through blog archives, several themes jumped out: the appetite for startups remains as passionate as ever, with three of our Spring 2013 alums being acquired by such financial sector potentates as Intuit and PayPal. And venture capitalists continue to see innovation in this space as a more than worthwhile investment, with 20 separate fundings for Spring 2013 alums

We’ve grouped the achievements into four categories: Exits, Fundings, Awards, and Acquisitions. Enjoy!
EXITS
  • Jack Henry buys Banno for undisclosed sum
  • The rumors are true: eBay’s PayPal acquires Braintree for $800 million in cash
  • Intuit buys tax planning/preparation specialist GoodApril
  • TaxAct acquires Balance Financial
FUNDINGS
  • CardFlight secures $1.6 million in seed funding from ff Venture Capital
  • Encap earns seven-figure investment from ProVenture Seed
  • EyeVerify earns $2.3 million in Series A funding
  • Jemstep raises $4.5 million in Series A round
  • Kabbage brings in $270 million in debt financing to provide small businesses with funding of their own
  • Kabbage brings in $75 MIllion in debt financing
  • Leaf raises $20 million from Heartland Payment Systems
  • Alternative lender LendUp raises $14 million in new funding
  • D3 Banking creator Lodo Software Brings in $3 million
  • Narrative Science secures $11.5 million in Series C funding
  • OpenCoin wins investment from Google Ventures, IDG Capital Partners
  • P2BInvestor raises $1.2 million in Series A round
  • PayNearMe leverages Family Dollar Partnership; raises $20 million
  • PayNearMe raises $10 million in Series D funding, launches Express Merchant Onboarding Option
  • Prestadero raises 5 million pesos ($400,000 USD) in first round of funding
  • Quantopian raises $6.7 million in Series A round
  • Realty Mogul raises $9 million in round led by Canaan Partners
  • SeedInvest raises $2 million in crowdfunded investment campaign
  • SeedInvest Raises $1 million in round Led by Jumpstart New Jersey Angel Network
  • Zooz Closes $2 million Series A round Led by XSeed Capital
AWARDS
ACQUISITONS
  • OpenCoin acquires SimpleHoney
  • Kofax acquires data integration software provider Kapow Technologies
  • NICE to acquire Causata to enhance customer experience management

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Tax Day Turns to Funding Day for Some: LearnVest Raises $28 Million, The Currency Cloud Pulls in $10 Million

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, LearnVest, The Currency Cloud

Most of us know April 15 as Tax Day, but for three Finovate alums, today is about a different flow of money than a tax return. Aside from Betterment’s announcement of its $32 million round (see our post from this morning), LearnVest pulled in $28 million in Series D funding, while The Currency Cloud garnered $10 million in Series B.

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LearnVest, a personal financial management and planning platform and service
    • New funding: $28 million Series D
    • Investors: Northwestern Mutual Capital, Accel Partners, and American Express Ventures
    • Total Funding: $69 million
    • Founded: 2007
    • Headquarters: New York, NY

LearnVest will use the funding to boost hiring efforts at its Arizona-based Expert Hub and to scale its LearnVest at Work channel, which won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2013.

Check out its Best of Show-winning FinovateFall 2013 demo video:

LearnVest.jpg

CurrencyCloudLogoFEU14.jpg

The Currency Cloud, a company that powers international payments with its API that enables secure, global payments
    • New funding: $10 million
    • Investors: Atlas Venture, Anthem Venture Partners, Notion Capital, XAnge Private Equity, Silicon Valley Bank
    • Total funding: $17 million
    • Founded: 2012
    • Headquarters: London

The Currency Cloud will use the funding to expand its focus on the UK and Europe to a more international realm, specifically into the the U.S.

Check out The Currency Cloud’s demo from FinovateEurope 2014, where it debuted its new e-wallet functionality and user interface.

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Betterment Raises $32 Million in Series C Round

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Betterment

Thumbnail image for BettermentLogo8.25.jpg

In a funding round that more than tripled the amount raised in its previous round, wealth management innovator Betterment raised $32 million from a sizable group of both new and existing investors.

Betterment’s total capital now stands at $45 million. Participating in this latest round were:

  • Anthemis Group
  • Bessemer Venture Partners
  • Citi Ventures
  • Globespan Capital Partners
  • Menlo Ventures
  • Northwestern Mutual Capital
Among the goals for the new capital cited by Betterment CEO Jon Stein is expanding the company’s range of products. This likely includes a new product for RIAs, Betterment Institutional, that the company plans to release soon.
In an interview with Forbes.com, Betterment CEO Jon Stein said he expects his company to have more than $1 billion under management by the end of 2014. Betterment currently has about half that amount under management right now, and Stein says that AUM is growing at a rate of 10% a month.
Betterment works by investing its customers in low-cost, index exchange-traded funds. With investments ranging from short-term U.S. Treasury bonds to stocks from emerging market countries, investors can achieve broad diversification without single-stock or liquidity risks. Asset allocation is personalized based on the short or long-term goals of the individual investor.
The company stresses that its goal is not to beat the market on a risk-adjusted basis. Instead Betterment practices “passive investing,” looking to deliver market returns at a reasonable price that is lower than that offered by traditional investment managers.
Betterment has no minimum investment or minimum account balance, though account balance is a factor in determining pricing. The company charges a management fee ranging between 0.15% and 0.35% that covers everything from trades to advisory service. The company has 30,000 customers, with an average age of 36. However, 20% of Betterment’s customers are over the age of 50.
Founded in 2008 and based in New York City, Betterment was a Best of Show winner at FinovateFall 2010. See a demo of their presentation here. 

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Finovate Alumni News– April 15, 2014

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CardFlight, HelloWallet, Insuritas, TransferWise
  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgTransferWise announces more than $1 billion in P2P transfers.
  • Insuritas picked by Nutmeg State Federal Credit Union to open and manage its turnkey insurance agency. See Insuritas demo at FinovateSpring in San Jose.
  • Streetwise reports: HelloWallet Signs Another Big Deal with Aon Hewitt.
  • CardFlight wins Electronic Transactions Association’s 2014 Technology Innovation Award.
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.

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Mobile PFM: Tracking Automobile Trips

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Auto Financing, Mobile Banking, Personal Financial Management

imageLast week, MileIQ cracked the top-50 in Apple’s “Finance | Free” category. Think of it as Fitbit for cars, running in the background automatically logging all car trips (and killing battery life). 

At the end of each trip, users categorize the trip by swiping left for personal or right for business (see screenshots below). Users can also annotate transactions by “flipping” them over and typing basic details (see screenshot 2 below).

That’s basically all there is to the mobile part. Users go to the companion desktop dashboard (screenshot #5) to further categorize trips, stitch the various segments into a single trip, delete items, add parking and toll fees, edit the tags, manually add a trip and create reports.

You can also create a quick email report at the push of button from within the app (screenshot #6).

It’s free for 40 trips per month, but then costs $5.99/mo or $60 annually. It could make for a nice auto loan/lease premium item.

___________________________

Relevance for FIs
___________________________

This feature would be a nice, fee-based value-add for personal financial management (PFM) programs. But the more interesting aspect is the UI. Banks could provide a similar function for handling all transactions. Users swipe to the left to categorize a transaction as tax-deductible/business or right if not. Later, just the left-swiped transactions could be tagged with more specific categories (business travel, charitable contributions, etc).

This simple approach ever so slightly “gamifies” mobile-transaction processing, helping users save money and better manage their finances. 

———————-

Screenshots
Mobile UI

#1 (left) Main page shows drive(s) to classify
#2 (right) Annotation available on the “back” of each drive card

 image        image

#3 (left) Congratulations for handling all transactions  
#4 (right) Pricing options

 image       image

#5 Desktop dashboard

image

#6 Quick email report, generated by button in mobile

image

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1. We’ve tackled PFM numerous times over the years in our Online Banking Report. Most recently here (subscription).

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SeedInvest Raises $2 Million in Crowdfunded Investment Campaign

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: SeedInvest

Thumbnail image for seedinvestlogoblack.jpg

Crowdfunder, fund thyself.

That’s the strategy of crowd funding specialist, SeedInvest, which announced today that it is seeking to raise the balance of its $3 million Series A round from its own community of investors.

SeedInvest co-founder and CEO Ryan Feit explained: “Given that SeedInvest allows individuals to invest alongside VCs, we decided to eat our own dog food and hold the last millions for our own investors.”

SeedInvest has $2 million already invested, courtesy of investors such as Archer Gray, Avenue A Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Krillion Ventures, and Scout Ventures. The company is gearing up to take advantage of a key feature of the JOBS Act that will allow non-accredited investors to participate in crowd funding platforms like SeedInvest later this year. Feit pointed specifically to the new funding as enabling the company to service what he expects to be a significant increase in the number of potential new investors.

An equity crowd funding platform, SeedInvest focuses on directing investors toward startups and small businesses that are seeking funding. Among the companies that have received investment via SeedInvest are Vengo, a POS kiosk for digital media, and CapLinked, a PayPayl-like platform for businesses. SeedInvest was founded in January 2012, and is based in New York City.
SeedInvest demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2013 in San Francisco. See their video here. And for more information about our upcoming FinovateSpring event, April 29 and 30 in San Jose, visit our FinovateSpring 2014 page.

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Finovate Alumni News– April 14, 2014

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Dashlane, FIS, Ignite Sales, Ripple, SeedInvest, TradeHero
  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgPYMNTS looks at how Ripple hopes to build a global payments network.
  • Android Headlines reviews TradeHero.
  • FIS acquires CMSI, provider of consumer loan origination and portfolio management software.
  • CNBC’s Squawk on the Street interviews Dashlane CEO Emmanuel Schalit on Heartbleed.
  • SeedInvest raises $2 million in crowd funded investment campaign.
  • Ignite Sales wins 2014 Monarch Award for its Profitability Dashboard for OmniChannel Measurement.
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.

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