Kensho Announces Strategic Partnership with NBCUniversal

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Global analytics and intelligence systems specialist Kensho has entered into a strategic partnership with NBCUniversal News Group. As part of the arrangement, Kensho has formed a “multi-faceted content and product agreement” with financial news network, CNBC.

Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.

Touting the agreement as a first-ever in the business, NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Pat Fili-Krushel suggested that while the company was committed to “innovation from within”, the opportunity to work with Kensho would provide “unique analysis” to its viewers. SVP and General Manager for CBNC Digital, Kevin Krim, added “our transformative collaboration with Kensho enables us to empower our audience to make sense and money from any event, whether expected or unexpected.”

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Talking about the partnership, Kensho CEO Daniel Nadler put his company’s technology in the broader historical context of efforts to provide financial information to investors. Citing CNBC’s role in helping bring televised stock tickers to investors back in the 1990s, Nadler credited the company for “advancing the movement toward more transparent markets.” What Kensho will add, he explained, was “the power of statistics to gain context and make better, faster, more-informed decisions.” 
The specific components of the partnership include the debut of Kensho Stats Box, a technology that will be made available to CNBC’s journalists and anchors. The Stats Box, launching November 20, will provide research and analytics insights geared toward actionable, market-moving events. In return, CNBC will give Kensho access to its breaking news and financial market coverage, which will be integrated into the Kensho Professional Platform for FIs.
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Kensho combines “massively-parallel” statistical computing with innovations in unstructured data engineering to provide financial professionals with a unique analytics platform for guiding investments. By providing real-time solutions to complex, natural language, financial questions posed to it, Kensho aims to bring both greater transparency and deeper insight to the relationships between geopolitics, the natural and business worlds, and the markets.
Founded in 2013 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Kensho demoed an implementation of the technology called Warren at FinovateEurope 2014 in London. In January, Kensho raised $10 million in seed funding.

Alumni News– November 20, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgPrivatbank customers can now use MoneyGram to send and receive funds courtesy of new partnership.
  • Financial Times Technology section looks at UK fintech startups TransferWise and Azimo.
  • CurrencyTransfer recognized by Secret Tel Aviv as Olim Business of the Week.
  • USA Today column on millennials and saving featured Tom White, CEO of iQuantifi.
  • TransferWise helps lead fight for foreign exchange fee transparency.
  • iBillionaire’s Index has increased 16.5% since launching in November of last year
  • Swipely now managing $4+ billion in annual sales, doubles sales under management in 6 months,  and provides businesses with insights on 20+ million customers.
  • Numerous Finovate and FinDEVr alums make AWI’s list of top 50 fintech innovators.
  • Advanced Merchant Payments brings in $5 Million in First Funding Round.
  • Kony helps Farmatodo increase customer loyalty and deliver new services via mobile apps.
  • Coinbase teams with Rewardspay to create workaround to make purchases on Facebook and iTunes with Bitcoin.
  • TSYS offers merchants and partners an omni payments solution with more ways to accept payments.
  • $493 million in P2P loans originated on Prosper in Q3 2014.
  • Credit Sesame wins 2014 U.S. Mobile and App Design Awards in Financial and Information Tools category.
  • BancVue wins four MarCom Gold awards.
  • Kensho launches strategic partnership with NBCUniversal.
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.

Jemstep Launches Advisor Pro, Announces Integration with TD Ameritrade’s Veo Platform

Thumbnail image for JemstepLogo2.jpgWhen the going gets good for online investment advisory innovators, the good online investment advisory innovators go pro.

Jemstep announced the launch of Jemstep Advisor Pro this week at the T3 Enterprise Conference. The technology is a plug-and-play platform that helps financial advisors better onboard, engage, and serve their clients.
Kevin Cimring, Jemstep CEO, cited his company’s relationships with financial advisors as playing a key role in the development of Advisor Pro. “As a result of that process,” he said, “I am excited to announce that our advisor platform has evolved into a comprehensive solution for advisors looking to efficiently scale their businesses.”
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The platform lets advisors offer prospective clients free analysis of their current investment portfolio and see how that portfolio compares to those recommended by Jemstep’s algorithms. Again, the goal is to give advisors the tools for growth. “These features are designed to increase conversion of prospects into long-term clients,” Cimring explained.
Jemstep also announced that the company had been approved as a partner on TD Ameritrade’s account management and trading platform, Veo.
According to Jemstep vice president of product, Mark Richards, more than 10,000 investors have linked accounts on Jemstep, representing $3 billion in assets. “People will do this,” he said.
Founded in 2008, Jemstep is headquartered in Los Altos, California. The company has raised $15 million in funding, with the most recent round in October 2013 bringing in $4.5 million. At the company’s last Finovate appearance in the Spring of 2013, Jemstep demoed its Portfolio Manager solution. See video of the presentation here.

Alumni News– November 19, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgeFLOW Crowdbridge from Top Image Systems voted one of the three best ECM Solutions for 2014.
  • Technocular interviews WePay founder and CEO, Bill Clerico.
  • Allied Payment Network launches its new small business payments solution, BizPay.
  • Kapitall and Motif Investing both referenced in Investment News column on data visualization.
  • Kahuna Payment Solutions chooses e-SignLive by Silanis, bringing e-signatures into its lending platform for retailers.
  • Syd Youth partners with CSI globalVcard to promote Spend Secure.
  • Banking 20/20 interviews EyeVerify EVP of Global Sales & Marketing, Chris Barnett.
  • Silicon Republic features Fenergo software developer, Marcio Duarte.
  • Business Insider reviews FutureAdvisor.
  • Credit Sesame wins IMA Outstanding Achievement Award in Financial Services.
  • FinovateEurope 2015 Presenting Companies Revealed. Get Your Ticket this Week for Very Early Bird Pricing!.
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 Debuts: WorkFusion

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The Finovate Debuts series introduces new Finovate alums. At FinovateFall 2014, WorkFusion launched its active learning automation solution.

WorkFusion

WorkFusion combines machine learning with crowdsourcing to automate data handling. The company’s technology is used by leading financial data vendors and financial services firms for a wide variety of applications including compliance, corporate actions, customer onboarding, loans, and private equity. WorkFusion is a product of CrowdComputing Systems.
The Stats
    • Founded in June 2010
    • Headquartered in New York, NY
    • Raised $23 million in total funding
    • Builds and refreshes data products for seven out of the top 10 financial data providers
    • Has 68 employees
    • Max Yankelevich is CEO and Co-Founder
    • Launched WorkFusion’s Active-Learning Automation in September 2014
The Story
WorkFusion began as part of a research project at MIT. The original goal was to combine crowdsourcing and machine learning to detect fraud in online transactions. But as the research progressed, they realized that there was a much bigger opportunity in applying the same combination of automation, crowdsourcing, and “employee experts” to meet broader challenges of enterprise data work.
“We solve a problem around massive data collection and maintenance for financial institutions,” explained WorkFusion CEO Max Yankelevich from the Finovate stage in September. “And we do it for 50% less cost and on a much larger scale.”
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The initial edition of WorkFusion launched in 2012 and put the company’s thesis to work automating the process of procuring, training and quality-controlling online workers handling “core enterprise knowledge processes” such as reporting corporate actions and tax accounting information. The solution worked, being both more accurate and less costly compared to a traditional, in-house workforce.
“Giddy disbelief” is how WorkFusion characterized the initial response to their proof of concept, a reaction that encouraged them to scale the project.
The second stage in development was to build algorithms to replicate patterns that were identified as workers completed tasks. One example is pulling stock dividend payout information from a variety of data sources. The first iteration of the platform helped a company marshal human resources from Elance, Amazon Mechanical Turk, and oDesk. The second version uses an algorithm watching for patterns in a given data extraction task, learning which patterns could be automated, and then automating those patterns in the algorithm.
“Each worker is not just getting work done,” Adam Devine, VP Product Marketing said in a Finovate briefing. “They are training our software on how to automate that work.”
WorkFusion refers to this as the “virtual loop.” Human workers perform data-intensive tasks. Algorithms learn how to do the tasks. Human workers are then are available to retrain the algorithms when there are significant changes to the data. This “loop” helps overcome one of the major challenges of automation: adapting to changes in data sets, formats, or flow. 
In another example shared with attendees at FinovateFall last September, a WorkForce customer was able to automate the work that had burdened six FTEs. The cost?  Just $54. More importantly, the automation reduced the turnaround time involved from 5 minutes per task to less than 5 seconds.
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The technology is workforce-agnostic. That means that the human data analysts involved can be traditional, in-house employees, an outsourced workforce or a crowdsourced one. And the company’s technology makes it the only platform that provides “learning automation” as a service (LAaaS anyone?). There are a platforms that help companies source and/or manage  “distributed workforces”, but WorkFusion’s “virtuous loop” keeps human intelligence as a key part of the process, helping set it apart. 
The Future
WorkFusion is robust enough to require IT teams to deploy and configure. But the technology is designed to be used by business people rather than technical staff. Typically, clients tend to be larger enterprises. But the solution is “totally scalable”, they say. In one case, a customer is using the technology to start a data science group by himself.
The company’s work has traction: seven out of the top 10 financial information providers currently use it. This spring, WorkFusion announced both a partnership with uSamp integrating 12 million mobile workers, and a successful, $15 million Series B round led by Mohr Davidow Ventures. 
And the company’s work is being noticed. American Banker listed CrowdComputing Systems, provider of WorkFusion, among its top 10 fintech companies to watch. Barclays ranked WorkFusion in the top 5 of the 36 seven companies invited to participate in its Open Innovation Challenge, and in October, WorkFusion was featured in an article at Inside Market Data touting the platform’s automation recommendation feature
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Discussing his participation in the spring investment in WorkFusion, former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer said earlier this year that the company “very well could be a billion-dollar plus IPO company.” Rather than just being the kind of company that develops a technology and then sells it only to become “a small cog” in some other company’s engine, WorkFusion in Glocer’s opinion is a peek into the future of work: “Ultimately, it will optimize the tasks being done by human beings all around the world,” Glocer said.
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n concurs. Going forward, the company plans to expand the size of its business process template library to make it even easier for businesses to find the processes they need without having to create them. The goal is to allow large businesses to elevate the application of human intelligence to higher order work, and automate the work that human’s shouldn’t be doing. And to deliver all this via one-click custom automation.
WorkFusion is the kind of technology that does a great job of showing us what lies right at the edge of the horizon, an example of just how symbiotic the nexus of human intelligence and machine learning can be. And for all the fears of “robot overlords” and AIs run amok, building on that symbiosis seems like the better bet compared to betting against.

Alumni News– November 18, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgCoinbase to introduce bitcoin tip button to enable micropayment acceptance online.
  • Venmo users can now log in using both bank ID and Touch ID.
  • TechWeek Europe takes a look at Arxan Technologies’ State of Mobile App Security report.
  • Malaysian Digest features Azimo in a discussion on the revolution in the money transfer industry.
  • Dough Roller interviews iQuantifi CEO and Co-Founder, Tom White.
  • Business News Daily quotes Igor Gonta, CEO of Market Prophit on the importance of having a social media strategy.
  • PostFinance AG’s Monexio selects Mobino platform to help develop its own digital payment solutions.
  • SK Planet wins first prize at KPRA Awards 2014 for its filter program, Flitter.
  • Hiscox launches new digital insurance platform powered by Backbase CXP.
  • PayPal challenges Apple Pay with an app for the Pebble smartwatch.
  • The European Commission approves Tradeshift data format for government purchasing.
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.

OnDeck Seeks to Raise $150 Million in Initial Public Offering

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Alternative small business lender OnDeck has announced plans to raise $150 million in an initial public offering.

According to analysis from The Wall Street Journal, the IPO could value OnDeck at $1.5 billion. The Journal also suggested that the $150 million number for the IPO was likely a “placeholder amount” that will probably change. 

While the company understandably has few words to share about its impending IPO, OnDeck CEO Noah Breslow has said a number of interesting things about the future of his company and the small business community it serves. Asked about the future of the alternative lending industry over the next 10-20 years in an interview with NPR this summer, Breslow replied: “I think it loses the designation of alternative.”
“I think just like today I buy a plane ticket online with Priceline.com. Maybe 20 years ago I would have talked to a travel agent. You know – we are going through that entire cycle. We’re probably in year five of a 20-year journey in terms of lending.”
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OnDeck reported more than $107 million in revenue in the first three quarters of 2014, and a net loss of $14.4 million. The revenue figure represents a year-over-year gain of 2.5x.

Here are a few key metrics to keep in mind:
  • OnDeck will trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol, ONDK
  • Lead underwriter is JP Morgan Stanley
  • Originated more than $1.7 billion in loans to 25,000 small businesses
  • Raised more than $170 million in venture capital funding, and more than $300 million in debt financing
  • Collected more than 4 million customer payments
  • Previous investors include:
    • RRE Ventures
    • Institutional Venture Partners
    • Village Ventures
    • SAP Ventures
    • First Round Capital
    • Google Ventures
    • Tiger Global
Also underwriting the IPO were Deutsche Bank Securities, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Pierce, Fenner & Smith.
OnDeck’s IPO news comes just a few months after the IPO filing of peer-to-peer lender, Lending Club (another Finovate alum). This reflects both a continued strong investment pace in fintech innovators in general, as well as a particular passion for alternative lenders. OnDeck earned the investment dollars of a number of major fintech-savvy venture capitalist firms and individuals such as PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and former American Express CEO, James Robinson.
What are people saying about the IPO? At places hardcore investment websites like Seeking Alpha, the questions are all about the sustainability of growth and the potential for profitability in the near-term. Over at Inc., Jeremy Quittner sees challenges and advantages for OnDeck as opposite sides of the same coin, considering the company’s “balance sheet lender” business model as a “risk” and its capacity for generating significant income from interest a “reward.”
OnDeck recently presented at FinDEVr San Francisco 2014, introducing its frictionless, extensible, and powerful API. The company announced its plan to partner with Worldpay in August, and reported in June that it’s small business lending platform had a $3.4 billion, 22,000 job impact on the economy. In March, OnDeck raised $77 million in a round led by Tiger Capital. The New York-based company was founded in 2007 and was last on the Finovate stage for the spring 2012 show in San Francisco.

Alumni News– November 17, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgBoku announces a pair of C-level appointments: Ingo Lippert as CBO, Christian Hinrichs as CFO.
  • Zopa partners with AltFi Data; plans to open loan book to the public in Q1 in 2015.
  • The Sunday Times profiles TransferWise founders Kristo Kaarmann and Taavet Hinrikus.
  • Bolstr surpasses $200,000 in 2014 investor payouts
  • Expensify featured in Slate. Check out the video.
  • Billhighway’s 523% Four-Year Growth earns it the #193 Spot on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 List.
  • ChicagoInno features Arroweye Solutions and Rippleshot for their listings on the FinTech Forward Rankings.
  • Check out Finovate Debuts: Minetta Brook’s Knewsapp.
  • MetaIntelli and Arxan Technologies partner to help developers mitigate mobile security and privacy risks.
  • Venmo gets Touch ID security, tagging, and direct linking to bank accounts.
  • MyBankTracker examines how 1U is using Hoyos‘ facial recognition security technology.
  • InComm launches New eCommerce Site for B2B Bulk Gift Cards.
  • Bluefin joins the New York Bankers Association.
  • Google Compute Engine now features intelligent horizontal Autoscaling.
  • Wharton Fintech blog features Knox 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.

Alumni News– November 7, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgP2Binvestor marks milestones in new credit lines, purchased invoices.
  • MasterCard announces acquisition of Payment Gateway Services business from TNS.
  • Andover Bank to deploy Precision core processing platform and other solutions from Fiserv.
  • Jack Henry Banking’s Symitar division partners with Stickley on Security to bring SoS Advisor to its core credit unions.
  • Josh Alexander, CEO of Toopher, named “Top Techpreneur” by Austin Business Journal.
  • eWeek looks at Concur’s ecosystem for app development.
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.

P2Binvestor Marks Milestones in New Credit Lines, Purchased Invoices

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P2Binvestor, the Denver-based crowdfunding platform, announced today that it reached two major milestones this week. The receivables-secured SME lender has originated more than $10.5 million in lines of credit to 19 clients, and purchased more than $24 million in invoices since May.

At this pace, P2Binvestor believes it will reach $35 million in credit lines extended by the middle of next year. “Crowdlending is perfect for younger, fast-growing companies that need a good chunk of working capital to get to the next growth stage,” said P2Binvestor President Krista Morgan.

P2Binvestor offers SMEs four different financing produts: an asset-backed line of credit, a future contractual revenue-secured line of credit, a purchase order product and receivables-purchase financing. Borrowing amounts range from $25,000 to $5 million, and eligible companies are B2B, with at least one year of operating history and a minimum of $1 million in annual revenue. Rates range from 1-2%.
“We can provide larger credit lines and better rates and terms than typical online lenders,” Bruce Morgan, CEO and co-founder said. He added that at the same time P2Binvestor has great relationships with banks because they help their clients become better clients. “We finance their clients when they cannot, then release those clients from our contract with no penalties when the bank is ready for them,” he explained.
Founded in February 2012, P2Binvestor funds a wide range of businesses. A June funding announcement from the company, for example, featured an education software company, a field services provider for companies in the oil and gas industries, and a natural foods maker. “Even good companies may not qualify for bank financing,” Morgan said. “We have products to help you grow to the point where you are bankable.”
P2Binvestor was last on the Finovate stage in September as part of FinovateFall. The company demoed new borrowing and loan management features of its platform.

Alumni News– November 6, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgSmartphone checkbook app MagicMony powered by VerifyValid. Read our CEO interview with VerifyValid CEO Paul Doyle here.
  • Pymnts.com takes a look at how innovators like Mitek, Top Image Systems, and Kofax are dealing with mobile deposit fraud.
  • Sramana Mitra interviews Avoka CEO Phil Copeland for the One Million by One Million Blog.
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.

Gremln Secures $500,000 Investment from Cultivation Capital

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Gremln, the company dedicated to making it easier for banks and other financial institutions to benefit from social media, has secured a new investment of half a million dollars from Cultivation Capital.

The new funding takes Gremln’s total capital to nearly $2 million. 

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Tim Stern, General Partner at Cultivation Capital, emphasized the “safety first” aspect of Gremln’s technology, saying there is a “large need” for software that will help industries control what is shared via social media. Stern will be joining Gremln’s board of directors as part of the investment.
Gremln specializes in social media management software that helps institutions use platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn without having to worry about regulatory and compliance issues. The technology includes compliance and organizational tools, analytics, features like bulk post upload, scheduling, and message assigning, and is available as a white label solution. Gremln has won awards and recognition from PC World, CIO Magazine, and the Innovators Cup. This summer, Gremln raised $100,000 as a participant in the SixThirty Accelerator program.
Among the interesting notes in the coverage of the investment was the suggestion from Gremln CEO Ryan Bell that the company looking into other potential revenue sources, such as working with financial broker dealers. Bizjournals also reports that Gremln has grown approximately 500% since early 2013.
Gremln last demoed on the Finovate stage in September as part of FinovateFall 2014. See the company present its new mobile platform here.