Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

A Peek at FinovateFall in Full Force

A Peek at FinovateFall in Full Force
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2018, FinovateFall 2018 Sneak Peek

We may have reached peak summer heat, but it’s time to leave vacation-mode behind and start preparing for FinovateFall, which is coming up next month on September 24 through 27* at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in New York.

Last month, we announced the 80 presenting companies that will demo their new technologies and this month we’re finalizing the agenda for the discussion day that will take place the day after the demos. Register today to secure special discounts.

Your sneak peek into the demos

Now that the groundwork has been laid, the real fun begins. Starting next week, we’ll take a company-by-company look at each upcoming demo via our Sneak Peek series. In the weeks leading up to FinovateFall, we’ll reveal what each company plans to demo and why it’s worth paying attention to.

The blog will also highlight notable speakers, keynote addresses, and discussion day panel highlights in the coming weeks.

For more details on FinovateFall, view the list of demoing companies, check out the full speaker lineup, and plan your visit. Have questions? Send us your inquiry and we’ll respond as soon as possible.

*The general conference will take place on September 24 through 26. We’re hosting a separate summit session, not covered with a general admission ticket, that will take place on September 27.

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Behalf Brings in Funding from Visa

Behalf Brings in Funding from Visa
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Behalf, Funding, VISA

Alternative small business lending platform Behalf has benefitted from its ties with Visa this week. The New York and Israeli-based company announced it landed an undisclosed amount of funding from the payments giant, marking Visa’s first investment in an Israeli company.

The investment will be added to Behalf’s previous total funding of $306 million in combined debt and equity. As part of today’s deal, Visa will have access to Behalf’s small business clients to market its tokenized Visa Virtual Card, a payment solution that offers businesses instant financing for business purchases. Visa will begin marketing the card in the U.S. and expand to more markets later this year.

“Our network of B2B merchants can fit Behalf seamlessly into their eCommerce flow, receive payment immediately and provide their business customers with more buying power and flexible payment options at checkout,” said Benjy Feinberg, Behalf CEO. “We are proud to partner with Visa with the goal of making purchases easier.”

The partnership is part of Visa’s strategy to promote its products through collaborations with startups and fits with the company’s commitment to invest up to $100 million in fintechs. Shahar Friedman, acting general manager for Visa in Israel, described small businesses as being “the backbone” of the global economy. “This partnership is a result of a close collaboration between the Visa Innovation Studio Tel Aviv and the dynamic Israeli start-up ecosystem to bring the power of the VisaNet global network to promising young companies in Israel such as Behalf,” he added.

Founded in 2012, Behalf offers short-term purchase financing for small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Unlike other alternative SMB lenders such as Kabbage or OnDeck, Behalf does not issue funds directly to the SMB. Instead, the startup pays the small business’ vendors on the SMB’s behalf. Having flexibility in repaying their suppliers helps merchants increase their production and ultimately grow their business.

Feinberg showcased Behalf’s vendor payment platform at FinovateFall 2014. Since then, the company has partnered with FinWise bank to offer SMB clients a broader range of financing solutions and, earlier this year, secured $150 million in debt financing.

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DriveWealth and Bambu Join Forces on Roboadvisory Tool

DriveWealth and Bambu Join Forces on Roboadvisory Tool
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Bambu, DriveWealth

Two wealthtech companies from opposite sides of the globe have built upon their partnership this week. New Jersey-based DriveWealth and Singapore-based Bambu have collaborated on the launch of a white-label, roboadvisory platform for U.S. wealth managers.

While the two have worked together for the past three years on products for overseas markets, this is their first joint offering in the U.S. Robert Cortright, DriveWealth CEO, described the new platform as “a streamlined product for wealth managers seeking to offer a unique, easy-to-use investing platform directly to their retail customers.”

The solution is the result of an integration between DriveWealth’s suite of wealth management APIs, which facilitate everything from customer onboarding to U.S. stock market ordering and reporting; and Bambu’s roboadvisory software, which automates financial planning, saving, and investing for end consumers. More simply, the new offering pairs DriveWealth’s fractional share technology with Bambu’s front-end user interface.

The new platform has three major components:

  • An advisor dashboard that provides an overview of client activities and alerts, and tracks invested capital and cash balances.
  • A CIO dashboard with portfolio-building capabilities that assist in simulating, creating, and rebalancing portfolios.
  • A client application that allows them to adjust investment goals, access investments, and perform investment analyses.

Ned Phillips, CEO of Bambu said, “We are confident that this end-to-end service for financial institutions in the U.S. will be a game changer in simplifying investing.”

Founded in 2012, DriveWealth’s clients include MoneyLion, a lending and wealth management app, and INVSTR, a U.K.-based stock trading application. At FinovateAsia 2016, the company released a new API to enable partners to offer a roboadvisory product suite and a self-directed equity investing platform. Earlier this year, DriveWealth closed a $21 million investment, bringing its total funding to $30 million.

At FinovateAsia 2017, Bambu won Best of Show for its demo of People Like Me, a tool that leverages machine learning to help users define their financial goals. Last month, the company raised $3 million in funding and earlier this year it expanded into London.

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Blend Launches Insurance Agency

Blend Launches Insurance Agency
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Blend

Mortgagetech company Blend is venturing into insurance. The San Francisco-based company launched Blend Insurance Agency, an extension of its digital mortgage platform that offers borrowers a range of options for homeowners insurance.

Homeowners insurance is required to be in place before the borrower closes on their home, and since Blend already has data about the home, borrower, and loan on file, the company is in a unique position to offer a streamlined application process. Blend said that offering insurance felt like a “natural extension” of its mission to bring transparency into the home buying process.

“We see our new insurance agency as an exciting step forward to further remove friction from the home buying process and improve customer satisfaction. We believe it will be better for our lenders, their borrowers, and the insurance providers we work with and will help to make the process of buying a home a little less daunting,” said Greg Isaacs, an insurtech expert Blend hired earlier this year to launch Blend Insurance Agency.

To support this new offering, Blend is building an office in Los Angeles that will be staffed with insurance professionals able to help borrowers find a product that fits their needs. At launch, the company has partnered with six U.S. insurance providers, including MetLife, Stillwater Insurance, and Swyfft, with plans to add more. The insurance option is presented to the borrower early on in the home buying process to offer them plenty of time to shop and to give loan processors time to verify insurance before closing the loan. Having more time on the front-end of the process helps the loan close faster.

Blend demoed its data-driven mortgage at FinovateSpring 2016. Earlier this year, Blend teamed up with Ellie Mae to leverage Ellie Mae’s electronic disclosure delivery. And in June, the company introduced Blend Vision, an advanced OCR solution with built-in quality control. Blend’s most recent round of funding brought its total capital to more than $160 million. Nima Ghamsari is CEO and co-founder.

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TransUnion Teams Up with EXL for CECL Compliance

TransUnion Teams Up with EXL for CECL Compliance
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: TransUnion

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Credit reporting agency and risk solutions provider TransUnion is taking steps to help lenders to comply with the new Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) accounting rule. The company is partnering with operations management and analytics company EXL to facilitate the change.

The partnership will allow TransUnion to create a CECL Credit Loss Calculator to help lenders forecast losses under CECL, since the new guidelines change the methodology used to calculate loan loss allowances. The tool combines EXL’s analytics capabilities with TransUnion’s de-personalized credit data to create a platform that complies with all CECL reporting guidelines, which alter how banks calculate loan loss.

“Many players in the industry are describing CECL as the biggest change to bank accounting standards in years,” said Jason Laky, SVP and consumer lending business leader at TransUnion. “While large banks have more resources at their disposal to adapt, we believe the majority of small to mid-sized lenders will not have the ability or capacity to comply internally and may face challenges as they prepare for the rollout of this new rule.”

Using the Credit Loss Calculator, lenders can leverage their own portfolio data or automatically import data reported by TransUnion. The tool allows lenders to adjust for macroeconomic scenarios, apply overlays, and adjust the models for different credit products, including mortgages, auto loans, and revolving credit.

Founded in 1968, TransUnion is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois with office locations 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 acts on insights to drive growth and build a risk policy. Last month, the company acquired device intelligence firm iovation. TransUnion is a public company with a market capitalization of $13.4 billion, trading on the NYSE under the ticker “TRU.”

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Crypterium Releases Crypto-Fiat Solution

Crypterium Releases Crypto-Fiat Solution
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Crypterium

Crypterium, a company that turns cryptocurrencies into fiat money, launched an update to its first crypto-fiat solution today with a tool that allows users to top up their mobile phone balance.

The company’s mobile app, which launched in the Apple App and Google Play stores in March, aims to leverage existing in-store payment infrastructure, such as NFC terminals and QR code readers, to allow users to make instant payments in cryptocurrency with their smartphone. The company sees today’s development as a first step in that direction; it allows the nearly 3.5 billion prepaid mobile users across the globe to use their bitcoin balance to instantly top-up the balance on their mobile phone account.

To top up their account, consumers open the Crypterium app, enter their phone number, select the amount, and pay with bitcoin. The payment clears as soon as the bitcoin transaction settles. Users can also top up phone accounts of friends and family across the globe.

Because this is the first Crypterium app feature to implement a crypto-fiat solution, it is also the first to use Crypterium’s CRPT token, a cryptocurrency that is used as a fee payment device for transactions. The company describes CRPT as the “fuel required to power each transaction.” For each crypto-fiat payment, Crypterium’s smart contract technology charges 0.5% of the transaction value in CRPT.

Crypterium is headquartered in Estonia and first listed its CRPT tokens on the HitBTC exchange in March. In May, the company appointed former CEO of Visa U.K., Marc O’Brien, as CEO. In addition to unveiling its newest offering at FinovateFall next month, Crypterium also plans to release its first IBAN solution, NFC payment solution, and release new crypto-fiat capabilities.

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Swych Expands Global Reach

Swych Expands Global Reach
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Swych

Blockchain-based digital gifting platform Swych has taken one more step to “gifting without borders.” The Texas-based company announced it is leveraging its recent acquisition of GiftCardsIndia to facilitate cross-border gifting.

With the new integration of the recently-purchased platform, U.S. users can now send digital gift cards to friends and family in India in real time. Swych offers gifting options for hundreds of big-name, local retailers including Big Bazaar, Flipkart, and Myntra.

This move is the company’s first foray into the international market and another step toward its goal “to facilitate mobile gifting for users across borders worldwide.” CEO and Founder of Swych, Deepak Jain, said, “By launching GiftCardsIndia.com in the U.S., we are addressing a large market demand from the Indian diaspora here. Now anyone can easily send their favorite gift card from their mobile phone to their loved one’s mobile phone in India.”

Founded in 2016, Swych leverages the blockchain to provide an instant, secure, and scalable way for individuals and corporations to send gifts and incentives in the form of a gift card. When the recipient is notified of the gift, they can use the Swych platform to change the gift card to a merchant of their choosing and in their preferred currency. In some cases, the user even benefits from a discount or reward that a merchant offers for switching their gift card over to a different brand.

“Existing cross-border gifting options are either costly or inefficient,” Jain explained. “When sending cross-border gifts, consumers and businesses need to manage liability, foreign exchange and customs, as well as regulatory and compliance issues which are complex and time consuming. We’re proud to offer our users a convenient, secure, and fee-free alternative to this emerging ecosystem, all while simultaneously working to facilitate ease of accordance with changing regulatory and compliance requirements.”

At FinovateSpring earlier this year, Swych demonstrated how it facilitates cross-border money transfers using its digital gifting platform in a presentation that won the company Best of Show. With 50+ employees, Swych boasts 50,000 registered users in the U.S., 100,000 users in India, and more than 50 corporate customers. Last fall, the company launched a new set of multi-currency, themed gifting options.

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NestReady Collaborates with Alterna Savings on Home Buying Solution

NestReady Collaborates with Alterna Savings on Home Buying Solution
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: NestReady

NestReady, a startup aiming to simplify the home buying process, announced this week it has teamed up with Alterna Savings to help the credit union’s clients find their new home. The move comes about a year after NestReady finalized a partnership with Alterna Savings’ wholly-owned subsidiary, Alterna Bank.

Through the partnership, the NestReady platform will be available on Alterna Savings’ website, allowing its 158,000 members to find properties that match their search criteria. The integration of NestReady with Alterna Savings offers a holistic platform that lets users scan the real estate market, save their favorites, connect with local agents, and finance the home.

Rob Paterson, Alterna Savings president and CEO said, “Thanks to our partnership with NestReady, we’re empowering today’s homebuyers who use the internet as their primary resource to search for their dream home… Our members can now use NestReady’s new homebuying tool.”

Founded in 2012 as Navut, NestReady pivoted in 2017 to broaden its focus from neighborhood data provider to a more robust property search platform. The company has raised $2 million in funding. NestReady will showcase its newest offering for banks at FinovateFall next month. Register today to save your seat.

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Xero Buys Paperless Accounting Firm Hubdoc

Xero Buys Paperless Accounting Firm Hubdoc
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Mergers & Acquisitions, Xero

Cloud accounting platform Xero claimed today that “business has never been so beautiful.” That’s because the New Zealand-based company made its second acquisition, purchasing Hubdoc, an application that helps accountants and bookkeepers capture and maintain documents online.

Xero, which has always sought to improve the lives of accountants and bookkeepers, said the purchase helps them “focus their efforts on making sense of a small business’ financial data – not collecting it.” Hubdoc will help Xero bolster its machine learning models, serve customers who have no direct data connection, and increase its presence in Canada via Hubdoc’s Toronto roots.

Here’s how the integration of the two technologies works: first, Hubdoc automatically gathers financial documents from 700+ billers, extracts the financial data, and syncs the data into Xero. Then, Xero automatically matches data imported from Hubdoc with bank feed transactions to keep clients’ books up-to-date. All of this data is verified with the source document, which clients and accountants can easily search.

The Hubdoc team, which is located in offices across Australia, the U.K., and Canada, will work independently on a standalone basis until Xero forms an integration plan. The terms of the acquisition were undisclosed.

Xero most recently presented at FinDEVr San Francisco 2014 when the company’s Head of U.S. Partnerships David Pollock spoke about building an API-driven ecosystem for small businesses. At FinovateSpring 2011, CEO Rod Drury debuted the company’s Business Identification solution. Last month, Xero signed a strategic alliance with fellow Finovate alum Gusto, allowing Xero to provide full-service payroll in the U.S. And earlier this spring, Xero launched Connected Accounting, a set of new features designed to automate daily business tasks.

Founded in 2006, Xero listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange in 2007 and the Australian Securities Exchange in 2012. The company has raised more than $319 million (NZ$470 million) in funding, including $1.4 million pre-IPO; $10.2 million at its IPO; and follow-on rounds from investors including Peter Thiel, Matrix Capital Management, and Accel Partners. More than 1 million subscribers in 180+ countries use Xero.

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Entrust Datacard Acquires SMS Passcode

Entrust Datacard Acquires SMS Passcode
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Entrust Datacard, Mergers & Acquisitions

Identity authentication and secure card issuance company Entrust Datacard announced it purchased SMS Passcode from CensorNet, a cloud security company. Additionally, Entrust Datacard made a strategic investment of an undisclosed amount in CensorNet. Terms of both the investment and the acquisition remain undisclosed.

With the acquisition of Copenhagen-based SMS Passcode, an adaptive multi-factor authentication technology solution, Entrust Datacard hopes to further establish itself in the authentication space while expanding its global footprint throughout DACH/Benelux and The Nordics. The company will integrate the new technology with its IntelliTrust SaaS authentication tool, a solution launched last year that removes friction for users and provides strong protection for data, apps, and networks.

Regarding the purchase, Ed Macnair, CensorNet CEO said, “The acquisition of SMS Passcode will benefit the broader IAM market as well as SMS Passcode customers, and this new relationship will continue serving customers as Entrust Datacard builds upon existing partnerships and enhances our USS offering.”

Collaborating with CensorNet on its USS platform, which offers a cloud access security broker, multi-factor authentication, and web and email security, will help Entrust Datacard bolster new offerings across authentication, PKI and SSL. Specifically, Entrust Datacard will leverage the strategic partnership to enhance its Authentication Insight Engine by providing faster authentication decisioning.

“Identity-centric data analysis is in CensorNet’s DNA, and identity assurance capabilities in ours,” said Todd Wilkinson, president and CEO for Entrust Datacard. “This new relationship and investment in CensorNet presents opportunities for collaboration to enhance both companies’ offerings and re-shape the market together.”

Entrust Datacard was founded in 1969 and presented at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016. Jason Soroko, Security Technologies Manager, and Matt Rose, Technical Sales Consultant, spoke to the audience of developers on Safeguarding Your Banking Applications. Earlier this week, Entrust Datacard unveiled TruCredential 7.5, software that enables tablet and mobile-based capture and issuance of ID cards.

With 2,200 employees in 34 locations across the globe, Entrust Datacard is a privately held company headquartered in Shakopee, Minnesota. The company issues 10 million+ identity and payment credentials daily and manages billions of transactions on an annual basis.

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Gusto Brings in $140 Million, Doubling Valuation to $2 Billion

Gusto Brings in $140 Million, Doubling Valuation to $2 Billion
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Gusto

Payroll, benefits, and HR platform Gusto broadcast some news today with, well… gusto. The San Francisco-based company closed $140 million in Series C funding.

This brings Gusto’s total amount raised to $310 million and boosts its valuation to almost $2 billion. Joining existing investors in the round are MSD Capital (Michael Dell), portfolios managed by T. Rowe Price Associates, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Y Combinator Continuity Fund.

Josh Reeves, Gusto CEO and co-founder, said that the new investors share the company’s passion for “creating a world where work empowers a better life.” He added, “We chose these investors because they care about enabling small businesses with modern payroll, benefits and HR. There are millions of companies out there to help, and this is a long-term journey for us. We’re just getting started.”

Gusto will use the investment to enhance its payroll, benefits, and HR technology to add more direct-to-employee benefits that allow employees to manage how and when they get paid. The company recently unveiled a development along these lines with the launch of Flexible Pay, a solution that allows workers to choose a payday that works best for their cashflow situation, outside of their employer’s standard payroll schedule.

Henry Ellenbogen, T. Rowe Price New Horizons Fund portfolio manager, noted that Gusto’s expertise isn’t just limited to payroll. “We believe Gusto has an opportunity beyond the payroll category in which they have demonstrated leadership for the last six years,” He said. “The company has a strong and focused management team, and it has the potential to become much larger as it expands its efforts to employees who seek to improve their financial mobility and achieve greater personal prosperity.”

Gusto, which launched in 2012 under the name ZenPayroll and showcased its flagship payroll solution at FinovateSpring 2014, has been busy lately. Not only has the company expanded its client base to serve more than one percent of all employers in the U.S., the company also paired up with Xero earlier this month and in June launched a directory of accounting firms suitable for small and medium-sized businesses.

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AlphaPoint to Power DCEX, an XRP-Based Currency Exchange

AlphaPoint to Power DCEX, an XRP-Based Currency Exchange
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: AlphaPoint

Digital asset exchange platform AlphaPoint announced today it will power DCEX, a digital currency exchange platform powered by AlphaPoint’s blockchain technology.

DCEX will serve as a digital currency exchange for retail and institutional investors and is using Ripple’s digital currency, XRP, as its base currency. This move makes DCEX the first marketplace to use XRP exclusively. At launch, the exchange allows users to trade in 15 coin pairs, including the most popular currencies, Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum. The exchange plans to add more pairs later this year.

Features of the exchange include:

  • Conduct high-speed transfers between exchanges
  • Designed to facilitate up to one million transactions per second
  • Connect to APIs to facilitate high frequency crypto trading
  • Move XRP between DCEX and other marketplaces at a low cost

In a blog post announcement on Medium, Salil Donde, AlphaPoint CEO said, “We, as founders, have been in the crypto space since its inception… At DCEX we firmly believe that a true industry leader must be unrivaled in every element of the service it offers. We offer the excitement of trading, and provide you with the means to navigate the uncharted waters of cryptocurrency trading.”

The exchange will begin trading in a couple of weeks, but users can sign up for early access.

Founded in 2013, AlphaPoint powers digital asset networks and maintains the AlphaPoint Distributed Ledger Platform (ADLP), the platform on which the asset issuance and custody solution is based. The ADLP interoperates with more than 20 ledger technologies. At FinovateFall 2017, the company showcased the ADLP Reconciliation Platform, which combines blockchain-based asymmetric access controls and machine-enforced domain compliance for order management and other activities. The Reconciliation Platform reduces time and cost associated with manual, post-trade reconciliation processes.

In June of this year, AlphaPoint raised $15 million in funding, bringing its total capital to $16.6 million. Last week, the company appointed Kristin Boggiano as Chief Legal Officer.

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