InForcePRO Rakes in $4 Million Following Finovate Debut

InForcePRO Rakes in $4 Million Following Finovate Debut

InforcePRO_homepage_Sep2015

In a round led by LiveOak Venture Partners, insurance technology specialist InforcePRO has closed a $4 million venture capital round.

The investment takes InforcePRO’s total capital to more than $5 million. The company says the new funding will help with expansion both in the United States as well as internationally. InforcePro co-founder Cameron Jacox anticipated growth of 400% over the next two years, saying that such growth would enable the company to “help more than 600 million global policyholders.”

InforcePRO_stage_FF2015

InforcePRO co-founder Karan Kanodia demonstrated his technology’s real-time policy analysis at FinovateFall 2015 in New York City.

Fellow co-founder Karan Kanodia said that InforcePRO’s strategy to “put policyholders first” was a “tectonic shift for an industry which was traditionally built on a ‘gotcha’ mindset.” InforcePRO differentiates itself by providing “post-sale software solutions” that give insurance distributors new up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, as well as improving overall customer engagement. The technology makes it easy for insurance professionals to run instant policy reviews, enabling them to identify potential sale or service opportunities on insurance policies that are as many as three decades old.

Venu Shamapant, general partner at Live Oak Venture Partners, included InforcePRO among the companies it has invested in that are “focused on solving long-overlooked problems resulting in disruption of large and established industries.”

“LiveOak’s investment will help InforcePRO capitalize on the global demand for their solutions, and accelerate the company’s pace of product innovation,” said Shamapant.

Founded in November 2013 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, InforcePRO made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2015 in New York City. The company has more than 25 employees and its platform monitors more than 2 million life insurance policies.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “InforcePRO Rakes in $4 Million Following Finovate Debut”

Around the web

  • Jumio brings its ID verification technology to Loot, a prepaid card and money-management app.
  • Let’s Talk Payments looks at the Venmo-powered Ledge, a mobile P2P lending app.
  • CardFlight mPOS solutions certified by First Data to accept EMV chip card payments.
  • Re/code profiles Twilio as part of its new “Lunches with Unicorns” series. Join Twilio’s Authy at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco next week.
  • Fortune Magazine lists OnDeck on its list of 100 Best workplaces for millennials.
  • Hyperwallet’s founder, Lisa Shields, wins EY Canada’s Entrepreneur Of The Year award.
  • FamZoo wins The People’s Choice Award at FinCon15.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

Cloud Lending Solutions Raises $8 Million in Series A

Cloud Lending Solutions Raises $8 Million in Series A

CloudLending_homepage_2015

Cloud Lending Solutions has landed $8 million in new funding. The series A round was led by SF Capital Group, who will send its president, Neil Wolfson, to the company’s board of directors.

Also participating in the round were Cota Capital, Long Light Capital, Green Visor, and Epic Ventures. Combined with $2.25 million raised by Cloud Lending Solutions during a pre-series A round last year, the company’s total capital stands at more than $10 million.

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Cloud Lending Solutions CEO Snehal Fulzele demonstrated CL Exchange at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose, California.

In a statement, Cloud Lending Solutions CEO Snehal Fulzele said the new funding would help the company expand to new markets such as commercial real estate and SMB lending. “(These) are trillion-dollar industries ripe for disruption,” Fulzele said. Read more of his thoughts on the investment, and Cloud Lending Solutions’ place in the industry, in his Wednesday blog post, “An $8 Million Stake in an $800 Billion Market.”

Cloud Lending Solutions provides end-to-end lending solutions that are native to Salesforce. Able to bring its customers to market in as little as 90 days, Cloud Lending Solutions has more than 75 customers in 20-plus countries. This includes fellow Finovate alums such as Dealstruck, whose CEO Ethan Senturia referred to Cloud Lending Solutions as the “technology partner to make our vision a reality.”

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in San Mateo, California, Cloud Lending Solutions demonstrated its CL Exchange technology at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

Rippleshot Earns Spot in SixThirty Accelerator’s Incoming Cohort

Rippleshot Earns Spot in SixThirty Accelerator’s Incoming Cohort

Rippleshot_homepage_Sep2015

Chicago-based cybersecurity specialist Rippleshot will join the Fall 2015 cohort of the SixThirty accelerator program.

For its participation in the accelerator, Rippleshot will pick up a negotiated equity investment of up to $100,000, as well as training, mentoring, and networking with professionals from financial services companies from across the country. The program runs from 14 September through 11 December, and is based in downtown St. Louis. This will be Rippleshot’s second time through the SixThirty program.

SixThirty Managing Partner Atul Kamra said that they had received a record number of applications for the fall cohort. “The application pool was truly global and, of the 150-plus startups that applied, a third were from outside the U.S.”

Also participating in the fall 2015 cohort are:

  • Bandura
  • Brigade Society
  • Ensygnia
  • Fluent
  • Investment POD

Founded in June 2013, Rippleshot demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2014 in New York City. Canh Tran is CEO and co-founder. The company has won accolades for its technology that helps detect card-payment fraud, earning finalist spots at the BBVA Open Talent Competition in August, and the MRC METAwards in March 2015.

Blooom Wins Grant from LaunchKC

Blooom Wins Grant from LaunchKC

Blooom_homepage_Sept2015

In fintech, some blossoms make their biggest blooms in the fall.

401(k) retirement-planning platform, Blooom announced this week it is one of 10 companies to earn a grant from LaunchKC. In addition to a cash award of $50,000, Blooom will get 12 months of free office space downtown in Kansas City, and the opportunity to work with both a specific mentor-team as well as local industry leaders and entrepreneurs from the area.

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From left: Blooom co-founder and CEO Chris Costello and CTO Randy AufDerHeide demonstrated their technology at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

The grant recipients were announced during Techweek Kansas City, and were chosen from a pool of 500 applicants from 17 states and eight countries. The group was winnowed down to 20 startups that were invited to make their pitch as part of the Techweek event. Judges awarded grants to nine startups, and a tenth startup was chosen as a “People’s Choice” winner by event attendees.

The rest of the inaugural LaunchKC 2015 grant recipients are below:

  • HealthID
  • Integrated Roadways
  • KC Drone Company
  • Nodal Security
  • Pycno
  • PopBookings
  • SquareOffs
  • Vertisense
  • Video Fizz

An initiative of the Downtown Council of Kansas City, LaunchKC was launched in January 2015 to help build and support entrepreneurs and technologists in the local area. Bill Dietrich, chief administrative officer of LaunchKC and president and CEO of the Downtown Council, called the initiative “a nonprofit civic engine and accelerator in the Kansas City tech scene.”

Mike Downing, director of the Missouri Department of Economic Development, says the investment “will assist in attracting talent and ideas to the state as well as add to the abundant resources and supportive infrastructure that fosters growth in the entrepreneurial community.”

Blooom also reported that its co-founder and CEO, Chris Costello, was named to Wealth Management’s “Ten to Watch 2016” roster last month. Costello, like the other two members of his executive team, CTO Randy AufDerHeide and COO Kevin Conard, is from the local area and is a graduate of the University of Kansas.

Founded in February 2013 and headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, Blooom made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014 in New York City. With more than 1,000 clients in 48 states and more than $100 million under management, the company was recognized by InvestorJunkie as one of its top 15 robo-advisers in September.

Kreditech Raises €82 Million in Series C Investment Led by J.C. Flowers

Kreditech Raises €82 Million in Series C Investment Led by J.C. Flowers

Kreditech_homepage_Sep2015

German consumer-finance technology company Kreditech today announced that it has raised €82.5 million in a Series C round led by J.C. Flowers—and more funding could be on the way. The investment includes a bridge loan from Peter Thiel and Amadeus Capital Partners (Amadeus) from earlier this year that has been converted into equity, as well as word that Kreditech hopes the round ultimately will raise more than €100 million.

Also participating in the round were existing investors Värde Partners, HPE Growth Capital, and Blumberg Capital.

The more than €80 million raised so far boosts the company’s total funding to more than €300 million in debt and equity. Kreditech CFO Rene Griemens noted that more than half of the company’s total funding are unused debt facilities—a revolving credit arrangement—that can be loaned out to help fuel growth.

Kreditech_stage_FF2014

Kreditech CEO and co-founder Sebastian Diemer demonstrated Kredito24 at FinovateSpring 2014 in New York.

Loren Felsman, managing director at J.C. Flowers who will be joining the Kreditech board as part of the investment, praised the company’s “sophisticated approach to real-time consumer banking,” especially as it relates to the underbanked. “Most lenders, including those built on modern technology, may not crack these markets for years,” Felsman said.

Kreditech leverages big data to create better credit-scoring technology for consumer-borrowers with poor or no credit histories. Kreditech focuses on the current financial health of the borrower, analyzing more than 20,000 data-points to establish potential creditworthiness.

These data-points encompass a wide range of information typically overlooked when analyzing a borrower’s likelihood of repaying debt, and include everything from a borrower’s Facebook friends to semantic analysis, i.e., the writing tone in email messages or social media posts. The goal, as Deimer explained from the stage last year at FinovateFall 2014, was both a more accurate credit rating, better pricing and more personalized lending options for the borrower.

Kreditech has deployed its technology with subsidiaries operating in nine markets: Germany, Poland, Spain, Peru, Mexico, Australia, the Dominican Republic, the Russian Federation, and the Czech Republic. “These are markets with very low or no credit-bureau infrastructure at all,” Deimer pointed out. This was key to both maximizing margins and keeping customer-acquisition costs low.” The company is also “ramping up” operations in Brazil and Romania.

Deimer was named to the Hot Topic 100 list of the most influential people in fintech in August. In May, Inc.com added Kreditech to its roster of the “22 Financial Technology Startups You Need to Know.” This spring, Kreditech announced the hiring of Oliver Prill as its new COO. Prill was previously the CEO of a boutique small-business and consumer-debt-reconciliation firm, Optanus, and before that was the founder and CEO of C&A Bank in Germany.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, Kreditech demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2014 in New York.

 

 

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Kreditech Raises 82 Million in Series C Investment Led by J.C. Flowers”
  • “Ellevest Pulls in $10 Million from Morningstar”

Around the web

  • Ripple Labs and Coinbase are highlighted in this infographic on how banks are using blockchain technology.
  • Let’s Talk Payments takes a look at Aire and its alternative approach to credit scoring.
  • Venmo is featured along with nine other top bill-sharing apps.
  • Emerging Payments Awards selects Hyperwallet as a finalist for the Best Corporate/Government Payments Program award for 2015.
  • Kony to offer enterprise mobility cloud solutions to Etisalat.
  • Forbes: Nordea selects Temenos and Accenture to undertake the first major comprehensive European core-banking replacement in years.
  • ChicagoInno features Morningstar’s HelloWallet’s Best of Show win at FinovateFall.
  • PayPal unveils its chip-card reader in the U.S.
  • Hyperwallet counts down to next week’s FinDEVr developer conference. Come see Hyperwallet at FinDEVr, 6/7 Oct in San Francisco.
  • COO Connect calls Blooom, the future of retail savings.

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Munich-Based Fidor Bank Launches in the UK” —Check out Fidor Bank at FinDEVr, 6/7 October, in San Francisco.

Around the web

  • New P2P lending app, Ledge, leverages Venmo technology.
  • CNET features Wealthfront, Betterment, FutureAdvisor, SigFig, and Personal Capital in a look at investment in robo-advisers.
  • American Banker profiles PaySwag and its strategy to put a gamified face on debt collection.
  • Kashoo unveils version 4.4 of its iOS app.
  • American Legion magazine interviews Mark Rockefeller, StreetShares CEO and co-founder.
  • itBit announces new higher withdrawal limits.
  • Digital Retail Apps CEO and founder Wendy MacKinnon Keith wins 2015 Women in Payments Innovation Award.
  • InvestorJunkie lists its top 15 robo-advisers, featuring eight Finovate alums.
  • Braintree and PayPal reflect on their two-year anniversary. See Braintree show off its APIs at FinDEVr in San Francisco, 6/7 October.
  • EQ features DAVO’s sales-tax solution.
  • Bank Innovation highlights Ldger’s demo at FinovateFall last week.
  • Forbes features Aerospike. See Aerospike’s presentation at FinDEVr San Francisco on 6/7 October.

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 #FintechRevolution Will Be API’d

The #FintechRevolution Will Be API’d

FintechRevolutionAPIEcosystem

An open Fintech ecosystem for developers could be imminent, at least if Xignite has anything to say about it.

Fresh off its FinovateFall 2015 appearance, the financial market-data provider to many of fintech’s most innovative companies is spearheading a new initiative, the #FintechRevolution API Ecosystem. The goal of #FintechRevolution—a partnership involving more than 20 other technology companies and accelerators—is to make it easier for developers to get their hands on the APIs and tools they need in order to bring their innovations to life.

Stephane Dubois, CEO and founder of Xignite, says the initiative “consolidates the best-of-the-best in the fintech API ecosystem. It will now be easier for firms, large and small, to start and grow financial services and fintech companies just by leveraging the APIs in the ecosystem.”

Xignite_9728

From left: Xignite CEO Stephane Dubois, founder, and Anand Vidwanathan, developer, demonstrated Xignite Cloudstreaming at FinovateFall 2015.

Xignite divided the API contributions from the founding members into workflow, analytics and data categories. And, as Finance Magnates reports, a special emphasis should be placed on what it calls “non-traditional” APIs, the ones embracing inclusion of social and sentiment data alongside more-familiar financial data. This social data includes everything from the portfolio-management APIs of Advisor Software to the trader-mood-data APIs of PsychSignal.

The APIs from all of the founding members of the API ecosystem are listed in an integrated, Xignite-powered API catalog for easy access. All APIs have been vetted, and sales-and-support teams from all Ecosystem members are knowledgeable and ready to field questions from developers.

See the full list of founding members of the #Fintech Revolution below. The names of those companies that are also Finovate and/or FinDEVr alums are in bold.

Other founding members include incubators, Draper University in Silicon Valley, Fintech Sandbox in Boston, Level39 in London, and ValueStream in New York City.

Speaking of the initiative and its importance to startups and enterprises alike, ValueStream founding partner Greg Neufeld says, “We wouldn’t be investing our time, relationships and capital if we didn’t believe that the transformative changes happening today are merely the tip of the iceberg.” Neufeld is calling for innovators in fintech to work together to “build a better and stronger moat for the future.”

Neufeld says the entire industry of financial services is being “reinvented from the ground up,” and added: “We’re excited to be a part of this movement.”


FinDEVr2015LogoV2DateIf you are a developer, software architect, engineer, or CTO looking to hear from and network with some of the biggest builders in financial technology, then join us 6/7 October for FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco. Save your spot and we’ll see you in the city by the bay!

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Commentary: “”Prosper Signals Move into PFM with $30 Million Acquisition of BillGuard
  • Thanks to Xignite, the #FintechRevolution Will Be API’d”

Around the web

  • Lending Club adds Indiana, Kansas, and Nebraska, expanding its services to 36 states.
  • Premier Bank in Bangladesh extends payments agreement with TSYS, upgrading to PRIME4.
  • iSignthis to provide KYC services to Danish payment processor and card acquirer, Clearhaus, beginning in early 2016.
  • LeasePlan Bank implements Matrix digital banking platform from Five Degrees.
  • Peoples Bank & Trust hires Insuritas to launch turnkey insurance agency.
  • Kaspersky’s blog mentions Twilio’s Authy as a way to protect your ID on a smartphone.
  • Avalara announces the availability of a benefits program exclusively for U.S. QuickBooks ProAdvisors® and their clients.
  • Celent advises banks to be more like Fidor Bank in order to remain relevant.
  • The Neutral Internet Exchange NL-ix will use Interxion Cloud Connect to connect to Microsoft Azure as a part of its new cloud connectivity services.
  • TABB Research features Heckyl Technologies, Market Prophit, PsychSignal, and TickerTags in its new report on “social alpha 2.0.”
  • Nexmo teams up with mobile operator, H3G, to bring its SMS-based user-authentication technology to Sweden and Denmark. See Nexmo at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco next month.

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.

From API to UX/UI: A Preview of FinDEVr 2015

From API to UX/UI: A Preview of FinDEVr 2015

FinDEVr2015_ThemesCloud_FINAL

FinDEVr 2015 kicks off two weeks from today. Save your spot and join us in San Francisco, 6/7 October, for the premier event for fintech developers, engineers, and CTOs.

FinDEVr returns to the Mission Bay Conference Center at the University of California San Francisco for two days of fast-paced, TED-style presentations. Leading technology companies will showcase their latest tools, APIs, and case studies to help fintech developers optimize their innovations.

FinDEVr is a great way to stay on top of the latest trends in financial technology. For example, compare this year’s theme cloud above to the one below from our inaugural FinDEVr last year.

FinDEVr2014_ThemesCloud

Many themes remain front and center, even after a year. Seeing Payments, Big Data and Mobile as major themes reminds us what matters most to those building tomorrow’s fintech today.

At the same time, the biggest and most interesting difference between this year and last is the rise of bitcoin and the blockchain. If we are in a golden era of financial technology, then the emergence of technologies like the blockchain is as good as evidence as any.

And from our point of view, the best part is the growing population of builders from around the world who are developing tools to enable faster, more secure, and less costly interactive experiences online for businesses and consumers, wherever they are. We believe if you’re a part of this community—or want to meet those who are—you’ll want to be with us on 6/7 October for FinDEVr.

Trading Ticket Picks Up $4 Million in Seed Funding from Citi, Valar Ventures

Trading Ticket Picks Up $4 Million in Seed Funding from Citi, Valar Ventures

TradingTicket_homepage_Sep2015

So how did you spend the days leading up to FinovateFall 2015?

Finovate newcomer and mobile trading platform developer, Trading Ticket, celebrated its first appearance at Finovate with a $4 million seed investment from Citi Ventures and Valar Ventures.

Ramneek Gupta, managing director and co-head of investing at Citi Ventures, praised Trading Ticket’s ability to “integrate mobile trading seamlessly into online publishing platforms.” Trading Ticket’s TradeIt platform makes trading easier and more secure, enabling traders and investors to trade from partner websites and apps with whatever broker they choose. The technology is expected to go live soon on mobile apps including Stock Trader, Rubicoin, and Investr. Major financial websites like Benzinga, MarketWatch, and The Street.com will also soon feature TradeIt.

As part of the investment, Andrew McCormack (Valar founding partner) and Blake Darcy (DLJdirect founding CEO) will join the Trading Ticket board. Gupta will serve as a board observer.

Trading Ticket distinguishes itself from other mobile trading solutions in three ways, according to company co-founder and CEO Nathan Richardson. “Speed to trade for users, order volume for brokers, and a direct monetization opportunity for publishers who don’t want the conflict of becoming a broker-dealer.” Publishers and web-app developers can integrate TradeIt into their own solutions through the TradeIt API, widgets, a short URL for use with social media like Twitter, as well as an iOS SDK, and ad units. Exchange-traded fund (ETF) providers say the platform helps them “close the sales cycle” with retail investors in particular by making it easier for visitors to buy highlighted fund offerings.

The technology won Trading Ticket “Most Innovative Trading Solution” at Citibank’s Global Mobile Challenge this spring.

Founded in September 2014 and headquartered in New York, Trading Ticket made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2015. Video of the company’s live demonstration will be available later this week.