February 2015 - Finovate

Fintech Fundings: 11 Companies Raise $230 Million Week Ended Feb. 27

By Jim Bruene Posted on February 27, 2015
Categories: Funding

Eleven companies raised $232 million this week, with the all but one (disclosed) round coming in at $2 million or more. Finovate alums accounted for more than half the total with Xero taking in $111 million and SecureKey $29 million.

The deals from Feb 20 to 27 by size:

Xero
Cloud accounting
HQ: Wellington, New Zealand (public)
Latest round: $111 million
Total raised: $355 million
Tags: SMB, accounts receivable, payable, bookkeeping, financial management, invoicing, Finovate & FinDEVR alums
Source: Finovate

DriverUp
Marketplace lender for automobile financing
HQ: Dallas, Texas
Latest round: $50 million
Total raised: $50 million
Tags: Auto lending, underwriting, P2P, investing, installment credit, secured credit, title lending, Sierra Auto Finance (parent)
Source: Crunchbase

nCino
Cloud-based banking solutions
HQ: Wilmington, North Carolina
Latest round: $29 million
Total raised: $49 million
Tags: Banking, operating system, regulatory compliance
Source: Crunchbase

SecureKey
Payment security & authentication
HQ: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Latest round: $19 million
Total raised: $70.5 million
Tags: Security, payments, identity, digital, mobile, hardware, Finovate alum
Source: Crunchbase

Visio Financial Services
Online residential real estate loans for investors
HQ: Austin, Texas
Latest round: $6.7 million
Total raised: $13.2 million (includes $4.7 million debt)
Tags: Mortgage, investing, real estate
Source: Crunchbase

Trov
Values household goods for insurance purposes
HQ: Danville, California
Latest round: $6.5 million
Total raised: $13.3 million
Source: Pando

easySYS
SMB cloud-based accounting
HQ: Zurich, Switzerland
Latest round: $4.8 million
Total raised: $4.8 million
Tags: SMB, accounting, invoicing, financial management
Source: Crunchbase

Linked Finance
Person-to-person lending to SMBs
HQ: Dublin, Ireland
Latest round: $2.8 million
Total raised: $2.8 million
Tags: SMB, debt crowdfunding, lending, underwriting, P2P, peer-to-peer, loans
Source: Crunchbase

FundThrough

Online lending platform for Canadian SMBs
HQ: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Latest round: $2.2 million
Total raised: $2.2 million
Tags: SMB, lending, underwriting, credit, loans, credit lines
Source: FT Partners

CloudMargin
Collateral and risk management platform
HQ: London, UK
Latest round: Not disclosed
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: Investing, enterprise, analytics
Source: FT Partners

Squirrel
Financial wellness as an employee benefit
HQ: London, UK
Latest round: $565,000
Total raised: $1.3 million
Tags: Investing, enterprise, analytics, money management, PFM
Source: Crunchbase

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SecureKey Raises $19 Million in Series C

By David Penn Posted on February 27, 2015
Categories: SecureKey

In a round led by Blue Sky Capital and Rogers Venture Partners, Toronto-based authentication specialist SecureKey has raised $19 million in new funding. The Series C investment brings SecureKey’s total capital to more than $70 million.

SecureKey also announced the appointment of Didier Serra to Executive Vice President. Serra will lead the company’s consolidated sales and marketing team.

Charles Walton, SecureKey CEO said that the funding will play a key role in helping the company grow “as people, governments, and organizations worldwide embrace a future that removes the burden of passwords” while preserving both convenience and choice for consumers.

Blue Sky Capital’s Greg Wolfond echoed the importance of balance between convenience and privacy. Wolfond suggested that the path to new data-enabling and critical online services is paved with the ability of companies like SecureKey to provide secure authentication.

“Today’s consumers need and expect convenient access to the online services they use most, without sacrificing the critical security of their personal information,” Wolfond said.

Above: SecureKey Vice President for Partner Engagement Chris Gardner demoing at FinovateFall 2010 in New York

SecureKey’s primary product line includes briidge.net Exchange and briidge.net Connect. The Exchange can be used to establish “identity ecosystems” that make online enrollment easier without compromising user privacy. Account opening, age verification, and health information exchange are a few of the ways the exchange serves its users. With Connect, SecureKey provides cloud-based, multi-factor authentication protection using device-based digital IDs.

Founded in 2008, SecureKey is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and has offices in Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. The company recently made headlines by earning a spot in KPMG’s “50 Best Fintech Innovators Report” and announcing a partnership with Oberhur Technologies to provide security for a wide range of cloud-based transactions including online banking, online payments, and eCommerce.

SecureKey demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2010 in New York, winning Best of Show honors.

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Alumni News– February 27, 2015

By David Penn Posted on February 27, 2015
Categories: Betterment, Fidor Bank, Fiserv, FutureAdvisor, LearnVest, Lendio, Loop, MaxMyInterest, Motif Investing, Novabase, Online Banking Report, Personal Capital, Prosper, SigFig, Silanis Technology, Top Image Systems, Wealthfront, Xignite, Yodlee

Wired column looks at LoopPay and the evolution of digital wallets.

Silanis Technology partners with Box to help the cloud storage and file sharing specialist provide financial services.

Bank of the West to offer photo billpay courtesy of technology from Fiserv and Top Image Systems.

Finovate Debuts: Novabase Puts Watson-Powered Wizzio to Work Boosting Sales and Productivity.

Mainstreet reviews top roboadvisors including Wealthfront, Betterment, Personal Capital, FutureAdvisor, SigFig, Motif Investing, and LearnVest.

Prosper partners with Western Independent Bankers to offer consumer loans to unattractive borrowers.

Tech City News features video highlights from FinovateEurope 2015.

That Was Easy: Staples to Use Lendio to Power Small Business Lending.

Daily Fintech looks at programmable bank trends via APIs from Fidor, Open Bank Project, Yodlee, and Xignite.

AlleyWatch interviews MaxMyInterest CEO and founder Gary Zimmerman.

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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Fintech Finance’s Video Production Showcases FinovateEurope 2015 Action

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 26, 2015
Categories: FinovateEurope 2015

Fintech Finance, a company that creates video episodes each month focusing on what’s hot in fintech, produced a two video summary of FinovateEurope earlier this month.

The compilation features attendees and presenters as they relay their thoughts about their favorite aspects of each day.

FinovateEurope 2015 day one

FinovateEurope 2015 day two

Subscribe to Fintech Finance’s YouTube channel.

Thanks to Ali Paterson for creating and sharing the videos. You can contact Ali at [email protected] or on Twitter at @AliPaterson.

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That Was Easy: Staples to Use Lendio to Power Small Business Lending

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 26, 2015
Categories: Lendio

Small business owners searching for office supplies at Staples.com can now apply for a loan while filling their virtual shopping carts.

Yesterday Staples announced a partnership with Lendio, a startup that specializes in matching small business borrowers with lenders, to power the new loan offering.

Borrowers in search of funding will begin the process on Staples’ website:

Next, they are taken to a Staples-branded section of Lendio’s site to finish the application:

From there, borrowers choose from:

Line of credit

Small Business Association loan

Term loan

Cash advance

Equipment loan

Commercial real estate loan

Lendio offers loans from $2,500 to $1 million and handles the entire transaction.

Lendio is based in Salt Lake City, UT. It debuted at FinovateSpring 2011 in San Francisco.

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Finovate Debuts: Novabase Puts Watson-Powered Wizzio to Work Boosting Sales and Productivity

By David Penn Posted on February 26, 2015
Categories: Finovate Debuts, Novabase

Is it a contradiction that technology can make it easier for bank relationship managers and other financial professionals to do a better job of providing more “human” engagement?

That’s the goal of Novabase, a new Finovate alum based in Portugal that is leveraging the cognitive computing of Watson to give financial professionals sophisticated resources to better serve their clients and customers.

You may remember Watson as the supercomputer that surprised viewers of the game show Jeopardy! with its ability to outwit its human opponents. Now that same technology that was used to answer questions ranging from cable TV personalities to New Testament geography is being used in industries ranging from transportation and telecommunications to energy and financial services.

“Our vision is to make life simpler and happier for people and businesses, through technology,” the company said in response to questions about its experience at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. “Wizzio is a Novabase solution for a next generation sales tool for bank relationship managers and financial advisors that provides a unique approach to sales and engagement.”

The Stats

Founded in 1989
Headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal, with offices in Angola, UAE, Spain, Mozambique, and the United Kingdom
Has more than 2,000 employees
Invested more than €22 million in research and development for specialized products over the past three years

The Story

Novabase believe that the greater connectivity and greater independence ushered in by the mobile world has made a major impact on consumers’ attitudes. Consumers now expect the institutions they rely on to be both more responsive and better able to meet us on our own, increasingly on-the-go terms.

Consumers also increasingly expect personalization and customized service. Not only do consumers and clients expect you to be where they are. They also expect you to know, understand, and treat them as unique individuals, with unique, specific challenges.

Technology like Novabase’s Wizzio Powered by Watson can help banks and other financial institutions respond to these demands with a proactive, multichannel approach. To the extent that getting to know customers is essentially data work, technology like Wizzio handles the heavy lifting, giving the sales professional the time and energy to focus on the “personal touch”.

The Technology

Wizzio powered by Watson can be thought of as an “intelligent ecosystem of apps and widgets” designed to help financial professionals keep track of everything they need to do their jobs more efficiently. Information on client accounts, finances, and investments are as readily available as agenda, email, and real-time stock market information.

With Watson, the Wizzio is capable of responding to questions in natural language, and combines predictive analysis and cognitive computing to put critical and insightful information into the hands of financial professionals sooner. These time-savings equate into both more personal one-on-one time with customers as well as greater opportunity to add new clients.

Platform features include the ability to interrupt processes and return to them later without losing place, and a “meeting mode” that allows professionals to share their device with clients and keep sensitive information hidden. Wizzio powered by Watson integrates with banks’ existing systems, and can be added to by third party and in-house development teams.

The Future

Novabase comes away from its first Finovate with high marks, calling the live demo format and networking environment, “refreshing” and “intimate”. Datamonitor Financial gave Novabase a “5/5” rating based on originality, potential to have a long-lasting effect, game-changer potential, novelty or newness to consumer, and ability to change the market. Wrote analyst Daoud Fakhri, “it’s a perfect score for Novabase’s multi-channel banking platform, Wizzio.”

The company sees its growth very much tied to the spread and proliferation of smart machines – from phones, to tablets, to wearables and beyond. And as computers and artificial intelligence change our ability to process and integrate data, we should anticipate more ways tools like cognitive computing can and will be applied to our daily lives.

“Wizzio will extend the degree that cognitive computing reshapes the way we work,” Novabase said in a statement after the conference. “With more connected devices in the world, the role of smart machines will set a new standard for collaboration.”

Novabase’s video demo from FinovateEurope 2015 will be available soon in the Finovate Video Archives section.

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Alumni News– February 26, 2015

By David Penn Posted on February 26, 2015
Categories: authenticID, Azimo, Boku, Fastacash, Feedzai, Fiserv, investUP, MasterCard, PayPal, ProfitStars, Tradier, TransferWise

Feedzai releases API updates to its fraud detection technology.

Bank of the West adds Snap-to-Pay functionality from Fiserv to its mobile banking app.

authenticID partners with Sionic Mobile to bring catfishAir to ION Rewards and ShopGive consumer apps.

Azimo expands its online money transfer service to Romania.

Fastacash teams up with Visa Europe, enabling P2P payments via social network for users of Visa Direct.

Finovate Debuts: InvestUp Launches UK Crowdfunding Supermarket.

PYMNTS looks inside MasterCard’s Masters of Code Hackathon.

ProfitStars launches EPS SmartPay Express to enable FIs to provide online payment and donation services for business customers.

Tradier integrates with AbleSys’ AbleTrend.

PayPal and eBay prepare for breakup later this year.

Boku launches phone-on-file technology to remove friction from online transactions.

TransferWise marks US launch with #nothing2hide semi-naked march through New York financial district.

Fintech Finance’s video production showcases FinovateEurope 2015 action.

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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Finovate Debuts: InvestUp Launches UK Crowdfunding Supermarket

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 25, 2015
Categories: investUP

InvestUp (known simply as Up) launched at FinovateEurope earlier this month. The UK-based startup offers investors a single place to search for, invest in, and track multiple investments across numerous crowdfunding sites.

Stats

1,500 pre-registered users
Aggregates 13 crowdfunding sites
$525,000 seed capital raised
8 employees

Awards

Up’s clean user interface offers many benefits to investors:

1) Provides a single place to access crowdfunding deals hosted on multiple sites

2) Saves time by minimizing paperwork. Investors have just one account and a single portfolio that aggregates all crowdfunding investments

3) Completely free

The screenshot below shows how the filtering capability (located at top) narrows results of available campaigns that fit the user’s specifications:

When the user selects a campaign they’re interested in, they see more details, and can add it to their Wishlist. To invest, they select Get Access:

The 13 crowdfunding sites aggregated on the Up platform benefit by free access to more investors. The startup generates revenue from financial services advertising.

What’s next?

Up currently offers business loans and will soon launch equity and personal lending options. Eventually, it plans to build an auto-invest feature, offering a “set it and forget it” approach that automatically invests users’ cash, according to their preferences.

Up debuted its crowdfunding supermarket at FinovateEurope. The live demo video will be available in the Finovate video archives later this week.

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Alumni News– February 25, 2015

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 25, 2015
Categories: Bluefin Payment Systems, BodeTree, CAN Capital, Credit Karma, Digital River, Lending Club, LendingRobot, PaySimple, ProfitStars, Rippleshot, Social Money, Trunomi, ValidSoft, Verde International, Xero

Finovate Debuts: How Trunomi Shares Customers’ Personal Info while Maintaining Their Privacy.

LendingRobot adds Automated Secondary Market Trading.

Entrepreneur features BodeTree.

Digital River wins the 2015 Merchant Payment Ecosystem Award.

PYMNTS looks at Credit Karma’s funding history and future plans.

Lincoln Savings Bank to Deploy CorePro from Social Money.

Verde International and Lending Club featured in PYMNTS column on banks and non-traditional loan decision-making.

Xero Raises $110 Million from Accel Partners, Matrix Capital.

CAN Capital and Worldpay partner to improve access to capital for SMEs.

Crain’s Chicago Business looks at Rippleshot and its plans for winning bigger clients.

ValidSoft launches its Device Trust solution with a second major UK bank.

Yelp Senior Vice President of Revenue Jed Nachman joins PaySimple Board of Directors.

Bluefin Payments partners with Infinite Peripherals, an mPOS device provider.

ProfitStars launches its Commercial Lending Center, a small business lending portal.

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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Finovate Debuts: How Trunomi Shares Customers’ Personal Info while Maintaining Their Privacy

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 24, 2015
Categories: Trunomi

There are special requirements banks must abide by when handling customers’ personal identifiable information (PII) data. Trunomi helps banks safely use PII so that they can tailor services to customers and provide a better overall experience.

Stats

$2 million in funding
Started earning revenue in 2014
7 employees
Founded in 2013
Headquartered in Bermuda, Dublin & Silicon Valley

Trunomi’s TruLink serves as the background architecture that powers TruMobile, a system that verifies the customer’s identity on their mobile device and enables them to share PII securely.

When a bank wants to use customer PII, regulations specify that customer consent:

Occurs prior to sharing
Is able to be audited
Has context for each individual experience

TruLink generates certifications that prove all of the above. Additionally, it authenticates user identity and validates questionable transactions.

Trunomi benefits both the financial institution and the end customer:

Bank benefits

Eliminates the cost of call centers
Accesses customer PII
Offers audit-level certification of customer consent
Creates new revenue centers by expanding customer data
Offers a configurable app that’s tailored to bank preferences

Customer benefits

Ability to trade PII while maintaining privacy
Access to a clean user interface
Can respond to bank requirements in a way they’re comfortable with

Trunomi’s live demo video from FinovateEurope 2015 will be available on the Finovate video archives page this week.

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Xero Raises $110 Million from Accel Partners, Matrix Capital

By David Penn Posted on February 24, 2015
Categories: Xero

How many Xero’s are there in $110 million dollars?

The cloud accounting specialist reported Tuesday that Accel Partners will invest NZ$132.9 million by way of a share purchase valued at NZ$20 per share. Along with Matrix Capital Management, which will invest NZ$14.3 million, the investment will bring Xero’s total cash to NZ$285 million, or $213 million USD.

Xero CEO Rod Drury said that the investment was “a testament to our success and our potential to become the small business SaaS platform of choice for entrepreneurs around the globe.”

Accel partner Andrew Braccia pointed to Xero’s plans for expansion in the United States as one of the reasons his company was enthusiastic about Xero. “Accel always looks for enduring technologies with global reach and we see the need and opportunity for millions of small businesses to grow on Xero’s platform.”

The New Zealand-based company plans to use the funds to support growth in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Xero also announced a major personnel change on Tuesday, appointing Russell Fujioka to U.S. President.

Above: David Pollock, Head of U.S. Partnerships, presenting at FinDEVr San Francisco 2014

The investments for both Accel Partners and Matrix Capital are expected to close in mid-March. With its investment, Accel will join Matrix in being able to participate in future share placements.

Xero has enjoyed a great deal of positive press in recent months. The company was highlighted as “our best purchase of 2014” by Business Betties, named to KPMG’s 50 Best Fintech Innovators, and reached a milestone of 400,000 paying customers last December.

Xero participated in the inaugural FinDEVr 2014 event in San Francisco.

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Finovate Blog

Month: February 2015

Fintech Fundings: 11 Companies Raise $230 Million Week Ended Feb. 27

SecureKey Raises $19 Million in Series C

Alumni News– February 27, 2015

Fintech Finance’s Video Production Showcases FinovateEurope 2015 Action

That Was Easy: Staples to Use Lendio to Power Small Business Lending

Finovate Debuts: Novabase Puts Watson-Powered Wizzio to Work Boosting Sales and Productivity

Alumni News– February 26, 2015

Finovate Debuts: InvestUp Launches UK Crowdfunding Supermarket

Finovate Debuts: How Trunomi Shares Customers’ Personal Info while Maintaining Their Privacy

Xero Raises $110 Million from Accel Partners, Matrix Capital