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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
“Crypto is here to stay and Betterment wants to live our promise of long-term diversification and to provide our customers with the best variety of assets in the marketplace,” Betterment CEO Sarah Levy explained. Levy praised the Makara acquisition as a unique opportunity to bring Betterment customers managed cryptocurrency portfolios “combined with the guidance and ease-of-use that have defined Betterment.”
Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Makara was founded in 2021 by Jesse Proudman and Sadie Raney. The company is the first crypto-based roboadvisor to be registered with the SEC, and offers investment exposure to the cryptocurrency market that is both automated and personalized to the investor’s goals and preferences. Makara investors can select cryptocurrencies organized into thematic baskets – Bitcoin, Blue Chip, Decentralized Finance, Ethereum, Inflation Hedge, Metaverse, Universe, and Web 3.0 – that cover the wide (and growing) range of digital asset offerings.
Betterment leverages passive index-tracking and fixed income ETFs to offer goal-based investing strategies via both taxable and tax-advantaged accounts such traditional and Roth IRAs. The addition of Makara will enable the New York-based investment platform to give investors the ability to diversify their accounts without having to worry about selecting individual digital assets. The acquisition will also make it easier for Betterment’s financial advisor customers to offer cryptocurrency exposure to their clients without those advisors having to be experts in the digital asset arena.
The acquisition is expected to close later in Q1 of 2022. Makara’s team of experts and engineers will join the Betterment team at that point.
“We developed Makara to bring an easy and accessible long-term investing approach to cryptocurrencies,” Makara co-founder and CEO Jesse Proudman said. “Combining our crypto expertise with Betterment’s scale will accelerate the growth of the platform with both retail investors and financial advisors.”
Betterment made its Finovate debut in 2010, winning Best of Show for its online savings and investment platform. In the years since, the company has grown into one of the world’s leading digital investment advisors, with more than 700,000 customers and more than $33 billion in assets under management. Last fall, the company announced raising $160 million in funding – including a $60 million in Series F equity investment – earning the New York-based firm a valuation of $1.3 billion.
Another year begins – and so does the latest round of podcasts hosted by one of fintech’s favorite conversationalists, Finovate VP Greg Palmer!
In his most recent discussions on the Finovate Podcast, Palmer has talked about the challenge of inclusivity when it comes to lending in financial services, as well as the hurdles innovative companies face when trying to turn inspiration into reality and promise into winning, marketable products that delight and engage customers. And with the new year just getting underway, the Finovate Podcast also took stock of some of the major trends in fintech in 2021 with an eye toward seeing how they will be resolved here in 2022.
Host Greg Palmer talks with Pinwheel co-founder and CEO Kurt Lin about the problem of inaccessibility and credit invisibility in our financial system and what Pinwheel is doing to innovate in the lending space. Episode 118.
“What we do at Pinwheel is pretty straightforward: we look at all the different income sources that exist – whether it be payroll systems, gig platforms, or future of work platforms like Etsy or ebay – and we combine it into a platform and make it really easy for anyone to connect their income account or their payroll account to any app for the purpose of sharing that data or to do things like update direct deposits.”
Steven Ramirez, CEO, Beyond the Arc
Host Greg Palmer sits down with Beyond the Arc CEO Steven Ramirez to discuss predictions for 2022, cryptocurrencies, fintech super apps, the Buy Now Pay Later revolution, and more. Episode 117.
“There is huge hype and excitement about crypto which is, of course, leading to greater adoption. More people are finding on-ramps to crypto and some of them are super simple. If you look at Coinbase or Paypal, they really could not make it any easier to acquire your first cryptocurrencies. However, there is a lot behind that initial purchase about how you actually use cryptocurrency and some real sticking points that I think are going to be nasty surprises for consumers.”
Alex Castro, CEO, M Corp
Host Greg Palmer and Alex Castro, CEO of M Corp and author of Measure, Execute, Win, investigate the challenge of navigating the “execution gap” by strategically examining the space between strategy and results. Episode 116.
“We’ve seen over the last 10 years a great surge in innovation and ideas that can really help grow industries and companies. All too often those ideas fall to the wayside during the execution process, and that gap between idea or strategy and execution still remains the largest roadblock for these great ideas to get to market. We’ve analyzed that issue and we have some very deliberate methods and products to help resolve that gap so that more ideas can be more successful.”
Fiserv has agreed to acquire Finxact in a transaction valued at $650 million.
The acquisition will help bolster Fiserv’s position as “partner of choice” for firms looking to add to their digital banking offerings.
First Data Ventures, the corporate arm of 2019 Fiserv acquisition First Data, was an early investor in Finxact.
Leading fintech and payments company Fiserv announced today that it has agreed to acquire cloud native banking solution provider Finxact. An early investor in the company, Fiserv will purchase the remaining ownership interest in Finxact for $650 million, and will leverage the acquisition to add to Fiserv’s account processing, digital, and payments solutions.
“Through this combination, Fiserv will create a streamlined path for clients to offer digital solutions to their customers,” Fiserv President and CEO Frank Bisignano said. “Finxact also enhances our ability to support a growing number of financial institutions and business clients.”
Jacksonville, Florida-based Finxact offers a core-as-a-service platform that enables financial institutions to innovate and bring new solutions to market without requiring a complete technological overhaul of existing systems. Finxact leverages open banking APIs and the cloud to help firms future-proof and add flexibility to their businesses by abstracting the critical components of core banking from other operations and services – such as mobile banking, communications, and statements. The company’s partners range from financial institutions like Live Oak Bank ($8.2 billion in assets) and Iberiabank’s Virtual Bank to fintechs like Personetics and Anchorage Digital.
Calling the acquisition a “tremendous opportunity” for his six-year old company, Finxact Chairman and CEO Frank Sanchez said, “We recognize that Finxact’s technology can serve to level up the industry’s delivery infrastructure, and crucially at a time when banking is undergoing transformative change. We will be better positioned to serve a far greater number of institutions, of all sizes, when combined with the breadth and depth of Fiserv capabilities.”
Finxact was founded in 2016 and has raised $42 million in funding. The company ended 2021 with the introduction of its no-code visual Product Launchpad, a platform enhancement that brings a visual design experience to the creation and deployment of products on the Finxact core.
The acquisition of Finxact is only the latest fintech deal by Fiserv since its big, $22 billion purchase of First Data Corporation in 2019. Last fall, Fiserv announced the completion of its acquisition of marketing and commerce platform BentoBox. The year before, Fiserv acquired digital card services platform Ondot. Other recent acquisitions include its pick-up of Bypass Mobile in 2020 and NetPay in 2021. The company’s most recent Finovate appearance was at FinovateWest 2020, an all-digital event in which Fiserv demoed its Virtual Banking Assistant. The technology brings AI-driven, conversational experiences to call center operations, boosting customer engagement and reducing costs.
According to a report from Medici, nearly 168 million people in the MENA region (Middle East and Northern Africa) do not have a bank account. In this environment, opportunities for both traditional financial institutions and new entrants are numerous. In some instances, financial services companies have launched their own digital banking portals in order to reach out beyond their current customer bases. In other cases, these firms have teamed up with challenger banks and innovative fintechs to help bridge the gap between the banked and the unbanked.
One of the challenges to reaching more potential customers in the MENA region has been regulatory, which makes this week’s news from the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) all the more notable. The CBK issued a set of guidelines for digital banks as part of a campaign to improve financial stability, encourage innovation, and help the country respond to its economic needs.
In drawing up its guidelines, the CBK relied on a study of the regulatory approaches taken by 25 central banks and 40 digital bank business models. The CBK noted that there were three main models for digital banking: as a unit within a traditional bank, a partnership between a bank and a digitally-based institution in which the bank manages core banking operations while the partnering institution manages customer relations and other operations, and as a standalone digital bank.
“The guidelines come in five parts covering the definition of digital banks, their legal framework, and licensed activities, as well as phases and procedures for establishment of digital banks,” CBK Governor Dr. Mohammad Y. Al-Hashel said. The new guidelines pave the way for interested parties to apply from now until June 30th. Initial approvals, according to the CBK governor, will be made by the end of the year.
For more on the digital banking landscape in the Middle East, with a particular focus on neobanks, check out this overview from Medici.
Speaking of central banks, the head of Argentina’s central bank, Miguel Ángel Pesce, recently gave an interview with the Buenos Aires Times. The main focus of the conversation was a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund to deal with the country’s $44.5 billion debt to the organization. The agreement, which includes a pledge to reduce the country’s fiscal deficit as well as other measures, comes after a two-year negotiation process and still requires the approval of both Argentina’s congress as well as the IMF board of directors.
Yet it was Pesce’s separate conversation with Buenos Aires reporter Jorge Fontevecchia – published this week – that may be of greater interest to followers of international fintech. In that interview, Pesce explained some of the more controversial policies of Argentina’s central bank toward fintechs, including deposit insurance requirements for payment service companies. Pesce defended the practice as a way of “making more independent the assets of companies lending out the assets deposited in them” and of assuring that companies that serve as financial intermediaries are regulated as such. Pesce acknowledged that while this policy has engendered “some resentment in the short term,” it is necessary to ensure a “solid system” that banking services customers can rely upon.
In terms of innovation, Pesce spoke positively about the launch and adoption of interoperable QR codes, which were made mandatory in Argentina for all electronic invoices starting in late December 2020. He noted that interoperable QR codes could do to physical cash what electronic checks have done to paper checks (“a very important step in this direction”). And while he offered no timetable on the transition, “it’s going to end up happening,” Pesce insisted.
FinovateEurope 2022 is right around the corner. If you are an innovative fintech company with new technology to show, then there’s no better time than now and no better forum than FinovateEurope. To learn more about how to demo your latest innovation at FinovateEurope 2022 in London, March 22-23, visit our FinovateEurope hub today!
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Cross River Bank and PayTile announce collaboration to offer a new location-based payments solution.
The companies compare the new solution to Apple’s AirDrop, which enables the sending of data without an exchange of PII.
In addition to the partnership, PayTile is launching a new cash drop-off technology Money Drop.
A partnership between Cross River Bank and online payments company PayTile will bring a new location-based payments solution to market. PayTile is among the first P2P payment platforms to use geo-location to enable safe and private financial transactions between individuals without requiring exchange of personal information. The company will leverage core banking infrastructure and payments functionality – including ACH and Push-to-Card capabilities – from Cross River Bank for the new offering.
“PayTile’s mission is to make digital payments as private as cash and as safe as a card,” PayTile CEO Anu Vora explained. “While traditional P2P apps exist to pay the people you already know, PayTile exists to safely pay people you don’t know.”
PayTile’s technology is designed especially to be used in situations in which physical cash would be the preferred option. This includes tipping in hospitality-related instances, as well as informal transactions such as shopping at local farmer’s market. The company compares the location-based payment service to iOS’s “AirDrop” capability, enabling money transfers without requiring an exchange of usernames, legal names, emails, or phone numbers.
“Anu and the team at PayTile are revolutionizing peer-to-peer payments,” Cross River founder, president, and CEO Gilles Gade said. “By partnering with innovative companies like PayTile, Cross River creates real time solutions to empower consumers and their finances.”
The partnership announcement comes at the same time that PayTile is launching its Money Drop technology which enables the digital placement of cash or other digital goods at an exact location for users to pick up and redeem at their convenience. One use case of Money Drop, according to PayTile, would be for the company’s business partners to use the technology to draw a physical crowd to a specific location for promotional purposes, such as selling discounted tickets at an event location or offering rewards to commemorate the opening of a brick-and-mortar business.
Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Fort Lee, New Jersey, Cross River Bank ended 2021 with new collaborations with money movement automation platform Astra and payments firm Payment Approved. With Astra, Cross River Bank will power the first point-to-point debit transfer solution, offering instant payments via API. With Payment Approved, Cross River Bank will provide both the payments and technology infrastructure to support payments via Push-to-Card capabilities with both Mastercard and Visa. Cross River Bank will also serve as the sponsor bank for Payment Approved, providing clearing accounts, FBO management, and merchant acquiring services for the company’s business customers.
In addition to many of the familiar faces who will be returning to London next month for FinovateEurope, this year’s conference also will feature a sizable number of newcomers to the Finovate stage. Here’s a brief introduction and welcome to these FinovateEurope speakers to whet your appetite for what we have in store on both our Digital Kick Off Day of March 15th and during the conference proper on March 22nd and 23rd.
With more than 20 years of experience in advisory services within Swedish bank Handelsbanken, Malin Lignell currently works with the company’s Digitalization and Innovation team to enable greater innovation and focus on the bank’s digitalization journey. Having a keen eye on the way emerging technologies influence customer behavior and drive new business models, Lignell will lead a Fireside Chat as part of FinovateEurope’s Digital Kick Off event on March 15.
Author of The Fifth Industrial Revolution, Inma Martinez will provide FinovateEurope’s Keynote Address on Wednesday, March 23rd. Martinez is a digital pioneer and AI scientist, as well as a member of the Expert Group at The Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), an AI-based initiative sponsored by the OECD and G7. An advisor to business and government leaders on how to turn digital transformation into competitive advantage and contribute to social progress, Martinez will share her insights on creating an exceptional customer experience via UX-led design. Borrowing from the successful experience of technology giants, Martinez will explain how financial institutions can pivot away from a product focus to a customer focus by “unlocking data” and enhancing customer engagement.
Here are some of the other newcomers who will be joining FinovateEurope as part of our Power Panels, roundtables, and Executive Boardroom sessions.
Radboud Vlaar. Founder and Managing Partner at Finch Capital, Vlaar will join our Future of Fintech power panel on our Digital Kick Off, Tuesday, March 15.
Our Executive Boardroom on Financial Inclusion on Tuesday, March 22 will feature five fintech experts, all of whom are newcomers to the Finovate roster.
Anette Broloes. Fintech analyst with Broloes Consult.
Natalie Ledward. Head of Vulnerable Customers, Monzo
Sanghamitra Karra. EMEA Head of Multicultural Client Strategy & Multicultural Innovation Lab at Morgan Stanley
Neha Mehta. Founder of FemTech Partners
Ahmed Karsli. Founder and CEO of Papara
Tuesday will also feature an Executive Boardroom on Financial Crime. Among the new faces on this panel are Jane Barber, Regulatory and Trade Association Lead, NatWest Group; and Nitzan Solomon, Head of Surveillance & Financial Crime Technology EMEA, Nomura.
Wednesday morning will feature a pair of Power Panels with a number of guests who will be appearing on the Finovate stage for the first time. Our panel on achieving digital acceleration includes newcomers Christoffer Malmer, Head of SEBx at SE; Gunter Uytterhoeven, Chief Customer & Innovation Officer at AXA Next; and Carol Hamilton, Senior Vice President of Global Solutions at Provenir. Making their Finovate debuts as part of our panel on fintech collaboration and partnerships are Janine Hirt, CEO of Innovate Finance, and Thea Loch, Head of Strategic Design with Lloyds Banking Group.
FinovateEurope 2022 is right around the corner. If you are an innovative fintech company with new technology to show, then there’s no better time than now and no better forum than FinovateEurope. To learn more about how to demo your latest innovation at FinovateEurope 2022 in London, March 22-23, visit our FinovateEurope hub today!
San Francisco, California-based Banking-as-a-Service company Treasury Primeunveiled its new compliance solution this week. The new offering – a suite of compliance tools, resources, and guidance from regulatory experts – gives fintechs the ability to create and launch their own risk-based compliance programs in a matter of weeks.
The compliance suite has three main components. First is a toolkit that enables firms to customize their compliance program and have more control over the account opening experience. Second, the new offering provides for direct partnerships with bank partners rather than outsourcing compliance to third parties. And, third, Treasury Prime’s compliance suite includes guidance from regulatory experts on key issues such as Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance. Each of these features is tailored to the specific and unique risk profiles of individual fintechs.
Sheetal Parikh, Associate General Counsel and VP of Compliance Solutions for Treasury Prime noted that the rise of stricter compliance standards for fintechs make new compliance solutions for this industry all the more urgently needed. “Regulators now expect fintechs to adhere to the same level of regulatory obligations as banks if they’re going to be offering banking products,” Parikh said. “Our new solution provides fintechs (with) the sophisticated tools and expert guidance needed to quickly build a strong compliance framework that meets the robust compliance standards imposed on banks.”
To facilitate the new compliance offering, Treasury Prime had teamed up with a pair of regtech innovators, Alloy and Unit21. The Alloy partnership will bring compliance and identity management solutions for both KYC and AML via a single API connection. Courtesy of Treasury Prime’s partnership with Unit21, banks and fintechs will be able to deploy pre-configured rule-sets and models to monitor transactions for suspicious activity. Real-time collaborative alert investigation is also a feature of the Unit21 collaboration.
Founded in 2017, Treasury Prime was recognized last fall as “Best Banking-as-a-Service” platform at the Tearsheet Embedded Awards, and named to CB Insights Fintech 250 roster of top fintech startups for 2021. In recent months, the company has partnered with Emprise Bank ($2.3 billion in assets) to help the institution with its new embedded banking initiative. Treasury Prime also teamed up with women-owned Piermont Bank to help early stage startups go live with basic banking services as part of the collaboration’s Quick Start Program.
Treasury Prime has raised more than $31 million in funding according to Crunchbase. The company’s investors include QED Investors, Deciens Capital, Nyca Partners, Pacific Western Bank, Susa Ventures, and Y Combinator, among others. Chris Dean is co-founder and CEO.
Finovate kicks off its African-American History Month commemoration with a conversation with Rodney Williams, co-founder of SoLo Funds. Along with company co-founder Travis Holoway, Williams was named to Cause Artist’s “40 Social Entrepreneurs to Watch for in 2022.”
SoLo Funds is a mobile lending platform that brings borrowers and lenders together for peer-to-peer microloans – with terms set by the borrower. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, SoLo Funds has processed more than 150,000 loans and served more than 400,000 customers since 2018. The company serves as a viable, non-predatory option for the nearly 80% of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck.
Featured in Tech.co’s “Seven Tech Startups to Watch Out for in 2022”, SoLo Funds in December became the only African-American owned fintech to acquire B Corp certification. This designation, granted by global nonprofit network B Lab, is given to companies that achieve a balance between “purpose and profit.” SoLo Funds earned a 10 out of 10 for its impact business model and 4.1 out of 5 for customer stewardship. “By SoLo Funds certifying as a B Corporation, it has met the highest form of verification for its commitment to people and the planet,” B Lab U.S. and Canada Director of Equitable Growth Andy Fyfe said.
We caught up with Rodney Williams to discuss SoLo Funds and its mission to improve the lives of “responsible, yet largely ignored” underbanked individuals and their families.
What problem does SoLo Funds solve and who does it solve it for?
Rodney Williams: SoLo Funds is a solution for anyone who has ever had the need for emergency funds. The unfortunate reality is that more than 6 in 10 adult Americans can’t afford $1,000 for an emergency expense. That’s over 100 million people, and oftentimes, it is our most vulnerable communities who bear this burden. Situations like this are why payday lenders have become some of the most prevalent businesses in the U.S., outnumbering the number of McDonald’s restaurants by a factor of two.
SoLo Funds was created to provide a new opportunity for cash-strapped Americans. As a first-of-its-kind, on-demand marketplace, SoLo puts borrowers in control by allowing them to access emergency funds in an average of 30 minutes. They are entirely in charge of the terms of their loan, including how much to tip lenders and how much to donate to SoLo Funds’ operations – a portion of which now gets reintegrated to communities in need through SoLo Causes.
This is the first time a financial platform has offered borrowers a completely voluntary fee structure. We aim to become the leading financial technology company for underserved communities who have been anchored down and left without options for too long.
What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?
Williams: The inspiration for SoLo Funds grew out of my own and my cofounder Travis Holoway’s personal experiences. There were times where our parents would have an electric bill due on a Friday, but wouldn’t get paid until Monday, so we would have our electricity shut off because we weren’t granted a grace period. Other times, our parents had to decide between paying the bills or paying to fix the tire on the car. Travis and I grew up nearly 400 miles away from each other, but the older I got, the more I realized that these experiences weren’t unique to me.
Communities share a lot of similar qualities, but never has anyone tried to scale a solution for them. This was the inspiration for SoLo Funds, and what gave us the drive to bring the intimate knowledge of our communities to the world of FinTech. What has ensued is a product and solution for everyone.
SoLo Funds recently became the only African-American owned fintech to acquire B Corp certification. What does this achievement mean for SoLo going forward?
Williams: This was a huge milestone for SoLo Funds in its development. B Corp certification represents a balance of profit and values and, as a company working to achieve a more inclusive world, this not only serves as validation that we are doing that, but it also serves as a model. Fintech is not just for corporate bottom lines; it can be a tool that can truly democratize and build generational wealth for people who have been disenfranchised for so long.
Tell us about your favorite feature of SoLo Funds platform/technology.
Williams: As I mentioned, SoLo Funds was born out of lived experiences. This is decades of knowledge poured into a platform that provides a new way for people to learn and better their lives. The most remarkable thing about SoLo Funds is that it bridges the knowledge gap between what people are told about how to manage finances, and what they really should be doing to put themselves in the best financial situation possible. Because borrowers can set their own terms for their loans, they have the power to choose what and when they’ll pay. And we’ve seen tip and donation numbers go down as borrowers progress on the platform and understand what it costs to obtain capital.
SoLo provides an opportunity for people to learn and better their lives. This is a tool that changes peoples’ lives and gives them the ability to do what they want to do. Skills are transferable. SoLo is experiential. Books only get you so far, and there is always risk. Making bad financial decisions is a part of life. If we don’t start to teach the power of financial literacy, people will fail to understand why it’s so important.
You recently announced a partnership with Habitat for Humanity and United Way. How did this partnership come about and what are its goals?
Williams: We launched SoLo Causes to build on our work to serve folks in need. For our corporate philanthropy, we wanted to choose partners that would go out and do good in the communities in which our users live. Our first non-profit partners, United Way and Habitat for Humanity, match our values and impact our users’ communities. The program is dedicated to reintegrating potential profits into the communities that need it most. SoLo has committed that by 2023, 100% of our donation revenue will be distributed to non-profits. Ultimately, the goal is to reinvent how the system works for people. Once someone who lives paycheck to paycheck can stop worrying about paying for their next utility bill or fixing a leak in their home, they can start to build their lives and their wealth.
As a founder, what do you think is the most important factor when it comes to building a strong team?
Williams: A strong team has to be able to complement each other through their strengths, weaknesses, backgrounds, and experiences. This is the key not only to building a strong team but, at SoLo, this also is the key to building a team that provides the best services to our users. We believe that in order to meet our users where they’re at, we have to understand their needs and how they operate. SoLo users come from diverse backgrounds – nearly 60 percent of them identify as a minority, 60 percent report being female, and 40 percent of borrowers are low-income. Too many companies have tried to put these people in a box, forcing top-down approaches that are really the same traditional financial services repackaged. If we don’t create a team that can identify with the lived experiences of these people, then we will ultimately fail as a company trying to help them.
What can we expect from SoLo Funds in 2022?
Williams: SoLo Funds will continue to build a mission-driven business. Our B Corp announcement and the launch of SoLo Causes have solidified our commitment to underserved communities, but it’s just the beginning of what we have to come. We are working on a series of new banking services which we will gradually roll-out. These are meant to offer users the ability to build and sustain credit where they were previously excluded in the traditional financial system. Additionally, we are excited to launch a global mission. The United States isn’t the only place where access to emergency funds is an issue. We plan to launch SoLo Funds in our first global market, increasing financial accessibility for millions.
Canadian fintech TickSmith is ringing in the new year with $20 million in Series A funding. The company will use the additional capital to support marketing of its Data Web Store, a B2B SaaS platform that enables organizations and institutions to generate new revenue streams based on their data.
“Data monetization is no longer limited to large enterprises,” TickSmith CEO Francis Wenzel said. “Selling data should be as simple as selling products in an e-commerce store, and data sellers of all sizes can now benefit from the same tools that power the largest, most robust data marketplaces in the world.”
The Series A was led by Investissement Québec, and featured participation from Fonds de solidarité FTQ, CME Ventures, Databricks Ventures, Anges Québec, Anges Québec Capital, and Illuminate Financial Management. The investment gives the company a total capital of $26.8 million, according to Crunchbase.
Founded in 2012, headquartered in Montreal, Québec, and making its Finovate debut two years later at FinovateFall 2014, TickSmith offers a platform that gives firms the technology they need to prepare, manage, package, and monetize data via private marketplaces. With customers in industries ranging from financial institutions and data providers to exchanges and brokerages, TickSmith helps organizations take advantage of a new world of data types – including alternative data and unstructured data.
The company’s technology also empowers them to enhance and refine existing data, enabling them to offer granular, micro-data services. This, as TickSmith Head of Product Nicolas Doyen, explained in a recent blog post, is allowing data providers to “(offer) more control to the ultimate consumers of their information services.” He added that this “modern approach to the data buying process” not only gives more control to the end-user, but also can help reduce the costs of data by “circumventing the data packaging approach used by traditional data suppliers.”
TickSmith ended 2021 with a collaboration with international cryptocurrency and digital asset technology company BlockFills. Earlier this month, TickSmith announced that IPOhub will use TickSmith’s Data Web Store platform to distribute and securely commercialize SME data from more than 3,000 companies and more than 100 different sources. A pan European investment information platform headquartered in Estonia and founded in 2017, IPOhub is also collaborating with TickSmith and market data specialist EOSE to help take IPOhub data on growth company IPOs to market.
“TickSmith’s technology is making it easy for us to offer our customers a personalized e-commerce data shopping experience with our very own data web store that showcases IPO and European SME data,” IPOhub CEO Silver Laus explained. “Their platform provides an end-to-end data monetization experience and helps us open up an entirely new channel to deliver data to our customers in just a few clicks.”
“White Hat” hacker-based security platform HackerOne – which demonstrated its bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure platform at our developers conference FinDEVr in London in 2017 – has secured $49 million in Series E funding. The round was led by GP Bullhound, and gives the San Francisco, California-based firm nearly $160 million in total funding. Benchmark, NEA, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Valor Equity Partners also participated in the investment. HackerOne will use the capital to support research and development and expand go-to-market operations.
“As attack surfaces grow, so does the gap between what digital assets organizations own and what they can protect,” HackerOne CEO Marten Mickos said. “HackerOne is closing that gap and keeping its customers out of harm’s way in a way that no other mechanism can accomplish.”
Mickos noted that HackerOne has identified more than 17,000 high or critical vulnerabilities for its customers over the past 12 months. He underscored 2021 as an especially challenging year, with the firm’s customers announcing a 97% increase in reports for misconfigurations. Additionally, Mickos said that a growing number of institutions are choosing ethical hackers – such as those provided by HackerOne – to defend their digital attack surfaces and help reveal potential vulnerabilities. Specifically, HackerOne has experienced increased adoption of its HackerOne Assessments, Application Pentest for AWS, which was launched in August, and expanded its Internet Bug Bounty program to include vulnerability management in the open source software supply chain.
HackerOne ended 2021 with the appointment of Chris Evans as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Evans brings years of digital security experience from tenures at Oracle Corporation, Tesla, and Google – where he founded the Google Chrome security team and Google Project Zero security research team – as well as Dropbox, where he was Head of Security.
“All software has security vulnerabilities,” Evans said in a statement. “The only way to outpace the cybercriminals is to enlist the help of external security researchers. Across every industry, we’re seeing the most innovative companies and CISOs embrace ethnical hackers to reduce risk.”
A $260 million Series F funding round has given Brazilian secured lending platform Creditas a valuation of $4.8 billion. The new capital will help the company expand its operations and provide a “one-stop solution for those seeking a digital-first experience in everything related to their houses, cars, motorcycles, and salary-based benefits.”
The round was led by Fidelity Management and Research Company and featured participation from a sizable number of investors including Actyus, Greentrail Capital, QED Investors, VEF, SoftBank Vision Fund 1, SoftBank Latin America Fund, Kaszek Ventures, Lightrock, Headline, Wellington Management, and Advent International by way of its affiliate Sunley House Capital.
The Series F brings Creditas’ total capital raised to $854 million, according to Crunchbase.
Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Creditas announced a significant boost in revenues in the third quarter of 2021 compared to Q3 of 2020 – from $46.8 million to $14 million. Creditas founder and CEO Sergio Furio projects that the company will realize annualized revenues of $200 million for the year that just ended. Creditas also saw its credit portfolio grow from $189.3 million in Q3 2020 to $532 million in Q3 2021.
“We plan to continue growing by nurturing and expanding our ecosystem, such as providing financial solutions to our marketplace customers, launching new products, extending our geographic reach (including our recent successful entry into Mexico and the expansion of our tech hub in Valencia, Spain) and selectively pursuing strategic M&A opportunities,” Furio said in a statement.
Last fall, Creditas announced a partnership with fellow Brazilian fintech – and Finovate alum – Nubank, that will enable Nubank customers to secure loans and other services from the Creditas platform. Months earlier, Creditas acquired used car buying and selling platform Volanty. The move will help buttress Creditas’ automotive division, Creditas Auto. Also last summer, Creditas acquired multi-channel insurance brokerage company Minuto Seguros, which was also part of the company’s project to enhance its auto financing business.
FinovateEurope 2022 is right around the corner. If you are an innovative fintech company with new technology to show, then there’s no better time than now and no better forum than FinovateEurope. To learn more about how to demo your latest innovation at FinovateEurope 2022 in London, March 22-23, visit our FinovateEurope hub today!
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
In a blog post at the Wealthfront website, company CEO David Fortunato called the acquisition a “strategic partnership” that will enable Wealthfront to offer new services and give its customers access to “UBS’s industry-leading investing insights and research.” Fortunato praised UBS’s new CEO Ralph Hamers, who was appointed to the top spot in the fall of 2020, as a “digital native” who has put the digitization of the Swiss-based multinational firm at the top of his agenda. Fortunato noted that Wealthfront will continue to operate as a standalone business under its own brand after the acquisition.
“Rest assured that nothing will change with your account or the cost of our service,” Fortunato wrote to the company’s customers. “We will continue delivering great products and features to you, now at a much faster pace. And you’ll get access to even more research and insights that can empower you as an investor.”
Founded in 2008 – and making its Finovate debut as kaChing a year later – Wealthfront has grown into a leading online automated investing platform with $27 billion under management and more than 470,000 clients in the U.S. Earlier this month, the company announced a trio of updates to its Smart Beta service, a feature of the company’s U.S. Direct Indexing offering that helps investors optimize their allocations to individual stocks. Last fall, Wealthfront unveiled its Socially Responsible Portfolio, which leverages Modern Portfolio Theory to give investors the ability to put their money where their values are while still earning returns comparable to those available in its Classic Portfolio.
“Adding Wealthfront’s capabilities and client base to our global investment ecosystem will significantly boost our ability to grow our business in the U.S.” UBS’s Hamers said in a statement. “Wealthfront compliments our core business in the U.S. providing wealth management to high net worth and ultra high net worth investors through trusted relationships with financial advisors, and will enhance our long-term ambition to deliver a scalable, digital-led wealth management solution to affluent investors.”
