Author: David Penn

Jemstep Raises $4.5 Million in Series A Round

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Jemstep

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A big week for Finovate alumni funding looks likely to finish on a strong note with news that Jemstep has raised $4.5 million as part of a Series A round of investment.

The funding included participation from existing investors as well as new investor, Caleo Capital. Jemstep’s total funding now stands at $15 million. The company plans to use the additional capital for new hires, broadening distribution, and overall product development.

Jemstep launched its Portfolio Manager in January (and presented the technology at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in May). The company’s solution helps individuals plan for retirement by analyzing current portfolio holdings, recommending an alternative portfolio that improves upon the current portfolio, and providing an Action Plan that lets investors know exactly what to buy, what to sell, and what to hold.

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Jemstep Portfolio Manager also helps investors minimize tax exposure, reduce fees, and stay on top of their portfolios via the system’s constant monitoring and user alerts. The company is headquartered in Los Altos, California. Kevin Cimring and Michael Blumenthal serve as Joint CEOs. Simon Roy is Jemstep’s President.
The online financial advisory firm was among an octet of Finovate alumni highlighted in a September Wall Street Journal feature on the advisory industry. Take a look at that feature here.

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Third Quarter 2013 Funding for Finovate Alumni — More than $171 Million Raised

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Azimo, Check, ERN, FTRANS, Kofax, LearnVest, Lendio, Meniga, Moven, Narrative Science, Numbrs, P2BInvestor, Ping Identity, Prestadero, Prosper, SafetyPay, Socure, SumUp, Taulia, Wipit

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The third quarter of 2013 revealed that even during the sleepy days of summer, the business of putting capital into the coffers of fintech innovators remained as busy as ever.

Finovate alumni were the beneficiaries of more than $171 million during July, August, and September. This brings the total year-to-date funding for Finovate alumni to at least $526 million (some of the funding amounts were undisclosed).

Here is the Q3 summary for 2013:

July — More than $63 million raised by eight companies
August — More than $26 million raised by six companies
September — $82 million raised by nine companies
Note: Fundings prior to a Finovate appearance not included. Questions? Comments? Email us at julie@finovate.com or david@finovate.com.

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CardFlight Secures $1.6 Million in Seed Funding from ff Venture Capital

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CardFlight

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A big funding week for Finovate alumni just got bigger: innovative payment processor CardFlight (FinovateSpring 2013) just announced that it had raised $1.6 million in seed capital.

The funding was led by ff Venture Capital. Also participating were:

  • Payment Ventures
  • Apostolos Apostolakis
  • Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator
  • Plug & Play Ventures
  • Great Oaks Venture Capital
CardFlight provides an offline payment processing solution billed as the “easiest way to integrate card-present payments into your mobile app.” The company’s encrypted card reader works with almost any iOS or Android device. And with CardFlight’s secure SDK, the technology supports most payment processors including First Data, Stripe, and TSYS.
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Who needs this stuff? According to Derek Webster, founder and CEO of CardFlight, everything from event ticketing to CRM apps are the kind of environments that can benefit from offline payment processing options. Interestingly, the majority of CardFlight’s clients are larger businesses looking white-label the company’s technology and maintain full control of the user experience. Said Webster, “our clients can integrate mobile payments into their apps in a matter of hours, while still customizing their mobile application and other solutions exactly how they wish.”

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Quantopian Raises $6.7 Million in Series A Round

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Quantopian

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In a week that already has seen funding announcements from Finovate alums, azimo and Leaf, here comes news that Quantopian (FinovateSpring 2013) is also on the receiving end of a major capital infusion.

Quantopian announced today that the company had secured $6.7 million in its latest funding round. Participating in the Series A were Khosla Ventures and seed capital investor, Spark Capital. This puts Quantopian’s total capital at more than $8 million. The company raised $2.1 million in seed financing at the beginning of the year.

Quantopian Live Trading provides quantitative traders and investors with a browser-based algorithmic trading platform. Users can build and share their own algorithms, as well as take advantage of historical backtesting and real-time, simulated trading features. The technology also allows traders to execute their algorithms directly from the Quantopian platform itself.

       
The company has a userbase of 10,000, which has racked up more than 600,000 years in backtested trading strategies. The platform requires some technical coding skill, but the service is free and includes features that allows users to “clone algorithms” rather than building algorithms from scratch.
Quantopian is led by co-founders John Fawcett (CEO) and Jean Bredeche (CTO), and is headquartered in Boston.

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Leaf Raises $20 Million from Heartland Payment Systems

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Leaf

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Hiring more talent and accelerating development of its point-of-sale payment processing systems is what Leaf plans to do with the $20 million in new funding from Heartland Payment Systems.

The financing is a major step up from the $4 million in funding the company had as of its FinovateSpring appearance in May.

Leaf specializes in providing a mobile payment platform for small businesses. The company’s LeafPresenter tablet accepts payments, provides business analytics, and makes it easier for businesses to transact with customers using a variety of payment options.

Aron Schwarzkopf, CEO and co-founder of the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Leaf, says that he expects his company to be processing payments at an annualized rate of $500 million by the end of 2013. 

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Heartland Payment Systems is a national payments provider, headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey. The company processes more than 11 million transactions daily, and more than $80 in payments a year.
As part of the deal, Heartland will sell Leaf via its 800-member salesforce, and also will develop apps for the platform.
As noted in Xconomy’s coverage of the announcement, Heartland has been active in the fintech startup market, helping LevelUp gain national exposure for its mobile payment app.

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Azimo Announces $1M Seed Round for European Expansion

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Azimo

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As far as Azimo is concerned, the “M” in Monday might as well stand for “Million Dollar Seed Round.”

FinovateEurope alum Azimo announced that it has raised “just over” $1 million in seed funding from existing investors.

The seed round was led by the European division of venture capital firm, eVentures, and included investment from Matt Cooper, founder of Capital One. The $1 million is slated to help the U.K.-based money transfer startup successfully expand to the Continent.

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The new funding puts Azimo’s total capital at approximately $1.5 million. The company announced an angel investment of 300,000 pounds ($480,000 USD) in January of this year. TechCrunch is reporting that Azimo’s European expansion will begin in Germany. Other nations targeted include France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Spain.
Azimo provides a simple and secure money transfer service that allows people to transfer money via PC or mobile device in more than 125 countries around the world. Funds can be transferred using debit cards or bank accounts, and cash can be received at more than 150,000 collection points.
To celebrate the funding news, Azimo will be offering free money transfers through October. More on transferring money via Azimo available here.
Founded in London in January 2012, Azimo was launched in August of that year. The company demoed its technology as part of the FinovateEurope 2013 show in February.

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Singapore-Based MyHero Earns $10M from Kleiner Perkins and Others to Enhance TradeHero App

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: TradeHero

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Majulah, MyHero!

With the backing of Kleiner Perkins, Caufield Byers China fund, and IPV Capital, Singapore-based MyHero is now $10 million closer to reaching its goals of expanding into the Chinese market and growing its user base to more than 300,000.

Led by CEO and founder, Dinesh Bhatia, MyHero is the developer behind TradeHero. TradeHero, says Bhatia, is a “financial literacy tool” that lets users trade and invest virtual dollars in the stock market. Top performing traders and investors can monetize their talent by selling real-time market notifications through the app to their followers.

This combination of gamification and virtual trading community has earned the app a #1 spot in the financial category of the iOS App Store in 75 countries. The app is expected to be available in Android soon.
The $10 million in Series A funding is the company’s first major financing since a seed round put more than $450,000 in TradeHero’s coffers at the beginning of the year. The current infusion of capital is slated to help MyHero market TradeHero more aggressively over the next few years, as well as support a focus on China over the next three to six months. Bhatia cited successful testing of TradeHero’s mobile app in markets such as Hong Kong and Singapore as providing confidence that a move into China would be well-received.
Read more about Asia-based Finovate alumni in our recent feature by Julie Schicktanz that explores the support startups like TradeHero have received from the venture capital community.
TradeHero demoed their mobile app as part of the inaugural FinovateAsia event in Singapore in 2012. Finovate will be returning to Singapore for FinovateAsia 2013 in November, and early bird tickets to the one-day show are available through October 4. For more information on FinovateAsia 2013, visit our page here.

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Finovate Alumni News– September 26, 2013

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Billhighway, Braintree, Finovera, Google, Lendio, MasterCard, MiiCard, PayPal, peerTransfer, SecondMarket
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  • Updated Google Wallet app lets users store loyalty cards.
  • MasterCard teams up with National Bank of Egypt, Egyptian Banks Company, and Fawry to launch m-wallet in Egypt.
  • EBay’s PayPal acquires Braintree in $800M cash deal.
  • The Boston Business Journal features peerTransfer.
  • miiCard presents trends from the innovators at FinovateFall.
  • Lendio raises $4.5 million for small business loan-matching Service.
  • TechCrunch reports: SecondMarket launches a Bitcoin investment trust for accredited investors.
  • Billhighway adds Boys & Girls Club of Troy as client.
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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John O’Malley Takes Helm as New Digital Insight CEO

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Digital Insight, Intuit, Intuit Financial Services

Digital Insight announced this week that John O’Malley will serve as the fintech company’s new Chief Executive Officer. The new appointment is effective on November 1st.

O’Malley brings more than 30 years of experience in both financial services and financial technology. He was most recently CEO of Panini, a payment technology company. Previously, O’Malley served as chief executive officer for Memento and Harland Financial Solutions, where he was also President.

Formerly known as Intuit Financial Services, Digital Insight was acquired by Thoma Bravo this summer. Read our coverage of the billion-dollar deal here.

Digital Insight was one of our original alumni, presenting at the first Finovate in 2007. Video of the company’s presentation is available here.

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Finovate Alumni News– September 24, 2013

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Braintree, Cachet Financial Solutions, Capital Access Network, Digital Insight, Doxo, Entrepreneurial Finance Lab, ERN, FIS, Google, PayPal, Swipely, Xero
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  • Capital Access Network listed among Information Week’s top U.S. technology innovators in 2013.
  • FIS announces analytics programs for customers.
  • Swipely now managing $1 bil in annual sales, 1 yr. after entering payments market & launched Swipely Partner Network.
  • Cachet Financial Solutions announces Select Mobile Lending, a new mobile app.
  • MasterCard and Entrepreneurial Finance Labs join forces to promote SMB growth in developing nations.
  • TechCrunch reports PayPal, Stripe, & Braintree partner with Facebook to autofill billing info in mobile commerce apps.
  • ERN partners with FICO to embed FICO’s marketing solutions within its real-time Big Data analytics platform Looop.
  • Mountaineer Gas joins doxo to simplify bill delivery, payment, and record keeping for its 220,000 customers.
  • Digital Insight announces new CEO, John O’Malley.
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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ACI Worldwide Extends E-Payments Reach with Official Payments Acquisition

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide

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The decision to buy Official Payments helps make ACI Worldwide an even bigger player in the field of EBPP (Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment), according to President and CEO Philip Heasley.

Heasley specifically cited Official Payment’s loyal user base among federal, state, and local governments, as well as higher education institutions, utilities, and charities in the acquisition announcement. The deal prices Official Payments at $8.35 per share for a total enterprise value of $109 million.

Some additional metrics on Official Payments:
  • More than 3,000 customers
  • More than 100 million end users
  • More than 20 million payments processed each year
  • More than $9 billion in payment volume processed each year
ACI Worldwide supports the banking and electronic payment needs of more than 2,600 financial institutions, retailers, and billers. Processing transactions for more than 250 of the world’s largest retailers and 18 out of the 20 largest banks, ACI Worldwide facilitates $13 trillion in daily payments.
ACI was a part of the FinovateFall show in New York in 2011, demoing their Mobile Enterprise Banker for Tablets technology. See the company’s presentation here.

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Finovate Alumni News– September 23, 2013

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Capital Access Network, Float Money, KlickEx, MasterCard, Q2ebanking, Socure, Tuition.io
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  • ACI Worldwide acquires Official Payments.
  • MasterCard teams up with Basware to help companies migrate from paper-based payments.
  • KlickEx takes home Top Startup prize at Swift’s Innotribe Challenge.
  • Crains NY Business looks at Float Money, Socure, and Capital Access Network.
  • Western Independent Bankers selects Q2 as preferred vendor for virtual banking solutions.
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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