Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

Signifyd Takes in $100 Million in Series D Funding

Signifyd Takes in $100 Million in Series D Funding
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Signifyd

Ecommerce fraud protection provider Signifyd has more than doubled its financing total with a new round of funding today. The company just closed a $100 million Series D round, bringing its total to $187 million.

Leading the round is Premji Invest, with participation from existing investors Bain Capital Ventures, Menlo Ventures, American Express Ventures, IA Ventures, Allegis Cyber, and Resolute Ventures. Signifyd will use the new capital to grow its retail customers.

“Premji invests in private companies with all the necessary ingredients to become thriving stand-alone public companies,” said Sandesh Patnam, lead partner at Premji Invest. He added that his firm is impressed with Signifyd’s growth, company culture, and the breadth of its customers. “More than that,” Patnam continued, “it comes down to the high quality of Signifyd’s innovation and technology. It couldn’t be clearer that guaranteed fraud protection is reaching mainstream adoption, and Signifyd is leading this space.”

Founded in 2011, Signifyd offers fraud protection for ecommerce merchants using technology that leverages machine learning algorithms, user behavior, and data science to identify fraudulent orders. Signifyd reduces merchant chargebacks on fraudulent charges, as well as saves companies money on shipping declined orders. In one case study, the company helped a major retailer realize a return on investment of 3.8 times over three years. Signifyd currently serves 10,000 retailers across the globe including top brands such as Build.com, Helly Hansen, iRobot, Jet, Lacoste, and Wayfair.

Signifyd demoed its chargeback mitigation solution at FinovateSpring 2013. Last month, the company opened its first European office in Spain following a partnership with Magento in February. Signifyd has been named on the Forbes FinTech 50 and was listed among Bloomberg’s 50 Most Promising Startups. Additionally, it has been named a top place to work by Entrepreneur, Inc. Magazine, San Francisco Business Times, and the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

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VASCO Rebrands as OneSpan to Focus on Secure Onboarding

VASCO Rebrands as OneSpan to Focus on Secure Onboarding
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Mergers & Acquisitions, OneSpan, VASCO

Business solutions company VASCO is making a major pivot today, along with a fully-fledged rebrand, as well as an acquisition to support the company’s new objectives.

VASCO, now known as OneSpan, has narrowed its focus to become an anti-fraud platform. OneSpan will trade on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “OSPN.” It is expected to begin trading on Monday, June 4.

OneSpan offers a Trusted Identity platform (TID), an API-based solution that aims to reduce fraud associated with onboarding and transactions while offering an enhanced experience for the end user. TID’s new Intelligent Adaptive Authentication reviews and scores data pulled from user behavior, devices, and transactions to offer a real-time view of user security without interfering with the user experience.

“The launch of our Trusted Identity platform provides a single foundation that spans the needs of our customers today and into the future while our name change underscores a generational evolution in our strategy,” said OneSpan CEO Scott Clements. “We listened closely to the challenges our customers are facing and identified a significant gap between customer needs and solutions available in the market. OneSpan is addressing this gap by delivering a much needed and innovative approach to reducing the billions of dollars banks are losing annually to fraud.”

Bolstering today’s transition is OneSpan’s acquisition of Dealflo for $54.5 million (£41 million). Founded in 2009 and headquartered in the U.K., Dealflo offers configurable onboarding solutions to financial services clients. The company has partnerships with Equifax, TransUnion’s iovation, Mitek, and VASCO’s eSignLive (now OneSpan Sign).

“This acquisition will enable us to grow our subscription revenue and Dealflo’s technology will be a major differentiator for our eSignLive solution,” said Clements. “In addition, Dealflo’s identity verification capabilities will allow us to accelerate the launch of our TID platform based onboarding, identity and anti-fraud solutions.”

Dealflo has operations across North America and EMEA, and is headquartered in London. The Dealflo team will join OpenSpan, working to bring Dealflo’s solutions into new geographic markets.

OneSpan presented as VASCO at FinovateFall 2017 in New York. The company debuted the OneSpan Sign (then eSignLive) Digital Lending Solution. The solution leverages the blockchain and e-signature capabilities to offer a compliant, digital lending solution. Last month, the company teamed up with Finovate alum nCino to offer nCino clients access to an electronic signature solution.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Compass Plus, FICO, Fidor Bank, OneSpan, Signifyd, Tradeshift, VASCO

On Finovate.com

  • Tradeshift Raises $250 Million in Round Led By Goldman Sachs.
  • VASCO Rebrands as OneSpan to Focus on Secure Onboarding.
  • Signifyd Takes in $100 Million in Series D Funding.

Around the web

  • Compass Plus announces new partnership with Payhuddle Solutions in Asia Pacific.
  • FICO to help Raiffeisen Bank accelerate digital transformation.
  • Fidor appoints Adam Woolford as Chief Information Officer.

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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WorkFusion Closes Add-On Funding Round

WorkFusion Closes Add-On Funding Round
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, WorkFusion

WorkFusion promises what many banks are seeking: to help clients outpace change. And fortunately, the New York-based company has funds to back up that idea. Robotic process automation (RPA) specialist WorkFusion quietly added to the $50 million funding round it received last month. Last week, the company closed on an undisclosed amount of funds from strategic investors including Guardian, New York-Presbyterian, PNC Bank, and Alpha Intelligence Capital.

Pete Cumello, WorkFusion CFO, tells us that the company’s aggregate funding stands at $120 million– and the undisclosed investment boosts the total up over that amount. Cumello also noted that the add-on round added “somewhat” to the company’s value.

WorkFusion’s goal with the new capital is to fuel growth and boost acquisitions. The company was founded in 2010 and offers products for financial services, insurance, and healthcare sectors. Broadly, WorkFusion’s mission is to help firms deal with the rapid rise of AI by reducing the complexity of AI and helping customers exploit the AI opportunity by leveraging products that pair people with the power of robotic software. Specifically, use cases for WorkFusion’s AI-powered RPA include creating a more efficient account opening process, increasing loan booking accuracy, and automating rule-based processes in trade finance.

The company began with a simple question, “What if software could learn to identify high-quality work and manage the people who perform it?” By 2014, WorkFusion had expanded on that idea and at FinovateFall 2014 it demoed Active Learning Automation in New York. The company’s goals for 2018 and beyond are to make software-as-a-service automation products that offer elastic, on-demand capability with the Automation Cloud.

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Lidya Scores $6.9 Million in Series A Investment

Lidya Scores $6.9 Million in Series A Investment
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Lidya

Nigeria-based digital bank Lidya landed a fresh round of funding this week. The bank pulled in a Series A round totaling $6.9 million, an amount that marks the round as one of Nigeria’s largest tech investments. Combined with the $1.25 million Lidya received last March, today’s round brings the bank’s total funding to $8.2 million.

Omidyar Network led the round and was joined by new investors, Alitheia Capital, Bamboo Capital Partners, and Tekton Ventures; as well as existing investors Accion Venture Lab and Newid Capital. Ameya Upadhyay, Principal at Omidyar Network, is slated to join Lidya’s board of directors.

“We are excited by the overwhelming support from the investor community, which signals a great confidence in our business model and team,” said Ercin Eksin, Lidya co-founder. Lidya will use the funds to expand its loan book, scale in Nigeria, enter new markets in Africa, and onboard more employees, specifically data scientists and engineers.

“Access to flexible, affordable credit is at the crux of unlocking growth in the MSME sector. Lidya is addressing that by using smart algorithms to analyze transaction data from small businesses to assess their creditworthiness,” said Upadhyay. “This data-driven approach allows the company to offer loans without the need of hard collateral– a requirement that has scuttled MSME financing in Africa. In the process, Lidya gathers insights that help expand its product portfolio to become a holistic partner to small businesses.”

Eksin demonstrated Lidya’s credit scoring algorithm at FinovateFall 2016. The demo showcased how the bank helps small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) share or upload their bank data to manage cash flow, customer data, and create and send digital invoices. To help businesses smooth lumpy cashflow held up in invoices, Lidya lends from $500 to $50,000 without requiring the business to visit a physical branch.

Since it was founded in 2016, Lidya has extended 1,500 loans to help SMEs in industries ranging from farming to technology. The bank was recently accepted into MasterCard’s Start Path Program, an accelerator program that supports the next generation of commerce solutions.

Interested in learning more about the state of fintech in Africa? Check out FinovateAfrica, held in Cape Town, South Africa on November 27 and 28, 2018.

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Mortgagetech Magnates Ellie Mae and Blend Team Up

Mortgagetech Magnates Ellie Mae and Blend Team Up
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Blend, Ellie Mae

Mortgagetech company Blend and mortgage finance platform provider Ellie Mae have joined forces this week, as reported by American Banker. Through the partnership, Blend is leveraging Ellie Mae’s electronic disclosure delivery, a part of the company’s Encompass mortgage solution.

The integration will augment Blend’s self-service mortgage platform by offering a more seamless user experience. Lenders who use Ellie Mae’s Encompass loan origination solution can create and deliver electronic disclosures through Ellie Mae’s document preparation software. The electronic delivery will not only facilitate the e-signature process, it will also enhance compliance by leaving an audit trail.

Ellie Mae’s Encompass mortgage solution helps lenders originate more loans with lower origination costs and a faster time to close. Using the full Encompass solution, Ellie Mae helps lenders save an average of $967 per loan in operational improvements, such as saving time and postage from having to deliver disclosures via snail mail. Blend estimates its integration of Ellie Mae’s electronic disclosure delivery will save an average of $15 per loan.

Earlier this spring, Pacific Union Financial partnered with Ellie Mae to leverage the full Encompass mortgage management solution, enabling customers of both Pacific Union and Ellie Mae to deliver loan data and documents from Encompass to Pacific Union more efficiently and in real time.

Founded in 1997, Ellie Mae demonstrated Encompass Consumer Connect at FinovateSpring 2017. The online lead generation tool turns consumer interest into a mortgage application by letting the borrower complete an application, provide and receive information, and order services from a single platform. During the demo, presenter Jonas Moe, SVP of Market Strategy, demonstrated the company’s API by showing off an Alexa integration with Encompass Plus– asking questions such as, “What loans have rate lock expirations this week?” and “Search for a better rate.” Ellie Mae is headquartered in California. Jonathan Corr is president and CEO.

Blend demoed its data-driven mortgage at FinovateSpring 2016. The company was recently recognized for its achievements in the mortgage industry at the MBA Insights Tech All-Star Awards and was also featured on the Forbes Fintech 50 list. Last summer, Blend pulled in a $100 Series D investment from Greylock, Emergence Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, Nyca Partners, and 8VC, bringing its total capital to more than $160 million.

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WeInvest Raises $12.3 Million for its WealthTech Platform

WeInvest Raises $12.3 Million for its WealthTech Platform
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, WeInvest

B2B digital wealth management solutions provider WeInvest has taken in an investment of its own today. The Singapore-based company just closed on $12.3 million in Series A funding.

The financing comes from a handful of angel investors, along with London-based Schroders, which acquired a minority equity stake in the company. This is WeInvest’s first major funding after an undisclosed round in 2017.

In an interview, WeInvest Co-Founder and CEO Bhaskar Prabhakara told DEALSTREETASIA that the funds will be used to promote product development and to “expand the functional range of [the] platform across regional regulatory requirements, business models, and products.”

Unlike other models, WeInvest’s roboadvisory services empower traditional advisors with tools to help them compete with pure roboadvisory plays. WeInvest has three main products. TrackWealth offers simplified account aggregation and wealth analysis for advisors to provide their clients. GrowWealth, provides goal-based and thematic investing roboadvisory services that advisors can offer their self-directed clients. And AdviseWealth offers a service for relationship managers.

Founded in 2015 and with 38 employees, WeInvest offers its services in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, India, and Dubai. Prabhakara recently presented AdviseWealth at FinovateMiddleEast 2018 in Dubai. WeInvest has 5 clients and anticipates it will double that number by the end of the year.

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Watch Demo Videos from FinovateSpring for Free

Watch Demo Videos from FinovateSpring for Free
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2018

If you’re bummed because you missed out on FinovateSpring– or just missed a demo session to take a conference call– we’ve got you covered! Starting today, you can watch all of the FinovateSpring demos for free on Finovate’s video archives.

Of course, there’s nothing like seeing the demos live and in person– networking opportunities included– but this is the next best thing. To start you off with a small sample, here are the five companies whose demos won Best of Show (as voted by the audience).

AlphaRank

Conversation.one

Dynamics

Kasasa

Trusona

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Mitek Acquires A2iA for $49.7 Million

Mitek Acquires A2iA for $49.7 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Mergers & Acquisitions, Mitek

Digital identity verification company Mitek is bolstering its capabilities this week with the acquisition of A2iA, an artificial intelligence and image analysis company, for $49.7 million. This is Mitek’s second acquisition in under a year– last October the company acquired ICAR for $15 million.

A2iA leverages AI and machine learning to create algorithms that process millions of checks, IDs and documents daily for financial services companies, retailers, mobile operators, healthcare providers, and governments. The company, which pulled in revenues of more than $15 million last year, works in more than 42 countries and 11 languages. A2iA’s software is used by top U.S. banks as well as all banks in the U.K., 90% of French banks, and 90% of Brazilian banks. It is leveraged by more than 75,000 ATMs worldwide.

In the press release, James B. DeBello, CEO and Chairman of Mitek said that he anticipates the acquisition to help Mitek get ahead in the industry. He added, “Mitek’s Mobile Verify product will be able to read government-issued identity documents even more accurately and quickly than today, and authenticate them using A2iA’s advanced AI algorithms, thereby increasing companies’ trust that their customers are who they say they are.” The move will also double the size of Mitek’s Labs team, a group that has been behind each of Mitek’s 39 patents.

Mitek software is deployed in 6,100 U.S. banks, including all 10 of the largest U.S. financial institutions, and is used by more than 80 million end consumers. The company is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the ticker “MITK” with a market cap of $305 million. Mitek was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in San Diego, California. The company most recently demoed its MobileVerify solution at FinovateFall 2017. Earlier this month, Mitek made headlines when it agreed to deliver digital KYC for cryptocurrency broker BTCDirect.

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GoodData Launches GoodData Spectrum UI Tools

GoodData Launches GoodData Spectrum UI Tools
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: GoodData

Data analytics and insights company GoodData has launched a new tool today that will help businesses transform their user interface. GoodData Spectrum is a set of three user interaction frameworks that deliver insights to help support decision-making and change how organizations use analytics.

GoodData Spectrum consists of three frameworks:

  • GoodData.UI offers turnkey, commercial, open source, and custom components organizations can use to build their own custom apps.
  • KPI Dashboards helps organizations track KPI changes over time and receive alerts when KPIs reach a certain threshold.
  • Analytic Designer allows organizations to explore curated datasets and discover insights.

“Analytics within organizations today is no longer about one-size-fits-all with low adoption rather, analytics is now critical to everyday business success,” said Roman Stanek, CEO at GoodData. “With GoodData Spectrum, we now enable data and insights to support the complete range of business decisions.”

In the press release, Cody Alton from GoodData client Zalando said that the new tools help his organization design with end users in mind. He added, “With GoodData Spectrum we can roll out customized features based on our product vision and roadmap to ensure we exceed the needs of our customers.”

Founded in 2007, GoodData works with 70,000 companies across the globe, including 8 of the 10 largest brands. The company’s business intelligence solutions reach more than 1 million end users. At FinovateFall 2017, GoodData showcased its Insights PaaS. Last month, the company made its first foray into insuretech with the launch of two new solutions, Underwriting Insights and Claims Insights

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ShopKeep Launches on Android to Broaden Hardware Options

ShopKeep Launches on Android to Broaden Hardware Options
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ShopKeep POS

Point of sale technology provider ShopKeep is offering its small business clients more options this week. That’s because the company launched an Android version of its software.

The company’s plan with the new Android version of the ShopKeep Register app is to broaden the hardware choices for small and independent business owners. ShopKeep currently serves more than 25,000 independent retailers and restaurants and aims to lower startup costs for entrepreneurs, who can now buy a turnkey hardware solution for $499.

Until today’s announcement, the New York-based company had deployed its app exclusively on Apple’s iOS platform. ShopKeep, which originally partnered with First Data in Q1 2017, is piloting the Android launch on First Data’s Clover Mini device. It will be available on the larger Clover Station in the third quarter of this year. ShopKeep also plans to leverage additional partnerships to deploy its Register app on other devices later this year.

“Extending ShopKeep to Android-based hardware platforms ensures that both our customers and partners have access to the full range of device options available in the market,” said Michael DeSimone, ShopKeep CEO. “We are very excited to deploy our solution on the Clover platform as a first step in expanding the availability of ShopKeep in the market, and plan to extend our reach onto several hardware platforms through the back half of 2018.”

ShopKeep founder Jason Richelson demoed the point-of-sale platform at FinovateSpring 2012. The company supports more than 289 million transactions annually and has processed $7 billion in transaction volume since it was founded in 2008. Last month, ShopKeep expanded its payment processing capabilities to include TSYS‘ ProPay.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Bluefin Payment Systems, Conversation.one, GoodData, identitii, Interactions, QuantConnect, ShopKeep POS, Temenos

On Finovate.com

  • Conversation.one Among U.S. Fintechs to Join Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud Platform.
  • ShopKeep Launches on Android to Broaden Hardware Options.
  • GoodData Launches GoodData Spectrum UI Tools.
  • identitii Forges New Partnership with Robot Automation Specialist Blue Prism.

Around the web

  • Interactions unveils enhanced IVA platform to deliver the omnichannel intelligent virtual assistant capabilities.
  • QuantConnect users now have access to Algorithm Framework, a tool that breaks down algorithmic trading strategies into core modules to make code reusable in the QuantConnect community.
  • Temenos announces launch of its Front Office Suite.
  • Bluefin partners with Paya to provide PCI-validated point-to-point encryption.

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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