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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.
Six Finovate alums innovating in fields ranging from life event planning to small business lending are among the 34 startups that will participate in the upcoming 2020 MassChallenge FinTech program. In addition to mentorship from and collaboration with leading enterprise partners, startups will get access to free office space and the opportunity to compete for equity-free cash prizes as part of their six-month engagement.
Calling this year’s cohort part of the “exciting future of fintech,” MassChallenge Fintech Managing Director Devon Sherman said the incoming class “represents a revolutionary approach to financial services” and added that his team was “blown away by the vision of these entrepreneurs.”
Making the cut among Finovate alums are:
See the full roster of incoming startups to the 2020 cohort.
“Thanks for including Hydrogen in MassChallenge 2020,” the company wrote on Twitter. “It is a great honor. We look forward to working with all of the enterprise partners and startups in the program.”
“LendingFront is proud to be participating in the 2020 MassChallenge Fintech program,” the company tweeted. “We will be working with the City of Boston and several New England financial institutions to use our technology to improve how small businesses get access to capital.”
And from InterGen Data, one of our newest alums, company CEO Robert Kirk expressed his enthusiasm for the opportunity as well. “I believe that by working with our enterprise partner, we will be able to redefine the client experience, improve the lives of their clients, and deliver on the promise of how artificial intelligence and machine learning can vastly improve their financial journey,” Kirk said.
The MassChallenge accelerator program is supported by a public-private partnership including founding partners Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), Putnam Investments, Fidelity Investments, Citizens Bank, John Hancock, and the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership (MACP), as well as numerous challenge partners.
The program runs from January to June, and focuses on one-on-one “outcome-driven” partnerships between program participants and program partners. Together, the startup and the partnering company work to develop solutions for specific challenges while helping the startup coming scale its business.
Now in its second year, MassChallenge’s fintech program produced a 2019 cohort in which 70% of participants launched a pilot or proof of concept within a year. “Our inaugural year achieved promising results in driving international partnerships between fintech startups and our enterprise partners,” Sherman said. He added that he was excited “to build on that success in 2020.”
Founded in 2010, and offering an accelerator in healthtech as well, MassChallenge has worked with more than 2,000 startups, who have raised collectively more than $5 billion in funding and generated more than $2.7 billion in revenue. MassChallenge is U.S.-based, with offices in Boston, Rhode Island, and Texas, as well as Israel and Mexico.
Michigan-based digital banking solution provider Bankjoy is ending the year with three new credit union partners. The company, which demonstrated its API at FinovateFall 2016, announced this week that three credit unions in Indiana and Texas with a combined $500+ million in assets and more than 50,000 members, will join its technology ecosystem of online and mobile banking solutions.
The credit unions teaming up with Bankjoy are Mobility CU and Las Colinas FCU – both of Irving, Texas – as well as Fort Financial CU of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Mobility CU has $223 million in assets and 16,500 members. Las Colinas FCU has $73 million in assets and 9,800 members. Fort Financial CU has $237 million in assets and 26,800 members.
Las Colinas’ FCU President/CEO Kevin Scott noted that the ability to deliver a robust mobile experience to members was a key factor in partnering with Bankjoy. The mobile experience, he said, must be able keep up with what customers are already enjoying from platforms like Amazon and Google if credit unions expect to compete. In that regard, Scott explained, “Bankjoy’s vision for their digital platform is closely aligned with our own.”
Bankjoy CEO Michael Duncan added that the company’s technology is designed to help credit unions succeed “today and well into the future, as products, services, and platforms continue to evolve at a rapid pace.” Bankoy’s platform offers online and mobile banking with built-in financial goal management, and the company’s marketing technology enables firms to issue highly-relevant advertising and information to customers and members across all digital channels. This includes voice, which Duncan recently demonstrated during a segment on CU Broadcast.
Mobility CU President/CEO Ron Perry specifically highlighted this aspect of the partnership, and said he looked forward to integrating with Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Perry also pointed to the opportunity to grow deposits and loans by leveraging Bankjoy’s account opening and loan application processing technology.
Founded in 2015, Bankjoy made its Finovate debut a year later at FinovateFall. Headquartered in Royal Oak, Michigan, the company offers an advanced banking API that enables financial institutions from flagship banks to credit unions to offer digital onboarding, mobile and online banking, online loan origination, and conversational AI-enabled services.
In addition to the partnerships announced this week, Bankjoy teamed up with financial literacy specialist Zogo Finance in November to help credit unions better attract Generation Z customers. Also that month, Bankjoy announced that Pyramid FCU, Cooperative Teachers FCU, and Mutual 1st FCU – with a combined $382 million in assets and 34,8000 members in Arizona, Texas, and Nebraska – would join its technology ecosystem.
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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.
The challenger bank revolution is alive and well in Mexico. This week, three upstart financial institutions in the Latin American country were the recipients of a combined $20+ million in funding. The investments are a testament to the way local entrepreneurs are seizing the opportunity to provide banking services to a growing number of previously underbanked people in Mexico.
For some observers, Mexican banks have long been ripe for disruption. A 2017 feature in The Financial Times cited a Gallup poll in which more than three in four customers in Mexico were “indifferent to, or unhappy with their bank.” The same article noted that challenger banks and other fintechs could take as much as 30% of the Mexican banking market in the next ten years due to inefficiencies in the current banking system. Incumbents have also been criticized for a lack of outreach to the underbanked, to younger potential customers, and to the digitally savvy.
Check out Thiago Paiva’s in-depth look at the Mexican neobank market – and how some incumbents are fighting back – published at TechCrunch this fall. Paiva is product manager at Oyster, a challenger bank for Latin American SMEs.
Here’s our weekly look at fintech around the world.
As Finovate goes increasingly global, so does our coverage of financial technology. Finovate Global is our weekly look at fintech innovation in developing economies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.
In a Series C led by Tetragon, payments innovator Ripple has picked up an investment of $200 million. Featuring participation from SBI Holdings and Route 66 Ventures, the round takes the Ripple’s total capital to more than $321 million, and gives the firm a valuation of $10 billion.
In a statement, company CEO Brad Garlinghouse explained that the funding will help fuel expansion of the company’s “open developer platform for money” Xpring, as well as enable Ripple to add talent to the team.
“We are in a strong financial position to execute against our vision,” Garlinghouse said. “As others in the blockchain space have slowed their growth or even shut down, we have accelerated our momentum and industry leadership throughout 2019.”
The funding is timely for Xpring, which Ripple recently configured to make it easier for both crypto and non-crypto developers to add payments functionality into mobile apps. The new platform leverages Ripple’s XRP Ledger, Interledger, and Web Monetization technologies that give developers tools, services, and programs that empower them to develop and power wallets and exchanges, as well as take advantage of monetization opportunities in content and gaming.
The investment also comes as Ripple completes a year in which its RippleNet global payments network added more than 300 customers. Additionally, Ripple’s $50 million dollar strategic partnership with MoneyGram, announced this summer, has enabled the company to demonstrate how its On-Demand Liquidity solution leverages Ripple’s digital asset XRP to help MoneyGram boost volume on international money transfers. As of November, MoneyGram reported that is moving 10% of its Mexican peso trading volume via Ripple’s technology.
“Our partnership with Ripple is transformative for both the traditional money transfer and digital asset industry,” MoneyGram Chairman and CEO Alex Holmes said. “For the first time ever, we’re settling currencies in seconds.”
Chris Larsen, co-founder of Ripple, introduced the Ripple protocol at FinovateSpring 2013 via a company called OpenCoin. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Ripple began the year by earning a spot on the 2019 Forbes Fintech 50 Roster. In addition to its partnership with MoneyGram, Ripple announced in August that PNC, the eighth largest bank in the U.S. had begun using its RippleNet network for cross-border payments – the first U.S. bank to do so.
On the international front this year, Ripple has teamed up with Vietnam’s TPBank, partnered with Brazilian brokerage Frente Corretora de Cambio, and inked a cross-border remittance agreement with India’s Federal Bank.
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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.
Updated 12/20/2019: Finovate alums raised more than $876 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. The amount takes the total raised by Finovate alums this year to more than three billion. It is both the second year in a row our alums have topped this milestone, and the biggest Q4 fundraising for Finovate alums to date.
Previous Annual Comparisons
The fourth quarter of 2019 is also the fourth Q4 in a row in which alum funding has climbed above the $500 million mark.
Previous Quarterly Comparisons
The top equity investment of the quarter was the $200 million raised by Ripple, followed by the $182 million raised by Zopa and the $102.5 million raised by BlueVine the previous month. Given the relatively small number of fundings this quarter, it is little surprise to find that our top ten equity investments for Q4 make up the vast majority of the reported spending total (note that the sums involved in two of our fourteen fourth quarter investments were undisclosed).
Top Equity Investments
Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q4 2019.
October 2019: More than $104 million raised by four alums
November 2019: More than $311 raised by six alums
December 2019: More than $461 million raised by four alums
If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the fourth quarter of 2019, and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.
UK-based Metro Bank has partnered with Canadian technology firm Sensibill to launch a receipt management beta for SMEs, reports Alex Hamilton of Fintech Futures, Finovate’s sister publication.
The new feature, available via the Metro Bank app in 2020, will allow users to capture receipts using a smartphone camera and have them be automatically added to their transaction history.
According to the bank, the new pilot is the first in a “long list of innovations” that it is set to test out in the 2020. Metro states that it plans to “take the essential daily tasks of invoicing, receipt management, bookkeeping and VAT returns, and embed them intuitively into the Metro Bank mobile app.”
Paul Riseborough, chief commercial officer at Metro Bank, said of the new pilot: “Accounting tasks, along with chasing invoices and staying on top of receipts, are major pain points for SMEs.”
“By partnering with Sensibill we’re offering an innovative, digital solution that solves real problems for our customers, saving them time spent on admin and allowing them to focus on running and growing their business. And this is just the first piece in the puzzle as we set about developing a major new digital ecosystem of services to help SMEs,” Riseborough said.
Co-founder and CEO of Sensibill, Corey Gross, added: “Metro Bank is building a suite of compelling tools that will help transform the small business banking experience in the UK.”
“Our partnership with Metro Bank demonstrates our shared focus to deliver customer-centric solutions that improve the financial well-being of banking customers. We’re excited to support Metro Bank’s commitment to strengthening its relationship with their customers through digital innovation,” Gross said.
In October Metro Bank announced that it would be partnering with a number of fintech firms following the £120 million funding it secured from the Capability and Innovation Fund in February.
Sensibill demonstrated its Receipts for Microbusinesses solution at FinovateEurope 2018 in partnership with NatWest. The Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based company was founded in 2013, and has raised more than $50 million in funding. Sensibill includes Radical Ventures, First Ascent Ventures and National Bank of Canada among its investors.
Growth, growth, and more growth is the goal of FintechOS as the company announces receiving a new investment of $14 million (€12.7 million). The open source, digital banking solution provider, which made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateEurope, will use the funding to fuel its expansion to both the U.S. and South East Asia, as well as continue its growth in Europe. The capital will also help the company invest further in the development of more pre-built apps and solutions to enable FIs to offer better experiences for their customers.
“Our disruptive approach is customer, not technology driven,” company co-founder and CEO Teodor Blidarus said. “We created FintechOS to transform the financial industry, empowering banks and insurance companies to act and react faster and to create a smarter, slicker customer experience. As a result, hyper-personalized services and elevated customer experiences are now available almost plug and play.”
The Series A round was led by Earlybird’s Digital East Fund and OTB Ventures. Also participating were existing investors Gapminder Ventures and Launchub. The new funding takes FintechOS’s total capital to $16 million.
FintechOS enables banks and insurance companies to offer personalized, data-driven digital solutions to their customers in weeks rather than months or years. Via cloud SaaS or on-premise deployment, FintechOS offers 150+ integrated data sources out of the box and more than 20 automated financial processes to support AI-enabled functions like KYC, Customer 360, pricing, and risk analytics. Firms can also use FintechOS to access a marketplace of 50+ open source, prebuilt apps for key processes ranging from client onboarding and lending to pensions and wealth management.
“FintechOS’s technology is transformational in its ability to provide true end-to-end digital automation for all services and products that banks and insurance companies offer,” OTB Ventures General Partner Adam Niewinski said. “This new technology is inexpensive and versatile, ultimately enabling massive cost savings and growth stimulators for financial institutions.”
With clients in more than 20 countries and three continents, FinechOS was founded in 2017 and has offices in London, Amsterdam, Vienna, Copenhagen, and Bucharest. The company reported annual recurring revenue growth of 4.5x this year.
Swiss IT and digitization specialist Inventx is the latest company to leverage technology from ndgit to enable it to maximize the opportunities of open banking. The company will use an open API integration layer from ndgit to power its new Open Finance Platform, ix.OpenFinancePlatform, which makes it easier for banks and insurance companies to connect with fintechs and other third party providers.
“The partnership with Inventx gives us clear strategic advantages, allowing us to expand our range of fintech solutions for Swiss clients and further boost local market growth,” ndgit Business Manager for Switzerland Roger Wisler said. “Inventx’s innovative Open Finance Platform is the next logical step for the evolution, adoption, and promotion of Open Banking in Switzerland. Together, our optimized interfaces will help to facilitate smooth and seamless integration of fintechs and financial service providers.”
Inventx’s ix.OpenFinancePlatform will use ndgit’s technology and open APIs to facilitate the connections between FIs, fintechs, and software partners. Inventx Head of Consulting and Software Solutions Pascal Wild said the two companies complemented each other insofar as ndgit’s APIs provide the standardized APIs for front-end applications while Inventx offers backend system connectivity. The combination makes it easier for FIs to take advantage of open banking for themselves and their customers “without having to worry about the technical challenges of system communication and orchestration,” Wild explained.
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Munich, Germany, ndgit demonstrated its PSD2-enabled Digital Loan Application at FinovateEurope earlier this year. The company, which implemented Switzerland’s first Open Banking Platform in 2017, notes that its technology has been deployed by 20+ banks over the past year. Ndgit’s API platform won the CEE Fintech Challenge in 2018, the biggest fintech conference in the Central and Eastern European region.
In October, ngdit forged a partnership with Swiss fintech incubator and accelerator F10. The following month, the company collaborated with Synpulse to launch Switzerland’s first fintech app marketplace. Ndgit was awarded the Finance IT Innovation Award in June, along with partners Finstar, Sonect, and neo.
On Finovate.com
Around the web
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.