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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
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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.
Password management platform Dashlane is riding the momentum of the $30 million it raised last month. Today, the New York-based company more than tripled its last investment, pulling in a $110 million Series D round.
The investment also more than doubles Dashlane’s previous funding total, boosting it to $211 million. Sequoia Capital led the round, with existing investors Rho Ventures, FirstMark Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners also participating.
However, as CEO Emmanuel Schalit made clear in a blog post, “Dashlane’s ultimate success will not be measured by how much money we raise, but by our ability to empower people and businesses around the world to take control of their digital lives.” Dashlane is best known for its B2C offering that autogenerates secure passwords, as well as its form auto-filling function and digital wallet that securely stores users’ credit card information for fast online purchases. The company will use today’s investment to enhance its core product, add new capabilities, and build its brand to become synonymous with password security.
Schalit said that Dashlane is only “scratching the surface” of securing digital identities. “Billions of people and millions of businesses around the world feel the pain of digital identity – from breaches to stolen identities and the nuisance of remembering passwords. Few are even aware that there is a better way, and we are going to change that,” he said.
In addition to its B2C offerings, Dashlane also provides solutions that help businesses seamlessly onboard staff with new accounts, and has a partner program to allow brands to co-brand Dashlane’s identity manager as a service. The company’s partners include Visa, Intel, and yubico.
“While most people are not aware of the magnitude of these issues, an entire economy is booming and growing in sophistication around harvesting and weaponizing stolen credentials, with participation from nation-states and cybercriminals,” said Sequoia Partner Jim Goetz, who will join the company’s board of directors. “We believe this category has the potential to one day surpass anti-virus in size, and we are excited to partner with the emerging market leader as they create and grow the category.”
Dashlane also announced it has recruited Joy Howard (pictured), former CMO at Lyft, as its Chief Marketing Officer. Howard, who is slated to begin her role at Dashlane in August, will oversee the company’s global marketing initiatives. She brings to Dashlane her experience gained from leadership positions at Sonos, Patagonia, Nike, and Coca-Cola.
Since it was founded in 2009, Dashlane has amassed 11+ million users from 180 countries across the globe. The company demoed its password manager and keyboard-less ecommerce transaction technology at FinovateEurope 2013.
Plaid, a provider of APIs for financial infrastructure, announced its expansion into the U.K. this week. The move makes a lot of sense– an open banking fintech is launching in the motherland of open banking.
“We’re building a financial network that will deliver on the promise of open banking with the best in both local expertise and global opportunity,” Keith Grose, International Lead at Plaid said in a blog post.
The U.K. is Plaid’s second international market after launching in Canada last year. The expansion overseas initiates the San Francisco-based company’s more comprehensive launch into Europe as a whole.
Plaid elected to launch in the U.K. because, as some have argued, the region is the fintech capital of the globe. More than 1,600 fintech companies have come out of the U.K. and that number is projected to double in the next ten years.
Today’s news is as much about Plaid launching in the U.K. as it is about opening up the possibility for its client applications to do business in the region, as well. Venmo, Robinhood, Coinbase and Acorns all use Plaid to connect to their customers’ U.S. bank accounts, and can now more easily expand into Europe using existing integrations.
Plaid, which was granted its AISP license from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority last October, currently offers five of its products in the U.K.:
Auth, an account authentication tool
Balance, which pulls account balance information in real-time
Identity, which leverages bank data to verify consumer identity
Transactions, which pulls bank statement data across banks
Assets, a verification of assets tool
Missing from this list is Plaid’s Income product, a tool that validates a consumer’s income and verifies direct deposit data.
At FinDEVr San Fransisco 2014, the company’s founder, Zach Perret gave a presentation about leveraging the Plaid API for financial infrastructure. Plaid has raised $310 million since it was founded in 2013. After the company’s most recent investment last year, TechCrunch estimated Plaid to be valued at $2.65 billion.
Plaid began 2019 by acquiring its competitor Quovo in a $200 million deal. At FinovateSpring earlier this month bill payment platform doxoannounced it is leveraging Plaid to bring customers overdraft protection when paying their bills online. And last week, Plaid unveiled Plaid Direct, a lightweight integration that makes banks and fintechs a data source in the Plaid network, allowing end customers to enjoy open banking connectivity across financial service providers.
Biometric authentication specialist Fortress Identity has partnered with Visa this week. Under the agreement, Visa cardholders in Latin America and the Caribbean will have their transactions protected by means of Fortress Identity’s biometric technologies.
Fortress Identity will use voice prints, phone codes, as well as active and passive biometrics to authenticate users. “We want Visa cardholders to feel absolutely confident that their funds and personal data are safe whenever and wherever they use their Visa cards,” said Fortress Identity CEO Alessandro Chiarini.
“Multi-factor user authentication is critical in today’s interconnected commerce space, and verifying the identity of people attempting to access the network is key to reducing many types of fraud, including chargebacks,” said Eduardo Perez, SVP and Risk Officer for Visa Latin America and the Caribbean.
Fortress Identity will also collaborate with Visa technology partners including YellowPepper, a payment platform provider; NovoPayment, a banking as a service platform; and HST, an EMV vendor.
Founded in 2015, Fortress Identity leverages a suite of biometrics technologies to protect users in mobile iOS and Android applications, Microsoft Active Directory environments, and Citrix applications. The Miami, Florida-based company demoed its active and passive biometrics technology earlier this month at FinovateSpring. Fortress Identity has eight employees and has raised $3 million.
Global Treasure Bank (GTB) in Myanmar has implemented Infosys Finacle’score banking solution to power its retail and corporate operations, reports Jane Connolly of Fintech Futures, Finovate’s sister publication.
Finacle is understood to have replaced the Kastle core banking system from another India-based vendor, 3i Infotech.
Since the implementation, the bank says it has signed up nearly 75,000 new accounts of various types, with each onboarding process taking just minutes. It has also seen improved control and productivity in its 163 branches, thanks to built-in workflow engines.
GTB is now processing an average 300,000 mixed transactions per day and is benefiting from the “360-degree view of customer relationships and transactions” that Finacle provides.
“For over two decades, GTB has stayed true to our mission of comprehensive economic development of Myanmar through reliable, inclusive and convenient banking services,” said U KoKo Aung, CEO of GTB. “Today, to continue to abide by this commitment in an increasingly complex regulatory and competitive environment, we felt the need for a modern platform to power our banking strategy.”
Venkatramana Gosavi, senior vice-president and global head of sales at Infosys Finacle stated that the Myanmar banking industry is undergoing a transformation.
He added, “With Finacle, GTB has gained a strong foundation to boost agility and efficiency of operations, and significantly improve customer experience across channels.”
The implementation process was aided by ACE Data Systems, Finacle’s business partner in Myanmar.
Finacle, part of EdgeVerve Systems, a subsidiary of Infosys, showcased EdgeVerve Blockchain Framework for Financial Services at FinovateEurope 2017. At the start of 2018 Infosys teamed up with Tradeshift to help clients digitize supply chain management. At the start of this year, the company partnered with Qatar National Bank.
Banking technology vendor Temenos is partnering with UBX to deliver digital banking to millions of unbanked and underserved customers in the Philippines, reports Jane Connolly of Fintech Futures, Finovate’s sister publication.
The fintech subsidiary of UnionBank of the Philippines, UBX has developed a range of plug-and-play services to help rural banks reach customers in remote communities.
These include the blockchain-based i2i turnkey solution, which connects rural banks to each other and to the Philippines’ main financial networks.
Having partnered with Temenos, UBX can now offer core banking software to its partner financial institutions, through Temenos T24 Transact.
Temenos says its cloud-native, cloud-agnostic, API-first banking software will provide greater levels of agility and scalability for rural banks, cooperatives and microfinance institutions.
“At UBX, our mission is to build platforms that bring businesses and people together,” says John Januszczak, CEO of UBX. “As part of that, we provide access to needed technology and services while connecting communities.
“The rural banking community in the Philippines has been championing financial inclusion for decades. Temenos will help us provide the most tailored, innovative and advanced core banking solution to our rural banking customers.”
The partnership aims to deliver digital banking to millions of people over the next five years.
Founded in 1993, Temenos debuted its Connect Mobile Banking application at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. With clients in 145+ countries, Temenos employs more than 4,600 people in 63 offices. The company has a market capitalization of $12.5 billion.
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.
Subscription management tool for online banks Minna Technologies just announced it has received a $6.3 million (€5.6 million) investment, bringing its total funding to almost $9 million.
Zenith Group led the round, followed by Visa and existing investor Swedbank. Minna will use the funds to increase its presence in Europe. To support these plans, the company will bolster its team and open a new office in Europe.
“This investment round makes it possible for us to scale up and execute on our European expansion plans. As many European banks have started to embrace FinTech partnerships, we have seen a dramatic increase in the interest of our subscription management platform,” said Minna CEO and Cofounder Joakim Sjöblom. “Our current bank partnerships have proved that subscription management is well received by banking customers and that it is an essential part of digital banking.”
Founded in 2014, Minna originally began as a consumer-facing app for subscription management, then launched as a bank-integrated platform in 2016. Since then, the company has helped consumers save more than $33.5 million in unwanted subscriptions. The company is partnered with several top-tier banks across Europe, including Swedbank and Danske bank, and has a pilot agreement with OP bank.
Sjöblom demoed Minna at FinovateEurope 2019 in London. The company is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden and has 34 employees. In 2017, the company’s revenues totaled $536,000.
International payments platform Currencycloudannounced this week it has teamed up with WireBarley to fuel the Seoul-based company’s international growth.
WireBarley, an AsiaPac remittance services company, has expanded its services from Asia to Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. Today, with the support of Currencycloud, WireBarley will provide cross-border remittance services to the U.S. market.
Currencycloud offers APIs to help businesses accept, pay, and convert foreign currencies while managing balances, notifications, permissions, and reporting. The company’s clients, which include fellow Finovate alums Azimo, Klarna, Revolut, and Fidor, can make domestic and international payments in 35 currencies to 180+ countries.
Founded in 2012 and headquartered in London, Currencycloud has raised just over $68 million in eight rounds of funding. The company most recently appeard at FinovateFall 2016 where it debuted its Payment Engine.
Dwolla introduces Labels to helpapplication owners customize how funds are allocated.
AkamailaunchesEnterprise Defender to help customers secure all enterprise applications and users.
Kabbage to power loans for Azlo small business clients.
Lighter Capital has financed more than $150 million in 500+ rounds of revenue-based financing to over 300 startups.
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.
Natural language generation (NLG) expert Yseopteamed up with technology consulting and digital solutions company Larsen & Toubro Infotech (LTI).
Yseop CEO Emmanuel Walckenaer said that the deal “significantly advances” the company’s NLG efforts while expanding its global reach.
Founded in 1997 as a subsidiary of India-based Larsen & Toubro Limited, LTI has operations in more than 30 countries. Through today’s partnership, LTI will provide Yseop’s NLG technology as part of its global project delivery services, offering the intelligent automation solution to more than 300 clients.
Harsh Naidu, Chief Business Officer of Banking and Financial Services at LTI said, “We are excited to partner with YSEOP to foster NLG adoption across a wide spectrum of use cases in banking, financial services, and other sectors. Our customers demand unprecedented experience of intelligent automation which we will be able to deliver by leveraging YSEOP’s unique NLG approach.”
Paris, France-based Yseop offers an AI platform that powers human-like interactions in customer support, sales, and reporting applications. The company demoed its Augmented Analyst last week at FinovateSpring. The demo video will be available soon.
Previously, Yseop demonstrated its business intelligence solution that turns data into written reports at FinovateFall 2015. The company has raised $3.4 million since it was founded 2007. Last month, Yseop announced that the solution it created for Société Générale won the award for most innovative initiative of the year at the 2019 Digital Finance Awards.
Risk management and credit reporting agency TransUnion is boosting its marketing expertise this week with the acquisition of TruSignal. Financial terms of the deal, which marks TransUnion’s 15th acquisition, were undisclosed.
TruSignal is a target marketing specialist that offers businesses optimization, monetization, and targeting solutions that leverage AI-powered predictive scoring. TransUnion said that combining TruSignal’s capabilities with its in-house technology will help it operate at scale while still allowing people to have personalized interactions with companies in real-time.
TransUnion President and CEO Chris Cartwright said that TruSignal’s marketing solutions will allow the firm to “rapidly and flexibly serve the evolving digital marketing ecosystem.” Matt Spiegel, EVP of digital marketing solutions and head of media at TransUnion added, “Our history of leveraging data to develop rich insights and products, combined with TruSignal’s industry-leading rapid modeling and technology platform, has the potential to be a critical part of shaping the future of the industry and how consumers will experience the brands they engage with.”
Having access to TruSignal’s technology will help TransUnion enhance its marketing products, building on the partnership the company formed last month with Tru Optik. TransUnion’s marketing offerings currently include audience segmentation for digital marketing, customer acquisition, and customer engagement tools.
Founded in 1968, TransUnion has office locations at its headquarters in Chicago, as well as in Hong Kong, Mumbai, Toronto, Johannesburg, Colombia, and Brazil. At FinovateFall 2016, TransUnion showcased Prama, a suite of analytics tools that helps lenders gain market intelligence and act on insights to drive growth and build a risk policy. TransUnion is a public company with a market capitalization of $12.3 billion, trading on the NYSE under the ticker “TRU.”
Last month the company led a $24 million funding round for digital identity authentication provider Payfone. A few days prior to that announcement, TransUnion completed the sale of U.K. credit reporting service Noddle to fellow Finovate alum Credit Karma.