Author: David Penn

Better Haves Wins $50K FinCapDev Grand Prize

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Uncategorized

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An app called Better Haves won the Grand Prize at the FinCapDev $100K Demo Day held at Capital One 360 Cafe in San Francisco Tuesday evening. 

The event pitted 10 finalists against one another in a mobile app-making contest geared toward “helping working Americans make smart financial choices and gain better access to financial services.” 

Having made it past a qualifying round last fall, finalists gathered before a panel of judges to demo their mobile apps in two-minute elevator pitches. Finalists also fielded questions about their apps from the judges before the final voting. 
The Grand Prize-winning app, Better Haves, is a budgeting solution for couples to help them form better financial habits by sharing their spending tendencies and values. The Better Haves team consisted of Itai Leibowitz, Marcos Siqueira, and Vanya Pasheva – shown accepting their Grand Prize below.
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Two finalists picked up a pair of runners-up prizes. An app called Thrifty Bunch (the “Wikipedia for needs-based shopping”) uses a variation of crowdsourcing to help limit impulse buying. Down Payment Saver also earned a runners-up award. This budgeting app is geared toward helping renters overcome the single biggest hurdle to homeownership: coming up with a downpayment.

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A budget and savings app called Financial Forest, and an insurance advisory app named Smart Insurance earned Honorable Mentions.
Financial Forest focuses on helping those living paycheck to paycheck save enough money for a one-month emergency fund. Smart Insurance is an app that helps consumers make sound decisions on everything from whether or not to buy an extended warranty when purchasing an appliance to picking the best auto insurance deal.
All the finalists’ apps are available for download. Read more about each of the apps in the contest here.
The FinCapDev competition is presented and administered by the D2D Fund and the Center for Financial Innovation. The event is a companion competition to the MyMoneyAppUp Challenge sponsored by the U.S. Department of Treasury.
Grand prize for the FinCapDev competition was $50,000. Runners up received prizes of $20,000 each. Both Honorable Mention winners earned $5,000 each. 
Learn more about all of the finalists here.

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QuantConnect Adds FX, US Equity Tick Data; Raises Capital

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: QuantConnect

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How do traders and investors who “sell in May and go away” spend their summers?

If you are a quantitative trader looking forward to spending the sunny months indoors backtesting trading strategies, then QuantConnect has some very good news for you: the company just announced that it now provides backtesters with five years worth of foreign exchange tick data and U.S. equity tick data going back to 1998. For free.

“This has never been done before,” said QuantConnect CEO Jared Broad in a telephone conversation. The data comes courtesy of two new partnerships: U.S. data provider QuantQuote.com is providing the equity data, while FXCM, the largest retail FX broker in the United States, is making available the forex data.
Clean, extensive U.S. equity tick data is a precious enough commodity for most quants. But access to forex tick data can be almost impossible for the average, non-professional trader to come by. 

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What’s next on the data front for QuantConnect? The company is currently looking for quality futures data sources, ideally with trade execution. In addition to helping QuantConnect serve an even broader trading and investing public, futures data would also help attract those working in commodity-sensitive industries such as transportation and agriculture to the platform, said Broad.
QuantConnect’s data announcements come on the heels of the company’s recently closed funding round. The actual amount of the financing remains undisclosed. Broad said that the funding came from angel investors with backgrounds in quantitative trading and investing, and that the funds will contribute toward operations. 
QuantConnect demoed their technology as part of the FinovateEurope show in London earlier this year. Watch the company’s presentation here.
Correction: The U.S. equity data provider was misidentified in a previous version.

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Finovate Alumni News– June 14, 2013

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Arxan Technologies, Billeo, Encap, Heckyl Technologies, Jemstep, MoneyDesktop, Moven, Narrative Science, Nomis Solutions, Quantopian, Wallaby Financial, Zopa
  • Nomis Solutions wins patent for price sensitivity models.
  • Billeo announces acquisition of ecommerce platform, Swag.io.
  • Encap earns seven-figure investment from ProVenture Seed.
  • Money Marketing considers Narrative Science, Quantopian, Moven, MoneyDesktop and Jemstep.
  • Zopa named Most Trusted Loans Provider at the Moneywise Customer Service Awards 2013.
  • CU Broadcast interviews MoneyDesktop’s Bret Skousen.
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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Encap Earns Seven-Figure Investment from ProVenture Seed

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Encap

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Exact terms of the funding were not disclosed in Encap’s press release of the announcement. However, TechCrunch is reporting that the funding totaled $2 million.

This takes Encap’s total funding to more than $2.8 million, courtesy of previous investment from Alliance Ventures.

Based in Oslo, Norway, Encap specializes in mobile authentication, providing in-app, banking grade security. Encap’s technology eschews SMS codes, hardware tokens, and one-time, password-based authentication in favor of an approach that, in the words of ProVenture Seed Managing Partner, Herbjøm Skjervold, combines multi-factor authentication with risk profiling.
The company plans to use the capital to help expand into new regions, particularly the United States and United Kingdom, as well as to increase market share in a competitive market for security services. According to a report in SecureID News, the multi-factor authentication market itself should surpass $5 billion by 2017.
Encap demoed its technology as part of the FinovateSpring 2013 event in May. See the company’s presentation here.

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Locaid Closes $4 Million in New Funding

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Locaid

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FinovateFall 2012 alum Locaid just completed a $4.05 million Series D funding round according to VentureBeat.

Participating in the round were InterSouth Partners, H.I.G. Ventures, and Florida Growth Fund, as well as additional investors. The new funding puts Locaid’s total at just north of $30 million.

Founded in 2005, and now with offices in both Boca Raton and San Francisco, Locaid specializes in Location-as-a-Service (LaaS) solutions ranging from IP and Landline location to geofencing and location analytics.
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Locaid’s “footprint” extends to more than 4 billion connected devices worldwide, including more than 400 million mobile devices. The company is also the largest location gateway for major carriers such as AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. Locaid made headlines earlier this month with the release of its Compliance API.
To see Locaid’s FinovateFall 2012 presentation, visit the company’s demo page here.

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ayondo Launches in the United Kingdom

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ayondo

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ayondo’s European expansion just reached another border, as the company announces that it has launched its social trading service in the UK.

Based in Frankfurt, Germany, ayondo is an innovator in the world of social trading. The company’s platform allows average investors to share trades and investments and, more importantly, to trade and invest alongside the best performing traders and investors on the platform.

Those using ayondo can trade a variety of assets, including currencies, stock market indices, individual stocks, and commodities. Traders can begin following up to 5 top traders for a little as €100.

ayondohomepage.jpgThat ayondo would expand to the UK should probably come as little surprise. The company had already expressed its interest in the UK and Irish markets by adding spread betting to the platform earlier this year. Spread betting is available only to ayondo’s clients living in Ireland or the UK.

Said ayondo managing director Thomas Winkler in a press release, “ayondo is the first social trading platform to offer spread betting with proportional following for a wide range of asset classes.”
ayondo was founded in 2008, and launched its social trading platform in January 2012. The company demoed its technology as part of the FinovateEurope show a year later in London. See  the company’s presentation here.

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Intellaegis’ masterQueue Technology Helps Catch Wanted Fugitive

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Intellaegis

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There are many ways to describe the innovators in financial technology.

And thanks to Intellaegis, we can add “fugitive catcher” to the list.

The El Dorado Country District Attorney’s office in California sought out the services of hometown technology company, Intellaegis, to help them find an elusive fugitive who had been on the run for years.
Watch the news report from the CBS Sacramento affiliate.
According to the report, masterQueue was able to track the fugitive’s data footprints as she traveled across the country to states as distant as Michigan, California, and Florida. The fugitive had been on the run for three years. masterQueue was able to track her down in five minutes.
Intellaegis was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in El Dorado Hills, California. The company debuted masterQueue in 2011 as part of FinovateSpring in San Francisco. See the company’s presentation here.

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Affinity Solutions Raises More than $21 Million

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Affinity Solutions

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With its latest round of funding, Affinity Solutions’ total financing tops $40 million.

This latest funding round was led by Massachusetts-based private equity firm, Chestnut Hill Ventures. The firm specializes in the commercial marketing and financial services industries, and provided more than $14 million in equity financing for Affinity Solutions a year ago.

Affinity Solutions says that the $21 million will go towards helping the company bring its marketing platform to market. Affinity Solutions currently has partnerships with more than 4,000 financial institutions, and more than 25,000 brick and mortar retail outlets.
This latest round of funding was a big jump up from the company’s most recent capital-raising effort: $6.75 million raised in February via a combined equity/convertible securities offering.
All told, Affinity Solutions’ fundraising over the past year:
  • $14.5 million in equity financing – June 2012
  • $6.75 million in equity/convertible financing – February 2013
  • $21+ million in funding – June 2013
Headquartered in New York, Affinity Solutions presented its technology at FinovateSpring in San Francisco in 2012. See the company in action here.

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Finovate Alumni News– June 10, 2013

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: EZBOB, FutureAdvisor, Google, Holvi, Intellaegis, Lending Club, MicroStrategy, Mortgagebot, OneID, Personal Capital, Realty Mogul, TradeKing, Wealthfront
  • FinovateLOGO.jpgThe Oakland Tribune’s Inside Bay Area profiles OneID founder and CTO Steve Kirsch.
  • EZBOB adds variable lengths, longer periods, lower interest, and loyalty discounts on its loans.
  • Realty Mogul co-founder and CEO Jilliene Helman talks crowdfunding and real estate investing.
  • MicroStrategy business intelligence solution, MicroStrategy Express named a finalist at 2013 American Business Awards.
  • Newfination interviews Jilliene Helman, co-founder and CEO of Realty Mogul.
  • SF Gate blog looks at Personal Capital, Wealthfront, and FutureAdvisor.
  • Newfination interviews Kristoffer Lawson, Holvi CEO, on replacing your bank with Holvi.
  • Mortgagebot launches MortgageMarvel site to help consumers shop for mortgages.
  • CNET interviews Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche on recent funding and future growth.
  • Bloomberg BusinessWeek takes a look at the business of Google Wallet.
  • Money Under 30 reviews TradeKing.
  • Intellaegis’s masterQueue technology helps catch wanted fugitive.
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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Kofax Launches Analytics for Capture Business Intelligence Solution

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Kofax

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Kofax Analytics for Capture is designed to provide business intelligence analytics for users of its signature document processing solutions Kofax Capture and Kofax Transformation Modules.

The new technology provides dashboards that streamline operations, as well as data on system performance, accuracy, and productivity. The goal is to avoid reliance on IT professionals for activities such as report-building and modifying database queries.

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Analytics for Capture provides:
  • The ability to review and filter documents and batches to avoid or eliminate bottlenecks.
  • Functionality to examine productivity statistics at the batch, document, and page level over a variety of timeframes.
  • Options to research and compare accuracy metrics at field level to improve the quality of the capture process.
Kofax has more than 20,000 customers in industries ranging from banking to healthcare, and have more than 800 partners in more than 75 countries. The company demoed its capture technology as part of the FinovateSpring show last month, earning positive reviews from Filene Research, among others. Filene included Kofax in its column on “Promising Products from Finovate.”
See Kofax’s presentation here.

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Dynamics Launches “Everything Else is Just Plastic” TV Ad

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Dynamics

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Double the value and 12 new rewards?

That’s the news out of Dynamics, which has made significant upgrades and enhancements to its ePlate intelligent payment card. 

The company has launched its first television ad, in partnership with Visa, touting the changes, which include a “no annual fee” version of the ePlate Visa card, and rewards ranging from private jet flights to race car driving lessons.
Dynamics launched ePlate in the UK during FinovateEurope 2013. ePlate cards include a programmable magnetic stripe that limits fraud by rewriting itself with each new transaction. Additionally, users can access the Dynamics system to program the card to respond to preferred offers, rewards, and other incentives.
The generousity of the rewards available to ePlate cardholders is meant to represent a sharp distinction with industry norms. Dynamics CEO and founder, Jeff Mullen, said in a release that while traditional cards often provided rewards of 1% of each purchase back, “the ePlate card (provides) new rewards as high as 50% or more.”

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Finovate Alumni News– June 6, 2013

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Backbase, BankersLab, Braintree, CurrencyFair, Dashlane, Fuze Network, LendUp, Mitek, Narrative Science, Personal Capital, Stokr, TIO Networks, TSYS
  • FinovateLOGO.jpgCentral Intelligence Agency takes an actionable interest in Narrative Science.
  • IT operations management company Boundary touts its relationship with CurrencyFair.
  • Backbase CEO and co-founder Jouk Pleiter warns that bank customers are “no longer content to do the groundwork.”
  • Mercator Advisory Group analyst takes a look at TSYS’s proposed acquisition of NetSpend.
  • Mitek, LendUp, & Fuze Network dubbed runners up in 3rd Annual Core Innovators Mega Challenge.
  • TIO Networks announces strategic relationship with Aio Wireless.
  • Stockr wins Vator Splash LA startup competition, crowned most exciting company.
  • BankersLab launches Bank-it: Credit Edition.
  • Personal Capital to establish a Denver office and hire 100 financial advisers.
  • Business Insider interviews Braintree CEO, Bill Ready.

<div 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.