Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Lender Price Integrates with Mortgage Management Solution from Ellie Mae.
  • WorkFusion’s $50 Million Round to Fuel Robotic Process Automation.
  • $1.32 Billion Raised by 26 Alums in Q1 of 2018.

Around the web

  • Retail chain Speedway names InComm Innovative Business Partner of the Year.
  • Technology from Malauzai and Geezeo contributes to new mobile app for Florida’s Axiom Bank.
  • YellowDog announces new partnership with [RE]DESIGN.
  • Mr. Cooper awarded Top Servicing Performance Rating from Fannie Mae. Come see Mr. Cooper’s demo at FinovateSpring next month.
  • Arxan launches new app security monitoring and analysis service, Arxan Threat Analytics.

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.

Symbiont Brings the Blockchain to Mortgagetech in New Partnership with Ranieri Solutions

Symbiont Brings the Blockchain to Mortgagetech in New Partnership with Ranieri Solutions

Could blockchain technology revitalize mortgagetech?

Blockchain and smart contract technology innovator Symbiont has teamed up with Ranieri Solutions to explore ways to use its smart contract platform to “systematically improve all aspects of the mortgage industry,” according to an announcement today. Ranieri Solutions is a financial services technology investment firm founded by securitized mortgage market pioneer Lewis Ranieri. The firm sees an opportunity to combine its own knowledge and experience in the mortgage market with Symbiont’s innovations in enterprise blockchain networks.

“When Symbiont was founded, it was my dream and vision to develop decentralized technology solutions that could solve the root problems that were at the heart of the financial crisis,” Symbiont CEO Mark Smith said. “Blockchain and smart contract technology is proving to be that solution.” Smith acknowledged Ranieri’s deep history in and beyond mortgage financing, referring to him as “the genius behind modern securitized markets.” He called the partnership a “once in a lifetime opportunity” for himself and a “seminal moment” for Symbiont.

Ranieri said blockchain technology was an opportunity to modernize a region of the financial world that has not kept up with the rest of the industry. “The mortgage market, despite significant efforts, continues to lag behind from a technological standpoint creating inefficiencies that impact mortgage loans throughout their life cycle,” he said. “By partnering with Symbiont, a proven blockchain pioneer, Ranieri Solutions believes that together we can implement this transformative technology to bring necessary efficiencies, transparency, and security to mortgage markets.”

In addition to putting its blockchain-based smart contract technology to work to the improve mortgage market, Symbiont has demonstrated its effectiveness in a variety of use cases. In December, Symbiont partnered with Vanguard and the Center for Research in Security Prices to use blockchain technology to simplify index data sharing between index providers and market participants. Last summer, the company publicly demonstrated how its Symbiont Assembly platform could be used for private equity issuance, and teamed up with PrivateMarket.io to use its SmartSecurities technology to build an alternative investment marketplace for closed-end funds.

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in New York City, Symbiont participated in our developers conference in New York, FinDEVr 2016. The company’s Chief Technology Officer and co-founder Adam Krellenstein discussed the architecture of Symbiont’s Smart Securities technology in a presentation titled “Distributed Ledgers and Smart Contracts.” Symbiont has raised more than $15 million in funding and includes Celeridem Capital Management and SenaHill Partners among its investors.

Mambu Launches Digital Marketplace for Cloud-Enabled Banking, Lending Apps

Mambu Launches Digital Marketplace for Cloud-Enabled Banking, Lending Apps

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) banking engine provider Mambu has launched its digital marketplace to offer cloud-enabled apps, products and tools for banking and lending, reports Antony Peyton of FinTech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

Mambu Marketplace offers a choice of global and localized solutions which can be integrated with the SaaS engine. Its offerings are based on an API-driven architecture.

Ben Goldin, Mambu’s head of product and technology, said the launch sets the stage for Mambu’s pre-integration strategy and “that no single vendor can provide market leading components for every module of a digital banking architecture.”

Goldin added that for its partners, the marketplace “provides an opportunity to present their offerings to institutions and influencers with the Mambu engine powering a composable architecture.”

Some of these partners named on the marketplace site include fellow Finovate alums Onfido, nCino, Avoka and Experian.

The marketplace was launched as part of Mambu’s “revamped digital identity” which includes a new look website.

Founded in 2011, the German company’s technology powers over 6,000 loan and deposit products which serve over four million end customers. Mambu has more than 250 live operations in over 46 countries, ranging from fintech firms to banks. With more than $13 million in funding, the company demonstrated its technology at FinovateAsia 2013.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • DriveWealth Closes $21 Million in Funding.
  • Symbiont Brings the Blockchain to Mortgagetech in New Partnership with Raneiri Partners.
  • Micronotes to Scale AI-Enabled Marketing Platform with $3 Million in Funding.

Around the  web

  • nCino appoints James Peverell as General Manager, EMEA, and Hali Kahn as Regional Vice President.
  • Finastra named a Category Leader in the Chartis Hedge Fund Risk Management Quadrant in the Hedge Fund Risk Management Technology 2018 report.
  • Comarch wins award from the Italy Protection Forum for innovation in digital transformation of insurance companies.
  • Insuritas to power digitally powered insurance agency for Priority Bank.
  • Kofax reports that 50% of top U.S. life insurers leveraging TotalAgility.
  • Temenos tables takeover of Fidessa.
  • FierceCEO features DefenseStorm CEO Sean Feeney.

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 Faves of FinovateSpring: A Brief History of Best of Show Winners

The Faves of FinovateSpring: A Brief History of Best of Show Winners

Since the first spring fintech conference in 2008, a total of six companies have won Best of Show honors more than once. These companies range from some of our earlier innovators like oflows and Wikinvest that have since gone on to bigger and better things, as well as more recent multiple-time winners like MX and SaleMove that have picked up Best of Show awards at our other events in London and New York.

With FinovateSpring just over a month away, we thought we’d give a tip of the hat to the companies that have helped make our Spring shows especially memorable with their demonstrations of audience-pleasing, Best of Show-winning fintech. Below the six, two-time FinovateSpring Best of Show winners, we’ve also included a complete history of FinovateSpring Best of Show winners. It’s all designed to whet your appetite for the cutting-edge fintech you’ll see on stage on May 8-9 in Santa Clara, California for FinovateSpring 2018.

SaleMove (2017, 2016) – Dedicated to bringing the in-person customer experience online, New York City-based SaleMove leverages its engagement platform to give clients in wealth management, banking, insurance, and other verticals the ability to interact with their customers in the channel – or channels – they prefer. With live video, voice, live chat, and co-browsing, SaleMove’s platform helps financial services businesses communicate better and more effectively with their customers, leading to more sales, more conversations, and improved customer service. The company was founded in 2012, and has raised more than $5 million in funding.

Money Desktop/MX (2013, 2012) – In rebranding to MX in 2014, the multiple-time Finovate Best of Show winner signaled it was ready to maximize its expertise in financial data acquisition, cleansing, and visualization to help financial service providers make the most of their underused and unused data. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Lehi, Utah, MX has raised $75 million in funding, and began the year with news that Coast Capital Savings – Canada’s largest credit union by membership with more than $20 billion in assets –  would deploy a next-generation PFM solution developed by MX.

PayNearMe (2013, 2011) – With more than $90 million in funding, PayNearMe operates a real time, cash transaction network that gives consumers without bank accounts or access to automatic payments the ability to pay with cash. Founded in 2009 and based in Sunnyvale, California, the company acquired Prism Money in 2016 and shortly afterwards reorganized itself as Handle Financial to better communicate its various brands to consumers.

Dwolla (2012, 2011) – Enterprise payments platform Dwolla is headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa and was founded in 2008 by Ben Milne. The company’s white-label payments API enables businesses to credit or debit user-connected accounts, and its technology is also used for verification and user discovery. With more than $51 million in funding, Dwolla recently announced it would power identity verification for Yahoo!’s Tanda savings app.

oflows (2011, 2010) – Founded in 2009 and acquired by fellow Finovate alum Andera in the fall of 2011, oflows specialized in multi-channel paperless account opening solutions. The company was named a Top 10 Company to Watch in 2011 by Bank Technology News. Andera itself was the subject of an acquisition in 2014, when it was purchased by Bottomline Technologies for $48 million.

Wikinvest/SigFig (2011, 2010) – Known today as SigFig, the company was founded in 2007 as a consumer finance portal called Wikinvest. Picking up a pair of Best of Show awards in the early days of Finovate, the company has since grown into one of wealthtech’s biggest success stories as a wealth management services provider with more than $114 million in assets under management.

And here’s the full list of FinovateSpring Best of Show winners.

FinovateSpring 2017

  • Alpharank
  • Capitali.se
  • Hedgeable AI Lab
  • Microblink
  • Neener Analytics
  • SaleMove
  • SpeechPro
  • Unison

FinovateSpring 2016

  • BanQu
  • LendingRobot
  • PayActiv
  • Quid
  • SaleMove
  • Silver6

FinovateSpring 2015

  • Alpha Payments Cloud
  • Avoka
  • Money Amigo
  • Moven
  • NAMU Systems
  • Shoeboxed
  • Stratos

FinovateSpring 2014

  • EyeVerify
  • Loop
  • Interactions
  • Motif Investing
  • Ondot Systems
  • PrivatBank
  • SaveUp
  • Stockpile

FinovateSpring 2013

  • FamZoo
  • LendUp
  • MoneyDesktop
  • PayNearMe
  • TipRanks

FinovateSpring 2012

  • BehavioSec
  • BillGuard
  • Dwolla
  • iQuantifi
  • MoneyDesktop
  • Personal Capital
  • SoMoLend

FinovateSpring 2011

  • BancVue
  • BankOns
  • Dwolla
  • oFlows
  • Mitek Systems
  • PayNearMe
  • Wikinvest

FinovateSpring 2010

  • Bobber Interactive
  • Expensify
  • oFlows
  • Wikinvest

FinovateStartup 2009

  • BillShrink (now Truaxis)
  • Prosper
  • Silver Tail Systems
  • SimpliFi

FinovateStartup 2008

  • First ROI (now BancVue)
  • Jwaala
  • Zecco
  • Zopa

Finovate Alums Earn Spots on insideBIGDATA IMPACT 50 List

Finovate Alums Earn Spots on insideBIGDATA IMPACT 50 List

It is no surprise to see companies like NVIDIA, Intel, Dell EMC, and SAS at the top of the quarterly insideBIGDATA IMPACT 50 roster. But what caught our eye was the handful of Finovate alums that won recognition on insideBIGDATA’s review of companies that are “making waves in the technology areas of big data, data science, machine learning, AI, and deep learning.”

“Our in-box is filled each day with new announcements, commentaries, and insights about what’s driving the success of our industry so we’re in a unique position (to) publish our quarterly IMPACT 50 List of the most important movers and shakers in our industry,” Daniel D. Gutierrez, managing editor and resident data scientist of insideBIGDATA wrote in an article accompanying the announcement.

What does it take to make the list? Gutierrez explained that the roster consists of companies that “exhibit technology leadership, strength of offering, proven innovation, positivity of message, quality perception in the enterprise, intensity and frequency of social media buzz, high profile of members of the C-suite, and in the case of public companies: positive financial indicators and stock price, and so much more!”

Our five honored Finovate alums are below. To see the full list of 50 “DataTech” companies, visit insideBIGDATA.

#9 Google (Europe 2018, Fall 2011): Appearing first on the Finovate stage with its Google Advisor solution and as recently as this spring in partnership with KBC Bank Ireland, Google is in the top ten of insideBIGDATA’s Impact 50 list. Google needs little introduction as one of the companies that has done the most to bring the benefits of data to technology consumers via solutions like Search, Maps, Google Play, and its Chrome browser. Founded in 1998, Google is headquartered in Mountain View, California.

#14 Kinetica (Europe 2018, Fall 2017):  Founded in 2009 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Kinetica enables financial institutions to conduct on-demand risk calculations using the most up-to-date data with “sub-second speed.” High frequency trading firms and traditional asset managers alike can leverage Kinetica’s technology to measure risk, identify customer behavioral patterns, and locate up-sell opportunities. With $63 million in funding, Kinetica includes fellow insideBIGDATA Impact 50 members Dell EMC, NVIDIA, and Google Cloud Platform among its partners.

#15 MapD (Spring 2017, Fall 2016): Developer of the world’s fastest open source SQL engine, MapD harnesses GPUs to deliver extreme speed at scale. Based in San Francisco, MapD provides users with powerful data visualizations made possible by the technology’s ability to query and render billions of rows of data in milliseconds. MapD’s technology originated from research conducted at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Todd Mostak is CEO of the company, which was founded in 2013.

#40 Narrative Science (Fall 2013, Spring 2013): Specialists in Advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP), Narrative Science builds solutions that enable financial institutions to analyze, understand, communicate, and act upon their data quickly and efficiently. The company’s technology can turn ordinary numeric and symbolic data and visualizations into “intelligent narratives” that express insights and context in language that is indistinguishable from that of a human author. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and founded in 2010, Narrative Science has raised more than $43 million in funding. Stuart Frankel is CEO.

#46 TIBCO (Asia 2013, Asia 2012): Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, TIBCO is a leader in integration, API management, and analytics. The company’s TIBCO Connected Intelligence Cloud gives enterprise users access to a unified suite of services including the company’s low-code development platform, TIBCO Cloud Live Apps. The company was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in September 2014 in a deal valued at $4.3 billion. TIBCO made headlines earlier this year with the appointment of a new CTO and COO.

Moxtra Collaborates with OCBC Bank to Help Pilot New Mobile App

Moxtra Collaborates with OCBC Bank to Help Pilot New Mobile App

Moxtra will help OCBC Bank Malaysia deploy and test its new Secure Chat Banking mobile app. Recently approved by Bank Negara – the country’s central bank – the pilot will take place in a regulatory sandbox environment with real customers and actual financial transactions. The bank hopes a successful test, which is expected to last for one year, will enable it to provide its premier customers with the first banking app of its kind in the country.

The idea of the new banking app came as a response to a rise in phone-based phishing fraud incidents, in which fraudsters were impersonating bank officials to trick customers into giving them personal information. OCBC Bank Malaysia head of consumer financial service Lim Wyson explained that the result has been to make bank customers very skeptical about banking by phone. “This has made it difficult for banks to carry out even simple, day-to-day, call-back verifications for confirmation of transactions,” he said.

The new app will remove the need for call-back verifications by enabling customers to securely give their financial transaction instructions to their relationship manager. Lim Wyson suggested this will also help make consumers less vulnerable to fraud, as well. “This will improve people’s experience of our services without compromising security,” he said. “It will also ultimately safeguard them from falling victim to phone spoofing and scamming activities.”

Moxtra provides financial services companies with an omni-channel client engagement platform that supports collaboration between clients and relationship managers. The technology features secure messaging, e-signatures, voice layered over content and supports real-time meetings. The service is platform-agnostic, mobile-friendly, and can be white-labeled and integrated into existing workflows.

OCBC Bank has been making major strides in modernizing its banking services of late. Last month, the bank became the first bank in Singapore to offer voice-powered, cashless payments. “This latest service marks a major milestone in banking as it brings us one huge leap closer to making natural language voice-activated banking and payments a reality,” Aditya Gupta, OCBC Bank Head of E-Business Singapore, said in a statement. “This is just a start – we will continue to embed ourselves in our customer’s everyday lives using voice-powered AI tools which they will be able to use for more banking transactions such as bill payments, money management, and common servicing requests in the future,” Gupta said.

Moxtra demonstrated its Engagement Platform at FinovateFall 2017. The company, which was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Cupertino, California, has more than five million registered users of its solutions. Moxtra has raised $20 million in funding and includes KDDI and Cisco among its investors. Subrah Iyar is CEO.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Ripple Joins Hyperledger Project, Launches Hyperledger Quilt Project.
  • Moxtra Collaborates with OCBC Bank to Help Pilot New Mobile App.
  • MicroStrategy Powering Kasasa’s New Insight Solution.

Around the web

  • ThePaypers interviews BioCatch VP Frances Zelazny.
  • Charlotte Business Journal recognizes LendingTree Senior Talent Development Manager Tess Ausman in its 40 Under 40 for 2018 roster.
  • PYMNTS.com talks with Socure CEO Sunil Madhu on Facebook’s challenges with user data.
  • Park Plymouth in Plymouth, Massachusetts deploys Passport’s mobile parking app, PassportParking.
  • IdentityMind Global named to Disruptor Daily’s 10 RegTech Companies Making Waves in the Industry list.
  • Josh Glover, EVP of the Americas for nCino talks with PYMNTS.com about the importance of the customer experience in corporate banking and lending.
  • InfoQ interviews Eric Horesnyi, CEO at streamdata.io.
  • Check Point Software Technologies teams with TrapX Security to launch real-time visibility, threat detection, and rapid threat containment solution.
  • VM Blog interviews Arvin Hsu, Senior Director of Data Science and Machine Learning at GoodData.
  • Spacequant earns finalist spot in PitchIt competition at Lendit Fintech conference.
  • Sberbank Enters Cloud Products Market.
  • ITSector launches ITSCredit spinoff (news in Portugese).

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.

FIS to Manage Lease Portfolio for CNH Industrial Capital America

FIS to Manage Lease Portfolio for CNH Industrial Capital America

CNH Industrial Capital America (CNH), the captive finance company for capital goods provider CNH Industrial America, has selected FIS’s asset finance solution for managing its commercial contract and lease portfolio, reports Antony Peyton of Banking Technology (Finovate’s sister publication).

According to FIS, CNH was looking to consolidate management of its disparate commercial contract and lease portfolios on a single integrated platform.

Brett Davis, president, CNH Industrial Capital America, said the solution provides a “new level of configuration, automation and advanced integration capabilities for managing our business.”

By selecting the solution, CNH will get an integrated view of customer and dealer information, “enhancing its decision-making while simplifying accounting and tax reporting, managing regulatory compliance and reducing costs.”

At FinovateFall 2016, FIS demonstrated how it was extending Cardless Cash solution to enable mobile banking customers to pre-order funds and withdraw cash at participating banks and ATMs in more than 70,000 location in the U.S.

In March, FIS was recognized for Best In-Class Wealth Management Outsourcing in the 2018 Family Wealth Report Awards. The company also picked up 15 Stevie Awards in the 2018 American Business Awards for Sales & Customer Service last month,

With more than 20,000 clients in more than 130 countries, FIS is a global financial services technology company with more than 57,000 employed around the world. The company is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and was founded in 1968.

Finovate Global: Fintech News from the Periphery

Finovate Global: Fintech News from the Periphery

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

Africa

  • TechCrunch profiles Africa-focused microlender, Branch, which recently picked up an investment of $70 million.
  • IT News Africa takes a look at the demand for “senior leaders” in Africa’s growing fintech industry.
  • International money transfer firm PaySend partners with Access Bank Nigeria

CEE

  • Polish Financial Supervision Authority signs MoU with Hong Kong Monetary Authority to encourage fintech collaboration.
  • U.K.-based cross border payments company Ebury opens first office in Bucharest, Hungary. (In Hungarian.)
  • Crowdfundinsider notes the surge in number of registered fintechs in Lithuania courtesy of report from Invest Lithunia.

Asia

  • ayondo celebrates being the first fintech to list in Singapore.
  • Sri Lanka’s largest bank, Bank of Ceylon, to deploy anti-money laundering solution from CustomerXP.
  • Central Bank of Malaysia establishes open API implementation group to develop standards for financial sector.

MENA

  • World Finance Magazine awards Temenos Best Islamic Banking & Finance Software Solution at 2018 Islamic Finance Awards.
  • RAKBANK, also known as The National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah, launches contactless cash withdrawal facility for its more than 170 NFC-enabled ATMs.
  • Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) signs MoU with Middle East Venture Partners to support development of the area’s capital technology ecosystem.

LATAM

  • Nubank Challenges Brazil’s Big Banks in Wake of $150 Million Funding Round.
  • Mexico enacts legislation to regulate its fintech sector.
  • Colombian roboadvisor Ualet wins honors as Latin America’s Most Innovative Startup at industry event sponsored by Finnovista.

Top image designed by Freepik

Nubank Challenges Brazil’s Big Banks in Wake of $150 Million Funding Round

Nubank Challenges Brazil’s Big Banks in Wake of $150 Million Funding Round

The startup that made headlines recently for its antitrust complaint against some of its country’s largest banks is the same fintech that raked in a major investment from a group of investors earlier this month.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Nubank has charged Brazil’s big banks with hindering competition in financial services, specifically in the credit card space where Nubank has been making inroads . And now Brazil’s antitrust watchdog, Cade, is on the case. According to Reuters, the five biggest Brazilian banks hold 85 percent of assets in the country’s highly concentrated banking system.

The investigation into Nubank’s complaint is the second time this month that the company has made fintech headlines. Only a few weeks ago Nubank announced receiving $150 million in new funding in a round led by DST Global Investment Partners. Nubank founder and CEO David Velez noted at the time the company had been “cash flow positive since 2017” and that the funding would “serve to further strengthen our balance sheet to support the accelerated growth we have seen since launch.”

“In a little less than four years, more than 13 million Brazilians have applied to become a Nubank customer, a reflection of how ready consumers were to welcome new alternatives to the significantly concentrated Brazilian banking market,” he added. “We look forward to expanding our reach and product offering to many millions more in the years ahead.”

The Series E also featured participation from current investors Founders Fund, Redpoint Ventures, Ribbit Capital LP, and QED. New investors Dragoneer Investment Group and Thrive Capital Partners joined the round, as well.

In addition to its equity capital of $330 million, Nubank received a $137 million (R$455 million) line of credit from Goldman Sachs last year. The company, which won regulatory approval to operate as a bank in January, was named to the KPMG/H2 Ventures’ Fintech 100 in 2017, and also unveiled its new digital account offering to go along with its credit card business.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Nubank participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr New York 2016. At the event, Nubank co-founder and CTO Edward Wible and Lead Software Engineer Lucas Cavalcanti presented Our Money, Our Rulebook, a discussion of how the company built an accounting system in house based on data science modeling, real time customer visibility, guaranteed conservation of money, and customer account histories.

Pindrop Introduces New Biometric Solution: Tongueprinting

Pindrop Introduces New Biometric Solution: Tongueprinting

Update 4/2: It appears as if Pindrop got started on April Fool’s fun a little early this year. If you missed the joke, the company’s website still features their “latest biometric “solution.”

If you felt the urge to check the date to make sure today was not the first of April when reading the news of Pindrop’s latest biometric breakthrough, don’t worry. You’re probably not alone.

FinTechFuture’s Antony Peyton reports that the Atlanta-based anti-fraud and authentication specialist has unveiled Tongueprinting, a technology that analyses every person’s unique tongue as its newest biometric engine. FinTechFutures is Finovate’s sister publication.

The idea is for Tongueprinting to stop fraudsters from taking over legitimate accounts by spoofing the call centre with automated bots, social engineering, and knowledge-based authentication questions. Tongueprinting will also help companies build a “frictionless customer experience that are fun, taste good and are easy as a lick of the tongue”.

Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO and cofounder, Pindrop, said: “Tongueprinting not only adds an extra layer of security and authentication, it increases the opportunities to generate additional antibodies leading to a healthier user over time.”

According to the firm, the technology analyses thousands of tiny bumps called papillae, as well as factors such as shape, texture, size, spacing of buds and the behaviour of the lick.

Pindrop said it takes “only seconds” – lick your phone, and authentication is achieved. The tongue “lives in your mouth” (we know), and is a “protected unit”, that is safe from external elements avoiding challenges facing other biometrics like frostbite, pink eye and laryngitis.

The firm also cited research by scientists at the University of Arizona, which found that cell phones carry ten times more bacteria than most toilet seats.

Pindrop research shows that licking your phone on average 47 times a day to unlock it, reduces the build-up of bacteria and “ultimately leads to healthier phone owners”.

The company was founded in 2011 and is venture-backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Citi Ventures, Felicis Ventures, CapitalG, GV, and IVP. Pindrop demonstrated its Fraud Detection System at FinovateFall 2012.