Author: David Penn

Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BLUERUSH, Finovate Global, MasterCard

As Finovate goes increasingly global, so does our coverage of financial technology. Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World is our weekly look at fintech innovation in developing economies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Raiffeisen Bank Romania unveils eight fintech finalists for its Elevator Lab Challenge.
  • Alfa-Bank Belarus migrates to WAY4 platform from digital payments solutions provider OpenWay.
  • 150Sec.com takes a look at the graduating cohort of 19 fintech startups emerging from Latvia and Estonia accelerator programs.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) signs MoU with Astana Financial Services Authority.
  • Bahrain Development Bank (BDB) announces closing $100 million fundraising round for its Al Waha Fund of Funds.
  • Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) introduces its regulatory framework for spot crypto asset activities.

Latin America

  • BlueRush teams up with Kunder to forge partnership with Chilean pension fund leader, AFPHabitat.
  • Integrated Biometrics announces its 10-print fingerprint scanners have become the standard for financial service organizations in Mexico.
  • Argentine fintech Increase earns Best of the World award for its positive social and environmental impact.

Asia

  • MatchMove powers the first contactless prepaid Mastercard in South Asia
  • Singapore’s PayNow service to be extended to corporate customers with launch of PayNow Corporate later this summer.
  • Cambodia announces plans to build $70 million data center to support development of the country’s digital economy.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • IT News Africa’s 5 Most Innovative Startups in Kenya list features P2P micro lending marketplace Pezesha; SaaS mobile commerce platform, Sky.Garden; and FX and payment platform, BitPesa.
  • EcoFin Hebdo looks at the rise of insurtech in Africa. In French.
  • Online sports betting in Nigeria sees boost as popularity of digital payments agrows.

Top image designed by Freepik

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: 3rd-eyes, BizEquity, FICO, Finastra, Global Debt Registry, Gro Solutions, Kony, NICE Systems, NIIT Technologies, TD Bank

On Finovate.com

  • BizEquity Brings its Valuation-as-a-Service Solution to TD Bank.

Around the web

  • FICO to offer free cybersecurity ratings to companies via its FICO Enterprise Security Score Portrait solution.
  • NICE Actimize covers P2P payments within its Fraud Essentials Cloud solution.
  • Global Debt Registry launches its loan registry on the IBM Blockchain Platform.
  • Harmonic Fund Services goes live with loan servicing technology, Fusion Loan IQ, from Finastra.
  • Gro Solutions names digital consulting firm Xtensifi as a certified development partner.
  • Kony accepted as a member in Jack Henry’s Symitar Vendor Integration Program.
  • NIIT Technologies ranked number one in ‘Business Understanding’ by clients in the 2018 UK IT Outsourcing Study.
  • 3rd-eyes selected for Swiss National Fintech Team.

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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Munnypot Picks Up Investment from Livingbridge

Munnypot Picks Up Investment from Livingbridge
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Munnypot

Robo advisory platform Munnypot began the month announcing a new relationship with business process management specialist Capita. Now the U.K.-based FinovateMiddleEast alum is ending the month with news of a major new investment from private equity firm, Livingbridge.

The amount of the investment was not disclosed. Livingbridge typically invests equity of as much as $6.6 million (£5 million). Munnypot said it will use the funds to further develop its robo advisory solution.

“We are delighted with Livingbridge’s investment which will enable us to scale up our business and further develop our offer for consumers,” Munnypot CEO Andrew Fay said.

Munnypot CEO demonstrating the company’s robo advisor platform at FinovateMiddleEast 2018.

Munnypot provides automated financial investment services for as little as £25 a month and/or a single £250 investment. The platform leverages chatbot technology to encourage investors to maximize annual ISA allowances, and monitors fund performance against goal-based objectives. If performance is out of line, Munnypot automatically suggests alternatives for the investor to consider.

“We are excited to be supporting Munnypot in the early stages of their development,” Livingbridge investment director Steve Cordiner said. “The robo advisor sector has grown quickly in recent years and Munnypot has a strong proposition; delivering low cost and affordable advice to consumers.”

Munnypot’s funding news comes just weeks after the company announced a strategic “scaling” partnership with Capita, which took a minority stake in the robo advisor. Via this partnership, Munnypot will help Capita develop solutions for wealth management companies. Earlier this year, Munnypot reported that it would power the robo advisor platform for Jyske Bank in Denmark. The deal represented the company’s first European white label partnership.

“We know, first hand, the time and resources required to build a robust online investment advice proposition,” Fay said in a statement accompanying the partnership announcement. “For most firms, partnering is the best and most efficient route to developing an innovative, client-engaging service.”

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Crawley, U.K., Munnypot demonstrated its goal-based, online investment advice solution at the inaugural FinovateMiddleEast conference earlier this year. Unlike many robo advisors that seek customers from among the mass affluent, Munnypot is designed for those who traditionally have not been able to access financial advice, as well as investors looking for a cost-competitive alternative to other advisory services.

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Five Degrees and BillPro Launch New European Cross Border Banking Service

Five Degrees and BillPro Launch New European Cross Border Banking Service
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Five Degrees

Dutch digital banking technology provider Five Degrees has teamed up with BillPro, an international business payments solutions specialist. Together, the two companies will launch a new cross-border banking service in Europe with Five Degrees’ core banking solution Matrix at the center.

“We are very happy to unite forces with BillPro, a leading provider of payment solutions in Europe and beyond,” Five Degrees CEO Martijn Hohmann said. “As a result, we are able to expand our customer base and enhance our position in the European market for Digital Banking platforms. Through this partnership, we can shape our idea of marketplace banking even more.”

Five Degrees Director of Sales Santosh Radhakrishnan and Prospery Product Owner Andrew Trythall demonstrating the company’s wealth management solution at FinovateEurope 2018.

BillPro will use Matrix as its core digital banking platform, and will offer it to its partners as an additional service option. The partnership will enable Five Degrees to expand its presence in the European market and give BillPro the ability to launch new banking services for its international business clients and support fintechs as they develop their own innovative solutions.

Matrix is an intelligent digital banking platform that supports customer onboarding, transactions, documents, and all customer interactions. The platform can be connected to legacy core banking systems, helping banks offer a broader range of customer-centric services including SME and retail lending, robo advisory and wealth management, as well as mortgages, FX trading, and current, savings, and deposit accounts.

“This will add significant value to both current and future clients as well as partners,” BillPro CEO Daria Rippingale said. “Our partnership with Five Degrees will enable BillPro to issue IBANs and Bank Accounts to people around the world.”

A member of the FinTech 50 and winner of the Banking & IT category at the Dutch Fintech Awards, Five Degrees has partnered with a variety of banks and fintechs including top three Netherlands consumer lender Credit Agricole Consumer Finance; robo advisor and fellow Finovate alum Munnypot; and GarantiBank, a European bank with more than $91 billion in assets.

At FinovateEurope 2018, Five Degrees demonstrated how Matrix served as an “orchestrating hub” for ABN AMBRO’s wealth management offering Prospery. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Five Degrees has raised more than $11 million (€10 million) in funding from investors including Karmijn Kapitaal and Velocity Capital.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Bill.com, Fiserv, Five Degrees, InComm, Infosys, Luxoft, Munnypot, nCino, NCR Corporation, Passport, Ping Identity, Revolut, SpyCloud, Unison

On Finovate.com

  • Fiserv and InComm Partner for Cash Billpay.
  • Unison Raises $40 Million to Promote the American Dream.
  • Munnypot Picks Up Investment from Livingbridge.
  • Five Degrees and BillPro Launch New European Cross Border Banking Service.
  • The ROI of a Finovate Demo.

Around the web

  • Infosys Finacle partners with Santander UK to launch interbank cash management system.
  • Luxoft to use open source blockchain platform Corda from R3.
  • Texas Tech FCU to deploy hardware, software, and services from NCR as it overhauls its customer experience.
  • Fiserv makes its Prologue Credit Loss Manager and risk modeling tools available via the cloud.
  • PYMNTS.com features Best of Show-winning cybersecurity specialist, SpyCloud.
  • American Banker: U.K.’s Revolut teams with Russia’s Qiwi ahead of U.S. launch.
  • Bill.com surpasses $50 billion in business payments processed annually.
  • The Tech Tribune names nCino and Passport among the 10 best tech startups in North Carolina.

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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Gusto Launches Flexible Pay, Turning Payday into Any Day

Gusto Launches Flexible Pay, Turning Payday into Any Day
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Gusto

Payroll, benefits, and HR technology innovator Gusto has unveiled a new solution called Flexible Pay that will enable workers in the U.S. to get paid outside of their employer’s standard payroll schedule. “The two-week pay schedule should no longer exist in today’s world.” Gusto co-founder and CEO Joshua Reeves said. “It’s a relic of calculating payroll taxes manually and was instituted in the U.S. almost 90 years ago. With modern technology, employees shouldn’t have to wait weeks to get paid.”

Eligible employers partnered with Gusto can begin offering Flexible Pay through the Gusto platform. The platform calculates, makes payments, and files all relevant taxes automatically, enabling eligible employers to use the solution without having to change either their current payroll schedules or debit frequency. Gusto noted in their announcement that solutions like Flexible Pay can help workers manage unexpected expenses without resorting to debt or payday lenders. Workers can set up direct deposit of earned wages via their Gusto account, and select their payday preference – even if it’s the next day. Currently available in Texas, Flexible Pay is expected to be available in other states over the course of 2018.

“Flexible Pay lets employees decide when they want to get paid for the work they’ve already done without additional cost to employers,” Reeves explained. “It’s the way we believe everyone will get paid in the future.”

Demonstrating its platform as ZenPayroll at FinovateSpring 2014, the company rebranded as Gusto in the fall of 2015, and announced the integration of health benefit and workers’ compensation management into its payroll offering. This provided businesses with a single unified service for both workers and employers. Gusto reports that 70% of its customers run payroll in five minutes or less, with 93% of them favorably comparing Gusto to traditional payroll service providers. The technology integrates with popular accounting platforms like Quickbooks, Xero, and TSheets, and the service is tiered to enable businesses of varying sizes to select the most cost- and feature-appropriate offering. This includes a freemium offering, HR Basics, launched this spring which gives small businesses a set of human resource tools for free, enabling them to manage worker vacation time and onboard new employees quicker.

Just a few weeks ago, Gusto introduced its own “Yelp for Accountants” partner directory to help SMEs find and hire accounting talent that specializes in the needs of small businesses. Named to the Forbes Fintech 50 for a second time earlier this year, Gusto began 2018 announcing a new partnership with accounting platform, Aplos.

Founded in 2011, Gusto serves more than 60,000 businesses in the U.S. and more than one percent of all U.S. employers. The company has raised more than $176 million in funding and includes CapitalG; General Catalyst; Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers; Emergence Capital Partners; and GV among its investors.

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Hydrogen Takes Top Honors at Fintech Awards Luxembourg 2018

Hydrogen Takes Top Honors at Fintech Awards Luxembourg 2018
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Hydrogen

Financial development platform Hydrogen won the grand prize at the Luxembourg Fintech Awards last week. The awards, sponsored by KPMG Luxembourg and Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT), were contested by nearly 200 applicants from 46 countries. As the Grand Prize winner, Hydrogen picked up €50,000 in prize money and will receive four months of hosting at Luxembourg’s co-working space, Technoport; 10 free consulting hours from KPMG; and a free membership to LHoFT, including six months of hosting at the LHoFT fintech hub.

“We are building the global financial platform of the Web 3.0 and Luxembourg is a natural place for us to offer our platform given their leading financial standing in Europe and globally,” Michael Kane, Hydrogen co-founder and CEO explained in an e-mail. “We are very excited to be honored with this prestigious award; it shows how tremendous our team is and how big the problem is we are solving.”

Hydrogen offers a suite of APIs that enable developers at financial services companies to build and deploy their financial apps anywhere globally. The firm provides the core infrastructure and connectors that companies require when building and managing fintech apps, including robo advisory and wealth management, savings, insurance, and PFM-based solutions. Hydrogen’s platform also gives developers the ability to leverage blockchain technology to better secure client information and to apply automated machine learning to cloud-based datasets.

Applicants to the awards were evaluated based on the quality of the idea behind the innovation, the technology/solution involved, business model, market potential, team, and more. Looking at the 15 semi-finalists who competed for the Grand Prize, Luxembourg House of Financial Technology CEO Nasir Zubairi said, “the diversity of the activity sectors represented as well as the geographical diversity demonstrate the international dimension of the Fintech awards and the indisputable appeal of Luxembourg as a FinTech hub.”

This year’s awards featured a strong showing by regtech firms, added Head of Advisory at KPMG Pascal Denis, which he attributed to Luxembourg’s “unique landscape of cross-border expertise.” Denis pointed out that artificial intelligence and blockchain-based technologies also made a strong showing. “We are able to attract the next generation of disrupters,” he said.

Also making it to the finals was fellow Finovate alum ThetaRay, a cybersecurity firm based in Israel. Lingua Custodia, a French translation company that specializes in financial documents won first runner up, with Swiss regtech firm, Apiax, picking up the second runner-up prize. BitValley was granted the Financial Inclusion Award for its work in leveraging blockchain technology to provide micro-insurance for farmers.

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in New York City, Hydrogen demonstrated how its technology can be leveraged to build sophisticated financial services platforms at FinovateEurope earlier this year. The company’s co-founders, Michael and Matthew Kane, showed how Hydrogen could build a savings platform, based in Europe, complete with UI/UX, onboarding simulations, back end connectivity, and business intelligence. The Kane brothers also demoed how the platform could be further enhanced by using blockchain technology for security and leveraging a proprietary AI to support an interactive digital assistant.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Cardlytics, Chain.com, Comarch, Finastra, Gusto, Hydrogen, Hyperwallet, Passport, PayPal, Quadient, TransferWise

On Finovate.com

  • TransferWise Helps Monzo Clients Send Money Abroad.
  • Hydrogen Takes Top Honors at Fintech Awards Luxembourg 2018.
  • Gusto Launches Flexible Pay, Turning Payday into Any Day.

Around the web

  • The Paypers interviews Comarch product development manager Bartłomiej Wójtowicz.
  • ACI Worldwide VP of Merchant Payments for Europe Andy McDonald discusses the future of real-time payments.
  • PYMNTS.com takes a look at PayPal’s acquisition of Hyperwallet.
  • Quadient announces availability of Quadient Inspire R12.
  • Passport powers mobile parking app for University of Illinois.
  • Finastra to sell its Collateral Management Corporation (CMS) business to Teranet.

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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Touché, OCBC Bank Bring Fingerprint Authentication to In-Person Commerce

Touché, OCBC Bank Bring Fingerprint Authentication to In-Person Commerce
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Touché

Singapore-based authentication specialist Touché has signed a deal with OCBC Bank. The agreement will bring fingerprint-based biometric payment and loyalty management technology to the bank’s credit card acceptance merchants that maintain a brick and mortar presence. Medium to high end F&B (food and beverage) establishments are among the initial target customers.

Quoted in the Global Banking and Finance Review, Touché CEO and co-founder Sahba Saint-Claire explained that while his company’s technology provided a safe and easy way for consumers to transact in person without needing multiple payment cards, there was more to Touché than just payments and biometrics.

“We are a solution that enables merchants to provide their customers with personalized experiences to deepen their relationships,” Saint-Claire said. “Touché is a key point of differentiation for banks and merchants, helping them grow their business by delighting customers and offering the next level in people engagement.”

Touché co-founder and CEO Sahba Saint-Claire demonstrating the company’s fingerprint biometric solution for in-person transactions at FinovateEurope 2018.

Touché works by linking fingerprint biometrics with card data – eliminating the need for both passwords and physical payment cards. Focused on in-person transactions rather than online commerce, Touché provides merchants with a device that features a chip reader, magnetic stripe reader and a two-finger fingerprint scanner that enables biometric authentication.

Once verified, customers can choose their preferred payment method from the available options. Any discounts, loyalty or rewards are applied automatically. The platform also sends the consumer an email receipt with billing, rewards, and other transaction-related information itemized. Customers register once and can use the service globally.

“Gone are the days of carrying cards and phones and vouchers and coupons,” Saint-Claire said from the Finovate stage earlier this year. “All you need are two fingers.”

Touché works with a wide variety of payment options including credit cards, debit cards, QR code, and proximity payments (GooglePay, ApplePay, AliPay, etc.). The company expects to add cryptocurrency payments soon. Merchants also benefit from historic and predictive customer transaction behavior analysis and insights, which can help them design and execute targeted marketing campaigns to their customers.

Head of Group Lifestyle Financing for OCBC Desmond Tan suggested the partnership was a positive step for both the bank’s customers and the future of in-person digital commerce in the country. “It will make digital e-payments simpler and more accessible than using cash,” Tan said, “and will help to drive Singapore’s push towards becoming an e-payments society.”

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Singapore, Touché demonstrated its platform at FinovateEurope 2018. Currently with offices in Barcelona, Spain, and in Tokyo, Touché is looking to expand to Australia, UAE, and Europe, with plans for a U.S. launch in 2019.

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PayPal Acquires Simility for $120 Million

PayPal Acquires Simility for $120 Million
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: PayPal, Simility

Just days after announcing its decision to purchase Hyperwallet, PayPal is back – purse in hand – for another big buy. The company will acquire fraud prevention and risk management specialist Simility for $120 million.

“This acquisition, like the acquisitions of Swift Financial, iZettle, Jetlore, and Hyperwallet that we’ve announced in the last twelve months, is part of a concerted effort to strengthen the suite of services we can provide to merchants in order to become the one-stop solution for global commerce,” Bill Ready, PayPal COO and EVP, wrote at the company blog.

Ready noted that PayPal has long been interested in the company, having invested in them in 2017, and currently owns 3% of the firm. He complemented the Palo Alto, California-based anti-fraud company’s technology and the way it “allow(ed) merchants to adjust individual risk rules to reduce fraudulent payment activity and, in some cases, verify transactions that may have otherwise failed.”

The acquisition is anticipated to close in Q3 of this year. Simility CEO Rahul Pangam, along with his team, will report to VP of Enterprise Services, Platforms Tushar Shah. PayPal will also pick up an office in Hyderabad, India, which Ready said “enhanc(ed) our presence in a key strategic market.”

A veteran of our developers conference FinDEVr, Simility showed how its advanced machine learning technology provides businesses with an adaptive anti-fraud solution. The company’s presentation, Fraud Mutates – Detect, Understand, and Block It, showed how a combination of flexible data ingestion and signal analysis – supported by advanced ML modeling and human analysis can help secure new account originations and wire transfers, support AML efforts, prevent account takeover, and more.

“Our vision for Simility was to create an adaptive risk management platform that empowers organizations operating in a digital world to manage an evolving fraud and risk landscape where data breaches are the new normal,” Simility’s Pangam said. “We are excited to enter the nest phase of our growth with PayPal and are thrilled to join them to help drive the next generation of payment and commerce solutions while scaling our business together.”

Founded in 2014, Simility had raised more than $24 million in funding prior to today’s announcement. The company has spent the summer adding executive talent: hiring Anupam Bagri as Director of Sales and Business Development for India and Asia-Pacific in the first half of June, and appointing Vanita Pandey as Vice President of Marketing and Product Strategy just last week.

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Finovate Favorites: A Baker’s Dozen of Best of Show Winners

Finovate Favorites: A Baker’s Dozen of Best of Show Winners
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Backbase, BancVue, BehavioSec, Best of Show, Dynamics, Envestnet, eToro, EyeVerify, Kasasa, LearnVest, mBank, Meniga, MoneyDesktop, MX, oFlows, SaleMove, Yodlee

Which fintech companies have continued to impress Finovate audiences over the years? The return of Kasasa to FinovateSpring last month, winning its fourth Best of Show award in the process, got a few of us thinking that it was a good time to take a look at which companies have been selected as fan favorites most frequently after demoing their latest technologies live on stage.

We’ve highlighted companies that have been especially popular at certain conferences, such as FinovateAsia and FinovateSpring before. Here is our compendium of the top Best of Show vote-getters to date for all shows combined (minimum of three wins).

The Big Three

The three companies that have won the most Best of Show awards from Finovate audiences reflect three different themes in fintech over the years: the allure of social investing (eToro), the rise of data analytics in banking (MX, formerly Money Desktop), and the persistence of the payment card (Dynamics). What is especially impressive about all three companies in our Best of Show Big Three is their ability to innovate over time. Each alum won their first Best of Show award between 2010 and 2012 and won their most recent Best of Show award between 2016 and 2018.

Dynamics (8) Founded in 2007. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Jeff Mullen is CEO.

MX / Money Desktop (6) Founded in 2010. Headquartered in Lehi, Utah. Ryan Caldwell is CEO.

eToro (6) Founded in 2007. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel and London, U.K. Yoni Assia is CEO.

The Super Six

Of our Super Six – the six companies to have won Best of Show awards four times – what is most interesting is also the way many of them have been proven innovators over a time of major change in fintech. Companies like Kasasa (formerly BancVue) and Yodlee (now Envestnet | Yodlee) made their big splash back in the earliest days of Finovate and, with recent Best of Show wins in 2018 and 2017, respectively, shown that they are still among fintech’s most inspiring solution providers.

Backbase – 4

Kasasa / BancVue – 4

Meniga – 4

oFlows – 4

SaleMove – 4

Yodlee (including Envestnet | Yodlee) – 4

The Fantastic Four

Two of the companies in our Fantastic Four companies that have won Best of Show awards three times have since been acquired. LearnVest, a three-time Best of Show winner from 2011-2013, was acquired by Northwestern Mutual for more than $250 million in 2015. EyeVerify, which won Best of Show awards on three different continents, was acquired by Ant Financial in 2016. The company now operates as ZOLOZ, and is focused on providing digital identity solutions for the underbanked in Asia.

BehavioSec – 3

EyeVerify (now “ZOLOZ”) – 3

LearnVest – 3

mBank – 3

Note: FA: FinovateAsia, FE: FinovateEurope, FF: FinovateFall, FS: FinovateSpring. Audience favorite awards from FinDEVr not included.

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KeyBank Acquires Small Business Lending Platform Bolstr

KeyBank Acquires Small Business Lending Platform Bolstr
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Bolstr, Mergers & Acquisitions

Digital lending platform for small businesses Bolstr has been acquired by KeyBank. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Chicago-based fintech, which takes a crowdfunding approach to helping communities support their local businesses, will help KeyBank provide SMEs with better access to both Small Business Administration (SBA) loans as well as traditional financing. Bolstr’s technology, to be implemented this year, will enable KeyBank to digitally process loan applications faster, saving time and money while providing business borrowers with a better lending experience.

“We are excited to work with an organization that is dedicated to helping communities and small businesses prosper,” Bolstr co-founder Charlie Tribbett said. “By combining our digital expertise and KeyBank’s industry knowledge, business owners will receive exceptional service and the efficient lending experience they need to be successful.”

The move from KeyBank comes as the company continues to execute on its $16.5 billion National Community Benefits Plan, which features a $2.5 billion commitment to small business lending over the next five years. One of the country’s leading lenders to small businesses, KeyBank issued 739 small business loans in 2017 totaling $318 million.

“KeyBank is deeply committed to helping small businesses thrive and to providing them with the funding they need to grow,” Head of KeyBank Business Banking, Jamie Warder said. “Bolstr’s technology transforms the small business lending process and allows us to more efficiently serve small businesses for their SBA and traditional lending needs,” Warder added.

Bolstr demonstrated its crowdfunding platform that enables individuals to invest in small businesses in their communities at FinovateFall 2012. Among the company’s innovations was a deal structure that allowed small business borrowers to repay funders with near-term payouts based on the sales success of the business. This allows small business owners to keep their equity and avoid going into significant debt.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Bolstr’s solution was the first crowdfunding platform designed to provide liquidity to local small businesses in the pre-JOBS Act era. Prior to this week’s announcement, the company had raised $2.3 million in funding from investors including Fusion Fund, DRW Venture Capital, and Montage Ventures.

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