Author: David Penn

FinDEVr Alums Featured Among Top Hackathon Payment APIs

FinDEVr Alums Featured Among Top Hackathon Payment APIs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Blockchain, Braintree, FinDEVr 2015, PayPal, Venmo

DevPost_homepage

Devpost, the self-described “home for hackers” formerly known as ChallengePost has released data from nearly 10,000 student programming projects that finally answers the question: When the going gets tough and the competitive coders get coding, which language do they choose?

You can find the answer to that question here—hint: rhymes with HTML/CSS—along with the full report from Devpost. JavaScript came in second, and Python in third, but what caught our eye were the top payments APIs. After more than 150 hackathons involving more than 13,000 hackers, which payment APIs were most in demand?

  1. Venmo
  2. PayPal
  3. Stripe
  4. Braintree
  5. Blockchain

It was no surprise to see Finovate and FinDEVr alums among the pack. Venmo is a Finovate alum, having demonstrated its Venmo Touch technology with Braintree at FinovateSpring 2013. And PayPal, Blockchain and Braintree all presented at the inaugural FinDEVr 2014 conference for developers in San Francisco last fall. Braintree will be back again this year for FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco.

WebDevpost’s survey of student hackers is based on the 2014-2015 academic year. The data set included 13,281 student hackers from 160 student hackathons featuring 9,898 individual projects.

In a note about the report, the authors emphasized that sponsorship matters when it comes to being “the one that gets used” by builders. “If you show up and participate,” the authors wrote, “hackers will use your technology.”

paypal_logo_new“We looked at the 20 companies that sponsored two or more student hackathons in 2014 and had 50 or more overall projects tagged with their technologies,” the authors wrote. “Nineteen of those companies had a higher prevalence of tags when they sponsored, including 11 tagged more than twice as often when they sponsored.”

As ChallengePost, the platform served as a place for online competitions in general. But as the number of software and technology competitions began to grow, the company shifted direction to focus on “software-developer hackers.”

braintree_logo_new“Hackers make stuff and exhibit imagination, ingenuity, self-confidence, and a collaborative spirit,” wrote Brandon Kessler, company founder and CEO. “That’s who we are too, and we wanted to support the community around it.”

BlockChain_logoDevPost has powered more than 700 in-person hackathons, and partnered with companies like Uber, AT&T and IBM to help build developer communities. The company was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in New York City. The student report was DevPost’s first, but the company plans to publish rankings periodically, and encourages hackers to tag the technologies they use.

*Post updated to add FinDEVr 2014 alum, Blockchain.

If you’re interested in learning more about the technologies engineers and developers are using to build the fintech innovations of tomorrow, join us in San Francisco, October 6-7, for FinDEVr 2015: the premier event for fintech developers.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Backbase, Dealstruck, INETCO Systems, LendingTree, Zopa

On Finovate.com

  • “FinDEVr Alums Featured Among Top Hackathon APIs”

Around the web

  • New partnership gives Lending Tree customers access to financing solutions, line-of-credit products from Dealstruck.
  • Backbase named “most visionary” in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Mobile Application Development Platforms.
  • Chris Skinner interviews Giles Andrews, Zopa CEO and co-founder.
  • INETCO Insight and Analytics help BECU win finalist spot in BAI-Infosys Finacle Global Banking Innovation Awards.

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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The Next FinTech Unicorn? Rumored $150 Million Heading to Kabbage

The Next FinTech Unicorn? Rumored $150 Million Heading to Kabbage
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Kabbage

Kabbbage_homepage_July2015

The Atlanta Business Journal blog is reporting that Kabbage is making its way through a $150 million Series E round. The report adds that $120 million of the round has already been raised. Once completed, the company will have total capital of more than $585 million and a valuation of more than $875 million.

Participating in the round were BlueRun Ventures, Santander UK, Thomvest Ventures, and UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund. The round is expected to close within weeks.

The new capital will help Kabbage grow its staff—adding as many as 100 new workers—as well as “double” its office footprint. The fundraising had been more than hinted at by Kabbage CEO Rob Frohwein last month, who said that a raise was “likely.”

Kabbage_stage_FS2015

Jason Dell, Kabbage’s head of product, demonstrated the Kabbage Card at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

A small business lending innovator, Kabbage uses data generated by business activity—rather than relying exclusively on credit scores—to provide small businesses with a range of financing options. Kabbage has provided more than $550 million in funding, and says that its loan-application volume is up more than 200% year over year. Approximately 70% of Kabbage borrowers are brick-and-mortar merchants, according to the company.

Earlier this month, Kabbage announced a partnership with Experian that would bring its lending platform to Experian’s institutional clients that had small business and consumer customers. In May, following the company’s demo of its Kabbage Card at FinovateSpring, it teamed up with Sage Payment Solutions to launch a small business loan product.

Kabbage was founded in 2009, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The company will be presenting at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco, 6/7 October. To save your spot at our upcoming event for fintech developers, register here.

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Reparo Loves Mambu: Partnership Brings New Loan Options to UK SMEs

Reparo Loves Mambu: Partnership Brings New Loan Options to UK SMEs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Mambu

Mambu_homepage_July2015

Cloud banking innovator Mambu has been selected by Reparo Finance, an SME business-financing company, to provide a new line of business loans for small to medium companies in the United Kingdom.

Andrew Ward, managing director of Reparo Finance, pointed to the ability to provide financing to “neglected yet viable U.K.-based businesses.” Ward said that “partnering with Mambu has allowed our company to quickly bring more sophisticated loan offerings to market, while offering the necessary expertise and scalability to meet growing customer demand.”

Eugene Danilkis, Mambu CEO, added that his company’s technology would help make it easier for Reparo to develop “new and more accessible loan offerings” to market to the historically underserved small businesses.

Mambu_stage_FA2013

From left: Mambu founder and CEO Eugene Danilkis, and David Hamilton, advisory board member, presented at FinovateAsia 2013 in Singapore.

Mambu has had a busy 2015. The company announced earlier this month that Ferratum Group selected its technology to power SME lending, and in June added a variety of new features such as multi-account credit arrangements, balloon payments for real estate and auto lending, asset-backed lending, and more. Mambu began the year being named to FinTechCity’s FinTech 50.

Reparo Finance provides SME financing options such as asset-secured loans, that range from 50,000 pounds to 1 million. Terms range from one to 24 months and a lending decision takes only two business days. The company plans to use Mambu to provide greater flexibility when it comes to payment schedules. Reparo was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Manchester, United Kingdom.

Founded in December 2011 and headquartered in Berlin, Germany, Mambu made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia 2013 in Singapore.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Betterment, Coinbase, FIS, Fiserv, Intelligent Environments, itBit, Kabbage, Kony Solutions, Loop, Mambu, Realty Mogul, Zopa

On Finovate.com

  • “The Next FinTech Unicorn? Rumored $150 Million Heading to Kabbage“
  • “Reparo Loves Mambu: Partnership Brings New Loan Options to UK SMEs”

Around the web

  • Datamonitor looks at how “wealth giants” are responding to the challenge of robo-advisors like Betterment.
  • Atom Bank chooses front-office technology from Intelligent Enviornments and back-office technology from FIS.
  • Fujitsu’s PalmSecure biometric technology comes to Fiserv’s DNA account-processing platform.
  • e27 reviews technologies like LoopPay and the prospects for digital wallet use in Asia.
  • Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO, says bitcoin will be the world’s reserve currency within 15 years.
  • The Telegraph highlights Zopa in its look at the safety of peer-to-peer lending.
  • Kony launches the latest version of its mobile backend-as-a-service (MBaaS) solution, Kony MobileFabric 6.5.
  • Fox Business News interviews Realty Mogul founder and CEO Jilliene Helman.
  • itBit hosts Bankchain Discover Summit for financial industry professionals.

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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Hypori Introduces Seamless App Mode in Latest ACE Product Suite Release

Hypori Introduces Seamless App Mode in Latest ACE Product Suite Release
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Hypori

Hypori_homepage_July2015

With version 3.1 announced this week, virtual mobile infrastructure innovator Hypori is unveiling the new “Seamless app” mode of its Android Cloud Environment (ACE). The technology gives users secure, on-demand access to hosted Android apps, while allowing icon shortcuts to be presented as they ordinarily would be. This ensures that users of other platforms and operating systems remain in a familiar environment.

“Users enjoy the same look and feel they are accustomed to and see only the hosted apps, regardless of the OS they have chosen,” says Brian Vetter, Hypori CTO. He called the technology “another example of our dedication to user experience.”

“We want to make it easy for any IT admin to dynamically provision seamless apps to users,” added company CEO Justin Marston.

See Hypori’s ACE Product Suite 3.1 interface in the video below.

https://vimeo.com/134088893

Seamless apps have the same security reliabilities as a full virtual device, including two-factor authentication, FIPS compliant TLS 1.2 encryption, and no data-at-rest on the end point. The platform also keeps the apps and its back-end services protected by keeping everything behind the enterprise network’s firewall.

Developed in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense, Hypori’s Virtual Mobile Infrastructure helps enterprises accommodate mobile devices and BYOD policies by separating physical devices from potentially sensitive apps and data. The platform gives users access from their iPhone, iPad, or Android mobile device to a secure, virtual mobile device in the cloud.

Hypori raised more than $7 million early this year, and more than $6 million in March, for a total capital of more than $14 million. In April 2015, Hypori announced that its ACE Client had been approved for use with classified data by the National Security Agency (NSA). In May, Hypori earned the 2015 Mobility Tech Zone Product of the Year Award from TMC, and in June, the company announced that its VMI supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The Austin, Texas-based company formerly known as DroidCloud was founded in 2012. Hypori will demo its technology live in New York at FinovateFall 2015. Early-bird savings are still available, so visit our registration section today.

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New Investment for Dealstruck Boosts Lending Capital to More than $100 Million

New Investment for Dealstruck Boosts Lending Capital to More than $100 Million
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Dealstruck, Funding

Dealstruck_homepage_July2015

Dealstruck has raised $10 million in new capital from Community Investment Management (CIM). The online business lender now retains total capital of $70 million and says the investment will enable it to lend more than $100 million to small businesses.

Managing partner for CIM, Jacob Haar, praised Dealstruck’s transparency and “compelling financing options” in explaining his firm’s investment in the company. In his statement, Dealstruck CEO Ethan Senturia emphasized the way lenders like Dealstruck have helped small businesses overcome traditional funding challenges, improving overall the “financial landscape for small businesses.”

“The growth in alternative lending has breathed new life into so many small businesses,” Senturia said. “And growing the capital pool means more access and more opportunity.”

Dealstruck_stage_FS2015

Dealstruck CEO and co-founder Ethan Senturia presented Dealstruck’s Line of Credit Borrower Portal at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

The company also announced that Robert Riedl, former COO of Consumer Portfolio Services, would be joining Dealstruck as head of capital markets. Reidl has more than 25 years’ experience in specialty lending, and began his career as an investment banker at ContiFinancial Services, Jefferies & Company, and PaineWebber.

Dealstruck provides small businesses with up to $500,000 in funding. Funding solutions include traditional business loans; asset- and inventory-backed lines of credit; as well as revenue-based options. The company uses the applying business’s past two years of tax returns, current bank account information, and the FICO scores of the business’s owners in order to make a customized, funding determination in minutes.

Dealstruck’s Series B round comes just a few months after the company’s $8.3 million Series A round in April. Also this spring, Dealstruck was named to AlwaysOn’s first OnFinance Top 100. Founded in June 2012 and headquartered in San Diego, California, Dealstruck demoed its Line of Credit Borrower Portal at FinovateSpring 2015 in May.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CurrencyTransfer, Dealstruck, DoubleNet Pay, Expensify, Hypori, ThetaRay, TransferWise

On Finovate.com

  • “New Investment for Dealstruck Boosts Lending Capital to More Than $100 Million”
  • “Hypori Introduces Seamless App Mode in Latest ACE Product Suite Release”; see Hypori live in New York at FinovateFall 2015.

Around the web

  • DoubleNetPay co-founder and CEO weighs in on retirement planning in Employee Benefit News.
  • Bank Innovation: CurrencyTransfer is preparing for a “major funding round.”
  • TransferWise announces support for Apple Pay.
  • PayPal unveils six new features for its invoicing service.
  • ThetaRay opens up its first office in the U.S. See ThetaRay at FinovateFall 2015 in New York.
  • Expensify introduces new travel-and-expense platform with new integrations and partnerships.
  • TransferTo and PayPal partner to enable mobile top-up in Canada.

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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Five Alums Earn Finalist Spots in Global Banking Innovation Awards 2015

Five Alums Earn Finalist Spots in Global Banking Innovation Awards 2015
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Fidor Bank, Idea Bank, Lending Club, Moven, PayItSimple

BAI_homepage_July2015

Five Finovate alums, including three innovative bank partners, have made it to the finals of the BAI Global Banking Innovation Awards 2015.

Lending Club, Moven, and PayItSimple will compete for top honors in the “Most Innovative Non-Bank Financial Services Organization Award.”

Fidor Bank AG, headquartered in Germany, earned finalist honors in four categories. Fidor demoed its FidorPay Account at FinovateEurope 2011:

  • Product and service Innovation
  • Innovation in payments
  • Disruptive innovation in banking
  • Most innovative bank of the year

Poland’s Idea Bank made it to the finals in one category, Innovation in Payments. Idea Bank joined Efigence on the stage for FinvoateEurope 2014 and presented their transaction system for SMEs.

The winners and finalists will be recognized during the BAI Retail Delivery Conference & Expo, 13-15 October 2015 in Las Vegas.

A total of 39 finalists were selected out of more than 250 nominees. This year’s event featured three new categories: Innovation in Payments; Most Innovative Community-based Banking Organization; and Most Innovative Non-bank Organization. According to BAI president and CEO Debbie Blanucci, the goal was to recognize the full breadth of innovation in the financial services space.

“The new changes in this year’s program will enable us to further recognize innovation and originality throughout our industry,” Blanucci said, “including community financial institutions and new non-bank entrants that provide direct-to-consumer banking products and services.”

2015 marks the fifth year of the The BAI – Infosys Finacle Global Banking Innovation Awards, sponsored by Bank Administration Institute and BAI Center and Infosys.

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Capriza Chosen by Flextronics, Marvell, NTT, Symantec to Boost Workflow Efficiency

Capriza Chosen by Flextronics, Marvell, NTT, Symantec to Boost Workflow Efficiency
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Capriza, FinovateFall 2015

Capriza_homepage_Jul2015

A quartet of tech veterans have selected Capriza to help simplify essential workflows in SAP, Oracle, and Sharepoint, as well as in their custom-built systems. Semiconductor-producer Marvell and security specialist Symantec will use the Capriza platform to streamline and manage Oracle processes. Supply-chain provider Flextronics, and Japanese telecom-subsidiary NTT, will use the platform to improve SAP processes. Workflows for timesheet entries and approvals are among the main areas of focus.

Myckel Haghnazari, an IT director at Flextronics called Capriza “one of the most innovative products” he’d seen in 15 years of working in technology. Haghnazari sees the platform as critical to helping “transform some of our core front-office applications into personal, responsive mobile apps.”

As Mayank Mehta, Capriza VP for product, explained in an article earlier this month in IT Business Edge, solutions are available to help enterprises develop mobile apps from their existing application code. The problem, according to Mehta and Capriza, is that many of these solutions fail to “capture and extend” the workflow the legacy application is in. Capriza’s solution is that rather than have developers write new code or build APIs, instead use a virtual browser tool in the cloud that captures the application’s business logic and workflow automatically and that generates a smaller, micro mobile application to suit the specific need.

https://vimeo.com/110044914

Capriza calls its approach “zero coding, zero APIs, zero upgrades.”

One of Gartner’s Cool Vendors for 2014, Capriza was named one of 1o mobile startups to watch at the beginning of the year by Network World. Its technology has been deployed by T-Mobile, Brocade, VMWare, TiVo and more.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Capriza will make its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2015 in New York in September. The company has raised more than $50 million in funding, and includes among its investors Andreessen Horowitz, Harmony Ventures, and Tenaya Capital. Yuval Scarlet is CEO.

To see Capriza live at our upcoming fall event, click here to register today. Early bird savings are still available.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Avalara, Blockstack, Capriza, Fastacash, Fenergo, Misys, Taulia, Tradeshift

On Finovate.com

  • “Five Alums Earn Finalist Spots in Global Banking Innovation Awards 2015″
  • “Capriza Chosen by Flextronics, Marvell, NTT, Symantec to Boost Workflow Efficiency”

Around the web

  • FusionInvest from Misys wins “Best buy-side pricing and market display” at Systems in the City Awards.
  • Avalara and ePages partner to provide cross-border transaction tax-compliance solution. See Avalara at FinDEVr 2015 in October.
  • Der Finanzprodukt Blog profiles social payments innovator, Fastacash.
  • Dublin Globe asks if Fenergo is the “best kept secret in Irish tech.”
  • Bitcoin Magazine takes a look at how Blockstack uses the blockchain to provide clearing and settlement services for banks. Join Blockstack at FinovateFall 2015 in New York City in September.
  • Taulia and Tradeshift earn spots on CIO Review’s 20 Most Promising Procurement Solution Providers for 2015.

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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Santander UK Launches Cash Kitty PFM App Developed with Kalixa, Monitise

Santander UK Launches Cash Kitty PFM App Developed with Kalixa, Monitise
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Kalixa, Monitise

Kalixa_logo

Move over millennials: Santander UK has unveiled a new money management app called KiTTi, designed to bring twenty-somethings into the world of social savings.

monitise-logoDesigned in partnership with Finovate alums, Kalixa Payments (FinovateEurope 2013) and Monitise (FinovateFall 2007), KiTTi lets up to 100 friends create collective “pots of money.” The “Cash Kitty” can be funded via a KiTTi prepaid contactless MasterCard up to £4,000, and the account can be monitored with a downloadable app available on both iOS and Android.

See Santander UK’s video introduction to Kitti below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqs9fLxUHFw

The service is available to any U.K. bank customer over the age of 18. Friends can be invited to join from within the app or by text message. More than one KiTTi account can be managed by a single KiTTi card, and KiTTi can be used for payments in both the UK and overseas. A fee of 35p is applied to each KiTTi transaction.

Sam Nixon, head of KiTTi at Santander, called the app unique to the United Kingdom and “perfect for the WhatsApp generation.”

KiTTi was designed by Monitise Create, the company’s “design and innovation” studio. Alistair Crane, chief sales officer at Monitise, called it a “major step forward in social banking and payments.” Crane says the relationship between Monitise and Santander will offer still more: “We are progressing a number of home-screen, ‘human-first’ innovations which will ultimately transform the way consumers interact with their money,” he said.

Payment functionality for KiTTi comes courtesy of Kalixa, which includes both the mobile wallet and the prepaid contactless card, as well as handling customer services, KYC, and AML systems. Jonathan Bennett, chief commercial officer for Kalixa, put KiTTi “at the crest of the wave” that is replacing cash with “simple, inclusive, sustainable services made possible by mobile.”

Kalixa was founded in 2007 and has offices in the United Kingdom and Austria. Edward Chandler is CEO. London-based Monitise was founded in 2003. Alastair Lukies is founder and CEO.

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