March 2015 - Page 5 of 7

Finovate, FinDEVr Alums Provide Data for FinTech Sandbox

By David Penn Posted on March 16, 2015
Categories: Uncategorized

If you are a fintech startup, then few things are more important than access to financial market data.

And for those companies participating in the FinTech Sandbox, an “enabler of startups” that begins March 26 in Boston, that access just got even easier.

Cloud-based financial markets data provider Xignite will join the FinTech Sandbox’s roster of data partners. This roster includes three other companies fintech fans will be familiar with: Finovate alum Yodlee and FinDEVr alums Tradier and Plaid.

“Market data is the lifeblood of fintech,” said Xignite CEO Stephane Dubois, talking about his company’s participation in the Sandbox. “Without full access to these data points in the early stage of development and testing, many emerging players would not be able to reach their full potential .”

FinTech Sandbox is a nonprofit organization based in Boston that is dedicated to supporting emerging fintech companies. Participants in the six-month program get access to data feeds and APIs from leading data providers, cloud hosting from the program’s infrastructure partners, beta test partners, working office space, and “opportunities to collaborate with a vibrant community of entrepreneurs, mentors, partners, investors, and service providers.” The program begins March 26.

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Alumni News: 16 March 2015

By Jim Bruene Posted on March 16, 2015
Categories: Uncategorized

Telegraph Herald Online quotes Matthew Goldman, co-founder and CEO of Wallaby Financial on the business of credit card rewards.

Irish Independent: CurrencyFair seeking to raise €10 million.

iSignThis makes debut on Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) with market capitilization of AUD$49.5 million.

Personal Income reviews Motif Investing.

Automotive supplier, MAHLE Industries, automates remittance processing by deploying joint solutions from Hanse Orga and Top Image Systems’ eFLOW.

Open Bank Project launches survey that aims to identify the drivers behind the trend of API’s in banking. Take the survey here.

Benzynga mentions Yodlee, Mint and PayPal as disruptors in fintech.

Yodlee launches Small Business PartnerHub to give business owners access to a suite of tools through a secure financial portal.

Trulioo appoints Zac Cohen as first-ever General Manager.

Localiza selects Kony to power mobile applications.

AcceptEmail and Twikey integrate platforms to connect creditors, senders of direct debit mandates and recipients.

Taulia plans to go public as early as next year and expects a valuation of at least $1 billion.

Actiance announces Socialite 2015, its latest release that allows organizations to manage, market, and sell through social media channels while remaining compliant.

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: TransferTo’s Mobile Remittance Platform Gives the Sender More Control

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 13, 2015
Categories: TransferTo, Uncategorized

TransferTo’s mobile remittance platform allows users to send money across borders in real time, and for a specific purpose. The San Francisco-based company aims to solve two pain points in remittance payments:

1) Small remittances incur large fees of up to 50%, making wire transfers an inefficient way to send money under $50.

TransferTo specializes in low dollar remittance payments by creating a low-cost way to send small amounts of money.

2) Senders are not able to control how the recipient spends the money.

TransferTo places the sender in control by allowing them to dictate the specific purpose for which the recipient uses the funds

Stats

Partnered with a network of 400 mobile network operators and utility providers in 100+ countries
Has over 1,000 B2B customers in 30 countries
Processes more than 45 million transactions annually
Founded in 2005
Consumers are using the service 3x per month on average
On average, each sender remits money to 2.5 people

The company’s secret sauce is in its partnerships. By connecting the sender’s mobile network operator (MNO) with the recipients’ MNO or utility provider, TransferTo offers a low-friction way to debit and credit the accounts.

Use Cases

1) Top up airtime via SMS
The image below shows the SMS flow. In this case, a user tops up the airtime minutes of their friend or family in the Philippines. Using any device, they send TransferTo an SMS of the recipient’s mobile phone number and select the amount to send, 90 PHP.

After agreeing to the $2 fee, the 90 PHP is automatically and instantly applied to the recipient’s prepaid airtime minutes.

2) Top up electricity meter via mobile app
On a smartphone, the sender uses the mobile web app or native Android app to send remittances. In the example below, the user wants to send 50,000 Indian Rupees (Rp) to a friend or family member in Indonesia.

They enter the recipient’s mobile phone number and meter number and select the amount to load on the prepaid electricity meter. After agreeing to the fee and confirming the amount, the beneficiary instantly receives Rp 50,000, along with instructions on how to apply the balance to their electricity meter.

It is also available on a web platform:

Depending on the recipient’s geographical region, the sender can specify remittances for:

Mobile phone
Television
Electricity
Education
Grocery
Pharmacy
Phone service
Healthcare
Public Transportation
Gas/ Petrol

TransferTo’s API enables financial institutions and money transfer companies to offer a white-labeled service as a complement to traditional P2P payment services. PayPal, Wells Fargo, and Western Union are current clients.

TransferTo demonstrated prepaid electricity remittance at FinovateEurope 2015. Check out the live demo video.

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Alumni News– March 13, 2015

By David Penn Posted on March 13, 2015
Categories: Uncategorized

Risk Ident Makes Finals of MRC METAwards.

StreetShares Secures $200 Million Pledge to Support Loans to Veteran-Owned Small Businesses.

Financial Planning takes a look at the rivalry between Charles Schwab and “digital rivals” like Wealthfront, Betterment, and Motif Investing.

Tangerine is the first Canadian bank to offer Silanis’ eSignLive technology for customers using personal mobile devices.

Report on the growth of crowdfunding spotlights Realty Mogul.

EZBOB reaches a “trade finance partnership” with Alibaba, enabling British companies to get lines of credit with the Chinese cloud retail giant.

InComm integrates Visa ReadyLink into Walmart’s Rapid Reload network of prepaid card programs.

Yahoo Finance lists Mint Bills, Personal Capital, and Credit Karma as 3 of 5 apps that manage your money for you.

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 Fundings: $300 Million Raised Week Ending Mar 13

By Jim Bruene Posted on March 12, 2015
Categories: Funding

The number of fundings has slowed, but the flow of dollars is still massive, thanks to a pair of $100+ million rounds to stealth bitcoin startup 21 Inc ($116 million) and recurring billing-solution provider Zuora ($115 million).

Also of note:

The rare insurance play and Finovate alum, CoverHound, added $14 million this week
Recently public Finovate alum Q2 Holdings raised $35 million in new capital in a $116 million offering (the remainder went to existing shareholders)

In total, the 11 companies raised $303 million. In order of deal size (from 7 through 13 Mar 2015):

21 Inc
Stealth bitcoin startup
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $116 million
Total raised: $121 million
Tags: Cryptocurrency, virtual currency, blockchain
Source: Crunchbase

Zuora
Cloud-based subscription-billing services
HQ: Foster City, California
Latest round: $115 million
Total raised: $$242.5 million
Tags: Billing, payments, subscription, invoicing
Source: Crunchbase

Q2 Holdings
Digital banking solution-provider (Q2Ebanking)
HQ: Austin, Texas
Latest round: $34.6 million (new capital in $116 million follow-on public offering)
Total raised: $165 million
Tags: Online banking, mobile
Source: Finovate

Coverhound
Online car-insurance-shopping site
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $14 million
Total raised: $23.4 million
Tags: Insurance, lead generation, price comparison, automobiles
Source: Finovate

Ratesetter

London-based P2P lending marketplace

HQ: London, United Kingdom

Latest round: $7.7 million

Total raised: $14.8 million

Tags: P2P lending, peer-to-peer, credit, loans, automobile lending, Australia

Source: P2P-Banking

ChargeBee
Cloud-based, recurring billing solutions
HQ: Walnut, California
Latest round: $5 million
Total raised: $6.1 million
Tags: SMB, accounting, billing, invoicing, billpay, payments
Source: FT Partners

Double Data

Big data & analytics for financial institutions

HQ: Skolkovo, Russia

Latest round: $3 million

Total raised: Unknown

Tags: Banking enterprise software, analytics, big data

Source: VentureBeat

Profile Financial Solutions

UK-based financial advisory
HQ: Preston, United Kingdom
Latest round: $2 million
Total raised: $2 million
Tags: Wealth management, investing, advisers, financial planning
Source: Crunchbase

EVEN Financial

Marketplace lending services

HQ: New York City, New York

Latest round: $2.8 million

Total raised: $2.8 million

Tags: Credit, lending, peer-to-peer, P2P, investing

Source: Xconomy

Webgility

Accounting automation software

HQ: San Francisco, California

Latest round: $2.5 million

Total raised: $2.5 million

Source: Crunchbase

ShapeShift

Swiss-based bitcoin & alt-coin exchange
HQ: Switzerland
Latest round: $525,000
Total raised: Unknown
Source: Coinbase

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StreetShares Secures $200 Million Pledge to Support Loans to Veteran-Owned Small Businesses

By David Penn Posted on March 12, 2015
Categories: Uncategorized

Commitments totalling more than $200 million will help StreetShares focus on its mission to provide loans to veteran-owned small businesses.

Community Investment Management (CIM), Direct Lending Investments, and Eagle Bank Corp will team up to fund $200 million in small business loans over the next four years. Talking about his company’s determination to “put money to work fueling healthy small businesses,” Direct Lending Investments president Brendan Ross said that “marketplace lending is exploding. We are excited about this business partnership with StreetShares and the unique business owners they serve.”

Jacob Haar, CIM managing partner, praised StreetShares’ “responsible and transparent financing to underserved small businesses,” and added that the company’s approach to lending to veteran-owned small businesses would be a positive “long-term value for borrowers, local communities, and investors.”

StreetShares is a peer-to-peer, affinity-based, social lending marketplace that matches accredited investors with eligible small business borrowers. Businesses can apply for loans online or by phone and get preapproved within 24 hours. Companies then provide verification documents and prepare a “business pitch” StreetShares calls “your storefront on the StreetShares marketplace.” Investors on the platform will rely on the company’s “business pitch” in order to decide whether to bid on the company’s loan. Competing investors “win” the right to fund the loan by providing the lowest interest rate.

Applying businesses must be revenue-positive and in operation for at least one year. Loan terms are one and three years for amounts up to $50,000. There are no application fees or prepayment penalties, and funded businesses pay a one-time origination fee between 1.45% and 4.95%. Repayment is managed via a fixed weekly deduction from the company’s verified bank account. Investors on the platform must be “accredited”—meaning individual income of $200,000 or more ($300,000 with spouse) or a net worth of at least $1,000,000, excluding value of primary residence.

According to the company, the majority of its borrowers are small businesses owned by U.S. veterans. Via the platform, StreetShares considers itself the biggest coalition of veteran-based small businesses and service providers in the country. Mark L. Rockefeller, StreetShares CEO who co-founded the company with Mickey Konson, is himself an Iraqi War veteran.

StreetShares made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2015 in London this February. See a live video of their technology demonstration here.

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Risk Ident Makes Finals of MRC METAwards

By David Penn Posted on March 12, 2015
Categories: Risk Ident

We reported on RippleShot and BioCatch yesterday. But there is one more company in the field of finalists for the MRC METAwards to mention: two-time Finovate alum, Risk Ident.

Formerly known as Device Ident, Risk Ident specializes in real-time fraud protection for merchants and their customers. The company’s fraud identification technology includes device-fingerprinting solution, DEVICE IDENT, and an all-in-one intelligent anti-fraud solution, FRIDA, that leverages machine learning to automatically filter and analyze transactions.

Risk Ident shares the “startup” category with allpago International, and fellow Finovate alum RippleShot. These three companies, along with the three in the “established company” category, will make live presentations at the MRC Vegas 2015 event on March 24-26. The winner will be selected by the attendees on Thursday, March 26.

MRC (Merchant Risk Council) METAwards recognize technological innovation in payments and fraud protection. Finalists were chosen by a panel of leading online merchants. Learn more about the Seattle-based organization.

Founded in 2012 by Roberto Valerio and Paul Jozefak, Risk Ident is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. The company demoed its Fraud Manager technology at FinovateEurope 2014.

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Alumni News– March 12, 2015

By David Penn Posted on March 12, 2015
Categories: AlphaPoint, Coinbase, Kabbage, MasterCard, Q2, Temenos, Zooz

Finovate Debuts: AlphaPoint Powers Digital Currency Exchanges Around the World

Temenos partners with Microsoft to launch T24 country model bank for Mexico.

Coinbase adds support for FIX protocol for trade-order management.

Q2 Holdings Completes $116 Million Follow-On Stock Offering

CardNotPresent.com reports: Zooz to Expand Globally, Opens London Office

MasterCard and Kabbage partner to make Kabbage’s data and platform available through its network of acquirers.

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: AlphaPoint Powers Digital Currency Exchanges Around the World

By David Penn Posted on March 11, 2015
Categories: AlphaPoint, Finovate Debuts

If setting up an e-commerce marketplace is hard, setting up your own digital currency-exchange may be levels of magnitude more challenging.

Fortunately, there are companies like AlphaPoint that specialize in building customized digital currency exchanges—including bitcoin exchanges—in less than 20 days.

While bitcoin drives the digital currency bus in many ways, the proliferation of cryptocurrencies and altcoins means that exchanging value between alternative and traditional currencies is more complex than ever. AlphaPoint sees its role as two-fold: helping digital currency exchanges cope with the demands of their enterprise clients, and making it possible for startups and new companies to enter the market with the latest in technology.

AlphaPoint statistics

Founded in 2013
Vadim Telyatnikov is CEO
Headquartered in New York, with offices in Philadelphia and San Francisco
Powers nearly 20 exchanges in 15 countries across six continents, including the world’s largest Bitcoin/USD exchange, Bitfinex
Processes 1 million transactions per second

The story

AlphaPoint CEO Vadim Telyatnikov has referred to his company as the “Intel Inside” of digital currency exchange. As a white-label digital currency-exchange platform, AlphaPoint serves the fintech industry in three main ways.

Enabling quick launch of new digital currency exchanges for entrepreneurs and startups in any region, “with liquidity on day one.”
Helping established companies looking to add digital currencies to their product mix.
Delivering better performance, more functionality, and additional features to existing digital currency exchanges in need of upgrades.

For their Finovate debut, AlphaPoint choose to demonstrate their platform’s newly overhauled front end. Enhancements include new order types, improved scalability, and faster processing speed.

The technology

AlphaPoint 2.0 is a high-performance platform that allows users a wide range of customization options. The platform’s modular, widget-based design gives operators a lot of control over how visual data is displayed. The platform includes six predesigned templates, though users are “encouraged” to develop templates of their own. AlphaPoint also lets FIs configure, track, and trade their own currency pairs and combinations—fiat to fiat, commodity to fiat, and fiat to virtual.

The robust technology features error-detection codes for each record, and quick fail-over support to provide “best-of-breed” security and reliability. The platform also comes with Quantum Front, an system-admin resource that gives operators a wholistic view of users, risk, trading activity and more without being limited to the functionality of a web browser.

AlphaPoint’s platform is available as both a fully branded and white-label solution. The technology is fully supported on both Windows and Linux operating systems, and supports both FIX and FAST API connections to make it easy for traditional FIs in particular to deploy and use.

Joe Ventura, AlphaPoint founder and CTO, has more than 15 years of experience as a software architect at corporations like Deustche Bank and UBS. Talking about the platform, Ventura emphasizes that the technology was built with two things in mind: scalability and security. “Our vision is to make it as seamless as possible for mainstay financial institutions to embrace digital currencies,” Ventura said. “[We] are excited to add these new front-end features to make integration into existing web products even easier for our clients.”

The future

AlphaPoint came into 2015 with the momentum of a $1.35 million fund-raise at its back. Following its Finovate debut in February 2015, PaymentEye called AlphaPoint one of the top demos of day two, and many observers credited the company for helping keep bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in the conversation at the London conference.

Asked for his company’s initiatives and goals for 2015, Telyatnikov put greater access to digital currencies at the top of his list. And it is no surprise that he sees AlphaPoint as playing a major role in making that happen. “We are excited to release a stream of new features and products in 2015,” he said. “[We] will make it easier than ever for institutions to embrace digital currencies.”

See AlphaPoint’s live demonstration video from FinovateEurope 2015.

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HelloWallet Launches with First Bank Partner

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 11, 2015
Categories: HelloWallet

In May of last year, Morningstar purchased HelloWallet for $52.5 million. This week, the startup appears to be broadening its business model by launching with its first bank partner, KeyBank.

Since rolling out in 2009, HelloWallet has distributed its PFM platform to employers to offer as a benefit to their employees. By adding banks to its distribution partners, the startup will reach more users.

Matt Fellowes is the founder of HelloWallet and was recently named chief innovation officer at Morningstar. Fellowes states:

“Our goal is to democratize access to financial guidance for all Americans. Working with KeyBank is a tremendous opportunity to offer the bank’s clients consistent, personalized guidance so they can feel confident in their ability to make well-informed financial decisions.”

The Cleveland-based institution will use HelloWallet to offer customers a free financial health score, ranging from 1 to 100. The scores assess users’ financial health and allow them to compare themselves against peers.

HelloWallet will also offer external account aggregation, a first for KeyBank. By adding external bank account information, customers will see a full picture of their overall finances.

The financial wellness program will roll out in phases over the course of this year.

HelloWallet demonstrated at FinovateSpring 2011.

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Q2 Holdings Completes $116 Million Follow-On Stock Offering

By David Penn Posted on March 11, 2015
Categories: Q2

With sales of 5.8 million shares at $19.75 per share, virtual banking solution-provider Q2 Holdings raised $116 million in capital.

The company itself sold 1.75 million shares, bringing in $34.6 million in new capital. In addition, existing shareholders sold 4.13 million shares. The funding, according to the Austin Business Journal, will provide Q2 with “working capital, including possible acquisitions.”

Formerly Q2ebanking, Q2 Holdings operated through its subsidiary, Q2 Software. The company went public in March 2014, raising $101 million. That year, Q2 had $79 million in revenue and 500 employees.

This month, Q2 announced revenues of just over $22 million, for a 41% year-over-year gain. Q2 CEO Matt Flake called the report “a strong finish to a fantastic year.”

Q2 Holdings trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “QTWO” and is valued at more than $700 million.

The company made headlines in September 2014 with news that Heartland Financial USA was making a 10-bank deployment of Q2’s online banking platform. Based in Austin, Texas, Q2 demoed its risk and fraud analytics technology at FinovateSpring 2011 in San Francisco.

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Alumni News: March 11, 2015

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 11, 2015
Categories: Authentify, Avoka, Cachet Financial Solutions, Check Point, FinanceIt, Quisk

Quisk discusses its experience at FinovateEurope 2015.

Check Point Software Technologies introduces Check Point Threat Extraction, a security approach that ensures documents are delivered to a malware-free network.

Paybefore selects the Navy FCU Visa Buxx app, powered by Cachet Financial’s Select Mobile Money, as Best in Category in the Judges’ Choice category of the 2015 Paybefore Awards.

Authentify launches xFA SecureCallCenter to help FIs protect call center reps from social engineering attempts.

ANV Group selects Avoka’s Transact technology to help improve the user experience for its insurance customers.

Talent Refresh features alternative lender, Financeit.

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 Blog

Month: March 2015

Finovate, FinDEVr Alums Provide Data for FinTech Sandbox

Alumni News: 16 March 2015

Finovate Debuts: TransferTo’s Mobile Remittance Platform Gives the Sender More Control

Alumni News– March 13, 2015

Fintech Fundings: $300 Million Raised Week Ending Mar 13

StreetShares Secures $200 Million Pledge to Support Loans to Veteran-Owned Small Businesses

Risk Ident Makes Finals of MRC METAwards

Alumni News– March 12, 2015

Finovate Debuts: AlphaPoint Powers Digital Currency Exchanges Around the World

HelloWallet Launches with First Bank Partner

Q2 Holdings Completes $116 Million Follow-On Stock Offering

Alumni News: March 11, 2015