Author: David Penn

Ayasdi Raises $55 Million in Series C Funding

Ayasdi Raises $55 Million in Series C Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Ayasdi, Uncategorized

Ayasdi_homepage_full

Machine learning algorithm specialist Ayasdi has raised $55 million in a new investment that doubles the company’s total capital.

The Series C round was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), and featured participation from existing investors Citi Ventures, FLOODGATE, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), and Khosla Ventures. New investors Centerview Capital Technology and Draper Nexus were also part of the investment, which takes Ayasdi’s total funding to more than $100 million.

Ted Schlein of KPCB praised Ayasdi’s ability to make complex data analysis easier for large institutions and organizations. He cited the technology’s combination of “machine learning algorithms with topological mathematics and artificial intelligence” as a “breakthrough innovation that will drive the next information and productivity wave in the coming decade.”

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Health care systems have been among the most eager adopters of the Ayasdi’s technology. But the company is working with three of the five largest financial institutions in the world to help them make smarter lending decisions, improve risk and compliance modeling, protect against fraud, and better serve private banking clients. Deborah Hopkins, Chief Innovation Officer of Citi and CEO of Citi Ventures said the technology provided insights that “enable Citi to tailor services to specific client needs, operate more efficiently, and mitigate risk.”

Learn more about Ayasdi from our November feature. The company’s CEO Gurjeet Singh has been profiled frequently in major media from Forbes to TechCrunch, as Ayasdi has forged partnerships with companies like Teradata and Cloudera to make its technology even more valuable to enterprise-level clients. In February, the company was named one of the 10 most innovative companies in Big Data by Fast Company for a second year in a row.

Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, Ayasdi made its Finovate Debut in New York at FinovateFall 2014. See video of the company’s live demonstration of Ayasdi Finance.

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Kabbage Expands to Australia in New White-Label Collaboration with Kikka Capital

Kabbage Expands to Australia in New White-Label Collaboration with Kikka Capital
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Kabbage, Uncategorized

Kabbage_FF2014_stage_full

Above (left to right): Kabbage COO Kathryn Petralia and CEO Robert Frohwein presenting at FinovateFall 2014

Guess which small business lender will soon be launching in the Land Down Under?

Kabbage has announced plans to move into the Australian market with a white-label offering of its small business lending technology. The launch in Australia represents Kabbage’s first foray into the Asia-Pacific region, having already been in operation in both the U.K. and the U.S.

The service in Australia will be operated by Kikka Capital, which is licensing the platform and will manage marketing, funding, and loan servicing. Kabbage will handle underwriting and management of the loans.

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Kikka Capital founder and managing director David Brennan said that the collaboration with Kabbage was a unique opportunity to bring “breakthrough lending technology” to Australia. “Launching on the Kabbage platform allows us to dramatically accelerate our entry into small business lending,” Brennan said.

For Peter Steger, head of business development for Kabbage, the collaboration is a reflection of the platform’s flexibility and an opportunity for Kabbage to access new markets. Kabbage was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The company has funded more than $550 million in loans to small businesses. Kabbage Loans range from $2,000 to $100,000, terms are six months, and small businesses only need a business checking account or PayPal account to apply. Approval only takes a few minutes once all data is provided and accounts verified.

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Rather than charge interest, Kabbage assess a lending fee between 1%-13.5% of the amount borrowed for the first two months of the loan, then 1% each month for the balance of the six-month term. There are no early repayment penalties.

An eight-time Finovate alum, Kabbage was last on the Finovate stage in the fall of 2014 in New York. At the show, Kabbage launched Karrot.com, a full-automated consumer marketplace lending product. See the live demo.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Acculynk, Advanced Merchant Payments, Ayasdi, CardFlight, Google Cloud Platform, HelloWallet, Innosect, Innovation Agency, Kabbage, Malauzai Software, PayStand, Roostify, TSYS, Uncategorized, Yodlee

On Finovate.com:

  • Kabbage Expands to Australia in New, White-Label Collaboration with Kikka Capital.
  • Advanced Merchant Payments Pulls in Undisclosed Amount of Funding.
  • Ayasdi Raises $55 Million in Series C Funding.

Around the Web:

  • Yodlee joins FinTech Sandbox as data partner.
  • Acculynk unveils new mobile wallet authentication service for issuers and providers.
  • Innosect (formerly Innovation Café) acquires Clientific.
  • 5+ Community FIs to launch Apple Watch offering powered by Malauzai. Come see its live demo at FinovateSpring in San Jose May 12-13.
  • CardFlight Announces Availability of EMV-Ready Chip Card Readers for SwipeSimple Mobile Point-of-Sale Solution.
  • Rajesh Bhat, Co-founder at Roostify, shares what he learned from Yodlee Interactive Incubator Boot Camp 1.
  • Google Cloud Platform introduces Google Cloud Launcher, where you can launch open source packages configured by Bitnami or Google Click to Deploy.
  • HelloWallet launches Emergency Savings Calculator.
  • Orchard Platform and Kabbage Announce Partnership to Provide Investors’ Access to Karrot Consumer Loans.
  • PayStand mobile iOS app now available to allow credit card, check and Bitcoin payments.

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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Bank Innovation’s Coolest Brands of 2015 Features Finovate Alums

Bank Innovation’s Coolest Brands of 2015 Features Finovate Alums
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Dwolla, Fastacash, Fidor Bank, Fiserv, Lending Club, Ripple, Venmo, Xignite

BankInnovation_coolbrands2015

 

As if the challenge of developing innovative technologies were not enough, fintech companies today are also busy building brand identities that will help them stand out from the pack.

Bank Innovation took a look at brand identity in banking and banking technology. The result was a list of the 10 Coolest Brands of 2015 – half of which are Finovate alums.

The list runs the gamut from innovative startups doing interesting things with alternative currencies, to banks willing to take more and smarter risks than their rivals when it comes to leveraging financial technology to better serve their customers and clients.

Writing about the selection process, Bank Innovation’s Philip Ryan acknowledged the “ethereal” nature of the project: “like all brands, our list is based on nothing less than our ‘impressions,’ ‘feelings,’ and ‘beliefs.” At the same time, Ryan noted: “Mainly, we have relied on fact – what has been done and accomplished – for in the end the most profound determinant of a brand’s worth is what it yields.”

Here are the five Finovate alums that made Bank Innovations’ Coolest Brands of 2015. The full list is available here.

Also earning commendation were three other Finovate alums: Dwolla, Fastacash, and Fiserv.

2015 marked the fourth year in a row Bank Innovation has published its Coolest Brands in banking roundup (take a peek at their 2014 list here). Special congratulations to Venmo for making the list both this year and last.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BancVue, Betterment, Billhighway, Equifax, Financial Guard, Fiserv, FutureAdvisor, Insuritas, Intuit, Kofax, Lending Club, Lendio, Monitise, Motif Investing, On Deck Capital, PayPal, Rippleshot, ShopKeep POS, SocietyOne, TD Ameritrade, TD Bank, Zumigo

On Finovate.com:

  • Lendio Raises $20 Million in New Funding to Help Finance Small Businesses
  • Motif Investing Partners with Pacific Life to Offer Cause-Based Investing.
  • Bank Innovation’s Coolest Brands of 2015 Features Finovate Alums.
  • Printer Giant Lexmark to Acquire Kofax for $1 Billion.

Around the Web:

  • ShopKeep POS acquires payment processing startup, Payment Revolution.
  • Financial Guard and FutureAdvisor are featured as alternatives in a Bloomberg column on “breaking up with your expensive adviser.”
  • Bank Innovation column on “InsuranceTech” and Fintech 1,000 lists Insuritas.
  • Opentabs integrates with PayPal to power its mobile app order-ahead services.
  • PYMNTS: Monitise takes itself off the market. CEO steps down.
  • Billhighway awarded Silver Stevie Award for Innovation in Customer Service in the Financial Services Industry category. It is the second win for Billhighway since 2013.
  • Dexterity Ventures (Place2Give) bolsters team with new CMO, Product Manager, Developer, and Office Assistant.
  • The FinTech Blog interviews Eli Broverman, Co-Founder and COO of Betterment.
  • Fiserv, TD Bank Group, Intuit, and PayPal rank among Forbes’ list of Americas’ Best employers.
  • SocietyOne appoints former Investec Group chief lending officer, Simon Schwarz, as new COO.
  • Ad Age highlights how BancVue seeks to level the playing field for community banks.
  • Rippleshot joined fellow winners of the Chicago Innovation Awards in ringing the closing bell at the Nasdaq on Monday.
  • BankNXT looks at the rise of marketplace lending platforms including Finovate alums Lending Club and OnDeck.

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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Lendio Raises $20 Million in New Funding to Help Finance Small Businesses

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Lendio, Uncategorized

Small business lender Lendio announced today that it has raised $20.5 million in new funding. The round was led by Napier Park’s Financial Partners Group, and included participation by:

  • Blumberg Capital
  • Highway 12 Ventures
  • North Hill Ventures
  • Pivot Investment Partners
  • Runa Capital
  • Tribeca Venture Partners

The new investment takes Lendio’s total funding to more than $30 million. As part of the agreement, Dan Kittredge from Napier Park and Chris Gottschalk of Blumberg Capital will join Lendio’s board of directors. Lendio plans to use the capital to expand its partnership program, help grow its team of loan advisors, and fuel continued innovation of the platform.

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Kittredge praised Lendio’s recent growth and partnerships with companies like Staples in explaining his firm’s commitment to the company. “Lendio’s leadership team has proven its ability to drive innovation and deliver an incredible platform that helps both small business owners and small business lenders alike,” he said.

Lendio believes that a big reason why small businesses get turned down when applying for loans is a matter of proper matchmaking. Whether the small business is pursuing the wrong type of loan product, or has found the right loan but at the wrong bank or credit union, the result is the same. Lendio’s platform makes it easier for qualified borrowers to find the loan that best suits their needs from the financial institution best able (and willing) to service it. Businesses are able to make these loan inquiries without penalty to their credit rating due to Lendio’s “soft pull” of personal and business credit data.

“Our focus is to provide three essential benefits for the business owner – offer a wide variety of loan options, speed up the process, and reduce the time and effort it requires to get funded, and provide a white-glove, trusted experience, Lendio CEO Brock Blake said.

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 Above (Left to right): Trent Miskin (CTO) and Brock Blake (CEO) presenting at FinovateSpring 2011.

For banks and credit unions the reward is lower customer acquisition costs, more qualified leads, and a  significantly larger potential market for new customers.

Lendio demoed its technology at FinovateSpring 2011. The company was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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Motif Investing Partners with Pacific Life to Offer Cause-Based Investing

Motif Investing Partners with Pacific Life to Offer Cause-Based Investing
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Motif Investing

Online thematic investment brokerage Motif Investing has teamed up with Pacific Life to provide millennial investors with an opportunity to invest in the social causes they care most about.

Four new motifs will be offered, each including stocks from major U.S. companies that have made significant contributions to charities and foundations focused on issues ranging from education and human rights to fighting poverty and cancer.

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The new motifs will be offered through a new subsidiary, Swell Investing. The motifs will be managed by Pacific Life and Swell Investing, while Motif handles the technology and distribution. The company will donate 20% of its revenues to specific organizations within the four categories. Learn more about Swell Investing here.

Below is a list of the four new motifs and examples of the stocks they include:

  • Improve Education: General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Citi
  • End Poverty: Wells Fargo, Walmart, JP Morgan Chase
  • Fight Cancer: Aflac, Caterpillar, AT&T
  • Uphold Human Rights: Bank of America, Exxon-Mobil, Nike

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The new motifs are designed with millennials in mind. In addition to helping socially-conscious thirty-something investors, the motifs are also low-cost and transparent, two other issues believed to be especially important to the millennial generation.

“The new cause-driven investing motifs demonstrate that one can align good investment strategies with personal values,” Hardeep Walia, CEO and co-founder of Motif Investing said. “At the same time, Swell can use these motif portfolios to connect with millennials in a meaningful and clearly differentiated way.”

Motif Investing is a multiple Finovate alum, and earned Best of Show honors with its demonstrations at FinovateFall 2013 and FinovateSpring 2014. The company was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California. Motif has raised more than $126 million in funding, including $40 million raised in January courtesy of an investment from Renren.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Advanced Merchant Payments, Aire, Azimo, Bluefin Payment Systems, Cloud Lending, Currency Cloud, CurrencyFair, Expensify, Fastacash, FutureAdvisor, ID.me, InComm, On Deck Capital, ThreatMetrix, TransferWise, Uncategorized

On Finovate.com:

  • ID.me Raises $3 Million in New Venture Debt Funding
  • Alt-Credit Score Startup, Aire, Raises $1.1 Million.

Around the Web:

  • Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union chooses online banking platform from ACI Worldwide.
  • Finextra’s Future Money Focus interviews Thomas DeLuca, CEO of Advanced Merchant Payments.
  • BBC column on Technology of Business features Azimo, Currency Cloud, CurrencyFair, and TransferWise in a discussion on the currency transfer business.
  • Forbes.com profiles Singapore-based Fastacash.
  • PYMNTS features ThreatMetrix’s latest whitepaper.
  • Shentel integrates InComm’s CashTie API to facilitate bill pay at retail locations.
  • Financial Planning features FutureAdvisor’s freemium model.
  • Expensify launches new policy editor design.
  • Forbes features OnDeck Capital as one of three lesser-known strategies to secure business financing.
  • Bluefin Payment Systems to power payment processing for Clubworx software platform.
  • Cloud Lending Solutions announces agreement with BDO Solutions to bring its non-bank online lending platform to East Africa.

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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ID.me Raises $3 Million in New Venture Debt Funding

ID.me Raises $3 Million in New Venture Debt Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ID.me, Uncategorized

Authentication specialist ID.me has raised $3 million in venture debt funding and expects to raise an additional $4.5 million before its Series B “bridge” round is done. (Bizjournal provides a helpful primer on convertible debt here.)

ID.me CEO Blake Hall confirmed the news with DC Inno, adding that the company is nearing announcement of “numerous major, nationwide partnership deals.” DC Inno noted that ID.me has announced partnerships with Coca-Cola and Hershey’s in recent months. In December, we reported that ID.me had announced that it would be providing ID verification for Connect.gov.

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The funding comes a year after ID.me’s last major fundraising $10 million raised in March 2014. The company’s total funding is more than $19 million.

Through its digital identity network, ID.me provides ID verification services that enable consumers to take advantage of group-affiliated benefits and discounts (as well as platform-based rewards). Beginning as a resource for military veterans to prove their status to secure online rewards from merchants, the platform now facilitates offers and rewards to group and non-group affiliated users. Users control what information they allow ID.me’s more than 800 partners to access; ID.me uses “bank grade security” in order to keep user’s information safe.

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Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, ID.me made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2014 in San Jose. Check out our introduction to ID.me here, and watch their live demonstration from the conference here.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Arxan Technologies, Betterment, FutureAdvisor, Kalixa, LearnVest, Motif Investing, Nomis Solutions, onlinepay.com, Personal Capital, Realty Mogul, SecureSafe, Top Image Systems, TransferWise, Uncategorized, Wealthfront, wipro, Xignite, Zooz

On Finovate.com

  • Finovate Debuts: OnlinePay.com’s Mobile Wallet Review.

Around the Web:

  • Estonian Inventor profiles TransferWise.
  • Wipro names Rajan Kohli to head the company’s year-old digital business unit.
  • Nomis Solutions partners with Tangerine to develop new customer engagement models.
  • Arxan Technologies wins finalist spot in SC Awards 2015 Europe for Best Mobile Security Solution.
  • Malay Mail Online feature on rob-advisors looks at Betterment, FutureAdvisor, LearnVest, Motif Investing, Personal Capital, and Wealthfront.
  • Milano Finanza reviews SecureSafe.
  • Kalixa leveraging recent acquisition of PXP to transition from DTC to B2B offering.
  • Zooz opens new office in London.
  • Globe Street interviews Realty Mogul’s SVP of residential lending, Shea Palette.
  • Xignite customers gain access to OTC Market Group’s 15-Minute Delayed Level 1 data courtesy of new agreement.
  • Business Insider UK lists Blockchain as one of the 25 most exciting Bitcoin startups.
  • American Banker: BBVA Compass chooses Kony for Mobile App Development.
  • Top Image Systems to provide processing solutions and account automation technology to German utility.

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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Finovate Alums Take Gold, Silver and Bronze at PYMNTS Innovation Awards 2015

Finovate Alums Take Gold, Silver and Bronze at PYMNTS Innovation Awards 2015
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Bill.com, Bluefin, CashStar, Clover Network, Klarna, Loop, MasterCard, Mint Bills, Moven, On Deck Capital, PayItSimple, Payoneer, PaySimple, Ripple, TSYS, Uncategorized, Venmo, VISA

Sixteen Finovate and FinDEVr alums have been recognized by the PYMNTS Innovation Awards 2015. Three alums, MasterCard , Clover Network and OnDeck took home top honors in their categories, winning gold in “Best New Technology,” “Best POS Innovation,” and “Best Small Business Innovation,” respectively. The rest of the alum field earned silver and bronze in 13 additional categories, including LoopPay, which earned Silver for Best New Technology and a Bronze for “Most Innovative.”

InnovationProject2015_homepage

More than 600 companies competed for the awards, with more than 10,000 votes tallied. Finalists were selected by an expert panel, and the top five companies in each category were submitted to the “PYMNTS community” for voting. In addition to the Innovation Awards, the event recognized Phil Tomlinson of TSYS (also a Finovate alum) and Michael Joseph of Safaricom, inducting both into the PYMNTS Hall of Fame. Two women, Carey Kolaja, VP of Global Consumer Products for PayPal and Perse Faily, CEO of Tillster, were also recognized at the event. Apple took home the Innovation Award’s Catalyst Award for what MPD CEO Karen Webster called during the award ceremony, “creating a roadmap for the industry” with its ApplePay innovation.

The full list of winning alums is below. For more information about the Innovation Awards 2015, including the full list of all finalists, visit their page here.

Gold

Silver

Bronze

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Finovate Alums Win Honors at Fintech Innovation Awards

Finovate Alums Win Honors at Fintech Innovation Awards
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alpha Payment Cloud, Azimo, Dwolla, INETCO Systems, Jumio, Loop, Misys, Monitise, Nutmeg, Top Image Systems, TransferWise, Uncategorized, Xignite, Yoyo, Zopa

Congratulations to the fourteen now and soon-to-be Finovate alums recognized by the Fintech Innovation Awards 2015. Four alums took home top honors in their categories.

FIA2015_homepage

Nutmeg won two categories: “Fintech Marketing Campaign of the Year” and “Fintech Startup or Early Stage of the Year”. Nutmeg CEO Nick Hungerford was also a finalist in the “Fintech Leader of the Year” category.

Jumio won the “Anti-Fraud/Security Initiative” category. Making its Finovate debut last month at FinovateEurope 2015, Yoyo won in the “Mobile Commerce and Banking” category. And INETCO,  which will make its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2015 this May in San Jose, won the “Data Solutions” category.

Other Finovate alum finalists were:

Held at The Brewery in London, the FinTech Innovation Awards recognize accomplishments in global finance and payments technology. In addition to recognizing achievements by individual companies and CEOs, the event also honors collaboration via its “Project Implementation Team” and “FinTech Deal of the Year” awards (Finovate alum Dwolla was a finalist in the latter for its partnership with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange).

The Fintech Innovation Awards 2015 were held in association with bobs guide and paymenteye. Read more about the event.

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