Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

Placecast Acquired by Ericsson’s Emodo

Placecast Acquired by Ericsson’s Emodo
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Mergers & Acquisitions, Placecast

In a deal announced today, location-based marketing and loyalty company Placecast has been acquired by Emodo for an undisclosed amount.

Emodo is a Swedish networking and telecom company that helps telcos monetize their subscriber data. The company, which debuted just months ago in November, is an Ericsson-owned entity.

As part of today’s deal, San Francisco-based Placecast’s CEO Alistair Goodman will transition to the role of Emodo Chief Commercial Officer. Placecast’s 38 employees will join Emodo’s workforce of 27 at its headquarters in the same city.

In a blog post, Goodman said that the deal builds on the strengths of both companies. “Placecast brings its leading carrier-verified, location-based data solutions to an experienced Emodo team, backed by Ericsson’s reputation as a neutral, trusted partner for mobile operators, advertisers, and publishers,” he said. The two firms plan to complete the integration by the second quarter of this year.

Founded in 2005, Placecast offers location-based marketing and loyalty programs for mobile operators, payments companies and brands. The company maintains and scrubs location data from more than 400 million mobile user profiles, tens of millions of merchant records, IDs and addresses from around the globe. Placecast’s other location-based solutions include Mobile Data Management Platform, Mobile Demand-Side Platform, and Native Mobile Advertising, among others.

The company demoed Shop Alerts mobile wallet at FinovateSpring 2013, at the height of fintech’s mobile wallet boom. Last July, Placecast launched Location Verification, a solution that leverages data from U.S. carriers to confirm the location accuracy of mobile ads, audiences, and attribution to bring geolocation to the next level.

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Payworks Completes $14.5 Million Series B Round

Payworks Completes $14.5 Million Series B Round
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, payworks

Point of sale (POS) technology company Payworks has reeled in its second round of funding. The Germany-based company closed a $14.5 million round from CommerzVentures and Visa, with contributions from existing investors Speedinvest and Finparx. Today’s financing brings Payworks’ total funding to $19 million.

Explaining the firm’s reasoning behind the funding, Stefan Tirtey, Managing Partner of CommerzVentures said that it “invests in founders with a passion for innovation and proven ability to execute.” He added, “We back businesses that can have a significant impact on the financial services industry. We believe that Payworks has both, a great team, and an offering that can have real impact in the fast-changing world of card payments.”

Payworks will use today’s financing to fulfill demand for its solutions and fuel global growth, scale operations, and focus on increasing R&D and product teams across its offices in Munich, New York, London, and Barcelona. In the press release, Christian Deger, Payworks founder and CEO said, “We are on a great mission to build a new operating system for the Point of Sale and are very excited to have CommerzVentures and Visa join us on that journey. With the additional funding we are fully equipped to further develop our technology and product and support the demand coming from leading payment players looking to modernize their solutions.”

Founded in 2012, Payworks focuses on POS technology. The company’s payment gateway technology, Pulse, is a set of SDKs and APIs that remotely update card readers and set up in a couple of minutes to make developers and their merchants EMV certified, PCI compliant and P2PE ready. The company’s partners include First Data, TSYS, Stripe, and American Express. Additional products include Accept, a white-label mPOS solution for merchants, and Engage, a customer data and CRM platform.

At FinovateEurope 2015, the company’s CEO Christian Deger demonstrated how Payworks builds payment solutions and checkout options. Late last year, the company extended its partnership with Verifone, integrating the Verifone e355 mPOS and the VX 820 onto the Payworks platform.

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Payfone Receives $23 Million in Funding from Synchrony Financial

Payfone Receives $23 Million in Funding from Synchrony Financial
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Payfone

Digital identity authentication company, Payfone raised $23 million today. This Series F round brings the company’s total funding to $93.6 million.

Payfone will use the financing to expand its user experience by enhancing security services in retail, insurance, and healthcare. The round was led by an institutional investor with participation from Synchrony Financial, MassMutual Ventures, as well as individual investors Anil Aggarwal, Jonathan Weiner, and Andrew Prozes.

In a press release, Rodger Desai, founder and CEO of Payfone explained that consumers will increasingly expect that transactions are mobile-first, secure, and fast. He added, “The days of using quizzes, questions and one-time codes to verify identity are numbered. Payfone is ushering in a new world where authentication is instant, passive and continuous using the most advanced cybersecurity. Our mission is to help clients across the financial, retail, insurance, healthcare, and technology industries use authentication to not only thwart fraud but drive revenue.”

Payfone, which was founded in 2008 as a mobile payments company, demoed 1-Touch Checkout at FinovateFall 2012. The New York-based company has since pivoted to focus on authentication solutions.

Among Payfone’s product offerings are Instant Authentication for Mobile, a frictionless two-factor authentication solution, and Instant Authentication for Voice, an API that uses the caller’s phone number to authenticate them. The company also offers a Trust Score that provides a measurement of the reliability and risk of each mobile device.

Managing director at MassMutual Ventures, Eric Emmons, said, “Payfone enables service providers across the financial, retail, insurance, healthcare and technology sectors to offer a frictionless mobile and online experience to their customers, which substantially improves conversion rates and dramatically reduces the cost of call center operations.”

Payfone, whose technologies are currently used by six of the top 10 U.S. banks, processes millions of signals per day to authenticate and score transactions; the company currently authenticates 10 million transactions per day. Earlier this year, Payfone partnered with O2, a U.K.-based mobile network operator, in an effort to protect mobile users from digital fraud. Last spring, the company announced it would power mobile ID authentication for Zelle.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Bankjoy, Clinc, eMoney Advisor, Green Key Technologies, Payfone, payworks, Placecast, TIBCO Software, TipRanks, Top Image Systems, Worldline

On Finovate.com

  • Payfone Receives $23 Million in Funding from Synchrony Financial.
  • Clinc Tops $4.5 Million in Annual Revenue; Hires Helen Yu as Chief Growth Officer.
  • Payworks Completes $14.5 Million Series B Round.
  • Bankjoy Brings New Online and Mobile Banking System to SafeAmerica Credit Union.
  • Placecast Acquired by Ericsson’s Emodo.

Around the web

  • GreenKey Technologies to release its voice API through OpenFin’s plugin architecture
  • TipRanks offers stock tracking tool to manage investments and maximize returns.
  • Worldline selects VMware to accelerate innovation and time to market.
  • Japanese personal care company selects Top Image Systems’ eFLOW Extract accounts payable solution.
  • Kestra Financial to offer eMoney Advisor’s financial planning platform to its advisors.
  • TIBCO ranked first in Dresner Advisory Services 2018 Location Intelligence Market Study.

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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Forbes Names 17 Finovate Alums on the Forbes Fintech 50

Forbes Names 17 Finovate Alums on the Forbes Fintech 50
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Ayasdi, Betterment, Blend, Blockchain, Chain.com, Coinbase, Credit Karma, Feedzai, Gusto, Kabbage, Kensho, Plaid, Qapital, Ripple, Symbiont, Symphony Software Foundation, TransferWise

Forbes has released the third* Fintech 50 list, which this year features 17 Finovate alums, many of which have made the list for the third time. The Fintech 50 list highlights the top private fintechs that have operations, customers or impact in the U.S. The list excludes public companies and divisions of public companies.

Here are the alums honored in this year’s compilation:

Ayasdi

Among 22 newcomers to this year’s list.

Betterment

The company’s third time making the list.

Blend

Among 22 newcomers to this year’s list.

Blockchain

Among 22 newcomers to this year’s list.

Chain

The company’s third time making the list.

Coinbase

The company’s second time making the list.

Credit Karma

The company’s third time making the list.

Feedzai

Among 22 newcomers to this year’s list.

Gusto (formerly ZenPayroll)

The company’s second time making the list.

Kabbage

The company’s second time making the list.

Kensho

The company’s third time making the list.

Plaid

The company’s third time making the list.

Qapital

The company’s second time making the list.

Ripple

The company’s third time making the list.

Symbiont

Among 22 newcomers to this year’s list.

Symphony

The company’s second time making the list.

TransferWise

The company’s third time making the list.

In 2016, the list contained 20 Finovate alums, including Betterment, Chain, Coinbase, Credit Karma, Gusto, Kabbage, Kensho, Klarna, Motif, Personal Capital, Plaid, Qapital, Quantopian, Ripple, Signifyd, SoFi, Symphony, TransferWise, TrueAccord, and Xignite.

The list from three years back also contained 20 Finovate alums. Algomi, Betterment, Braintree, Chain, Credit Karma, HelloWallet, Kensho, LearnVest, Motif, Personal Capital, Plaid, Prosper, Quantopian, Ripple, Simple, TransferWise, TrueAccord, Vouch, Wealthfront, and Xignite made the list.

*Forbes skipped this compilation for 2017.

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Jack Henry Marks 100 Bank Clients Using Geezeo-Powered Service

Jack Henry Marks 100 Bank Clients Using Geezeo-Powered Service
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Geezeo, Jack Henry

Banking technology services provider Jack Henry has reached a milestone today, marking more than 100 bank clients using JHA Online Financial Management powered by digital banking company Geezeo.

This comes after the two formed a partnership last March in which Jack Henry’s JHA Online Financial Management began integrating the Geezeo platform. Leveraging transaction data from Jack Henry’s core systems, Geezeo presents a seamless user experience through the Missouri-based company’s NetTeller Online Banking, goDough mobile banking, and Banno digital banking solutions (Jack Henry acquired Banno for an undisclosed sum in 2014). Geezeo’s transaction categorization, budgeting, alerts, cash flow calendars, and data aggregation tools help consumers manage their finances.

In the press release, president of Jack Henry Banking Stacey Zengel said, “Creating a rich, rewarding digital experience is paramount for any financial institution’s growth. JHA Online Financial Management offers a modern, engaging experience for the end user while acting as a business driver for the financial institution. It’s that combination of added service and revenue drivers that create compelling industry trends.”

Founded in 2006, Geezeo offers white-label financial management solutions. The company processes and stores billions of transactions to deliver relevant insights that help banks enhance the user experience. The Connecticut-based company demonstrated its business financial management at FinovateFall 2014.

Jack Henry is a division of Jack Henry and Associates, a public company that was founded in 1976. It is one of 49 fintech companies that the NASDAQ tracks on its Fintech Index. Jack Henry and Associates serves more than 9,000 banking clients nationwide. At FinovateFall 2015, the company demonstrated the Banno platform.

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: 3rd-eyes

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: 3rd-eyes
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: 3rd-eyes, FinovateEurope 2018, FinovateEurope 2018 Sneak Peek

A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateEurope on the 6 through 9 of March 2018 in London. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.

3rd-eyes offers the best goal-based advisory and wealth planning solution. It enables wealth managers to advise clients holistically and helps them achieve their financial goals. Wealth managers can reach clients’ goals through a holistic optimisation of their financial situation which includes non-bankable assets and suitable, belief-based portfolio construction.

Why it’s great
With its modular and easy-to-integrate solution, 3rd-eyes brings your wealth planning quality and efficiency to a new level.

Presenters

Stephanie Feigt, Founder & CEO
Feight has 20+ years of experience in asset management and sustainable investing. She has experience as founder of Contrast-Capital, co-CEO and CIO of RobecoSAM, head of investment strategy at Clariden Leu, and a pensions manager at Siemens.
LinkedIn

Marc Mettler, Partner, Head Business Development
Mettler has 18 years of transformation experience in the wealth management industry. He is former managing director, senior advisor and programme manager in the Bank Julius Bär (et al.).
LinkedIn

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alfa-Bank, CREALOGIX, Geezeo, Jack Henry, Moneyhub, Temenos, Thomson Reuters, ThreatMetrix, Vera

On Finovate.com

  • Jack Henry Marks 100 Bank Clients Using Geezeo-Powered Service.
  • Vera Partners with Canon to Enable Data Security Across Devices and Services.

Around the web

  • Moneyhub sends CTO to Europe to implement PSD2 strategy.
  • CREALOGIX, Temenos, and Thomson Reuters win in Asian Private Banker Technology Awards.
  • Alfa Bank teams with Ingenico to enable local card processing in Russia for international merchants.
  • ThreatMetrix President and CEO Reed Taussig recognized by One World Identity as one of Top 100 Influencers in Identity.

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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Dwolla Lands $12 Million

Dwolla Lands $12 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Dwolla, Funding

In a short, three-sentence blog post, Dwolla CEO Ben Milne announced that the company closed a $12 million round of funding. The investment, which brings the Iowa-based company’s total to $51.4 million, was led by Foundry Group with participation from Union Square Ventures, Next Level Ventures, Ludlow Ventures, High Alpha, and Firebrand– all existing investors.

The funds will be used to support the financial platform’s growing capital requirements and to expand its team. Founded in 2008, Dwolla is growing. “We have more than 40 openings to fill this year,” Milne noted in his blog post announcing the funding. “As we build our team, we do so knowing that the best teams are built by the inclusion of diverse ideas, experiences, and people,” he added.

Dwolla offers a white-label payments API that allows firms to credit or debit any U.S. bank account the user has connected. The company integrates with Sift Science to offer real-time identity verification to help reduce fraud. And in May of 2017, Dwolla integrated with Plaid to instantly verify and authenticate customers’ bank accounts using tokenization.

Dwolla, which most recently demoed FiSync at FinovateSpring 2015, is headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. Last summer, the company added a multi-user feature to its Access API dashboard. In January, Dwolla began powering identity verification for Yahoo!’s Tanda savings app.

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Stash Raises $37.5 Million, Launches Custodial Accounts

Stash Raises $37.5 Million, Launches Custodial Accounts
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Stash

Mobile-first financial platform Stash  closed $37.5 million in funding today to help Americans rethink how they invest and save. Union Square Ventures led the Series D round, with contributions also coming from existing investors Breyer Capital, Coatue Management, Entree Capital, Goodwater Capital, and Valar Ventures.

“Through customer focus and a data-driven mindset, Stash has been able to create a powerful consumer brand, with unprecedented growth, on its journey to fix the inequities plaguing financial opportunity across the U.S. We’re excited to join them on this mission to shake up the status quo,” said Rebecca Kaden, Partner at Union Square Ventures.

Stash’s Smart-Save

Today’s round brings Stash’s total funding received in its three-year history to $116.3 million. After last October’s $40 million round, Business Insider estimated the company’s value at $240 million. The New York-based company will use the funds to support the launch of its newest batch of products, including Custodial Accounts, which will be rolling out this week. Custodial Accounts will allow Stash clients to open new accounts for minors to give them a head start on their finances.

Additional new features include Smart-Save (pictured right) and Stash Coach. Smart-Save studies a user’s spending habits and uses an algorithm to determine where they have spare cash, then moves a portion of that amount into a savings account, from which clients can withdraw at any time for free. Stash Coach provides financial recommendations and challenges, while providing guidance and support for accomplishments.

“Stash’s goal since day one has been to help the masses of underserved Americans jump start their journey towards building a healthy and prosperous future,” said Brandon Krieg, co-founder and CEO of Stash. “Through intelligent products and an emphasis on education, we’ve been able to meaningfully improve the financial lives of nearly two million clients. We’re proud of what our customers have accomplished, but we’re even more excited for what’s ahead.”

Stash currently serves over 1.7 million clients on its investing platform, which allows users to choose from a selection of over 40 curated ETFs, and is showing strong growth– approximately 40,000 new clients join its investing platform weekly. The company counts 5 million subscribers to Stash Learn, a financial education content newsletter.

The company’s mobile investing platform doesn’t collect add-on commissions or trading fees, and charges $1 per month for accounts under $5,000. Users with portfolios over that threshold pay 0.25% per year. For all accounts, Stash has lowered the overdraft fee to $0.50 for returned deposits. This is significantly lower than the $35 average overdraft fee that traditional banks charge.

Krieg debuted Stash Retire at FinovateFall 2017. In November of last year, KPMG and H2 Ventures named the company on its 2017 Fintech 100 list. The month prior, Stash announced plans to expand its platform from investing to a more robust banking service. This is part of the rebundling of fintech trend that many analysts predicted would dominate 2018.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: DAVO Technologies, Dwolla, InComm, Larky, NetGuardians, Neustar, Ripple, SecureKey, Stash

On Finovate.com

  • Dwolla Lands $12 Million.
  • Larky Deepens Partnership with Core Processing Solutions Provider Sharetec.
  • Stash Raises $37.5 Million, Launches Custodial Accounts.
  • NetGuardians Inks Agreement with FirstOntario Credit Union.

Around the web

  • InComm subsidiary On-Line Strategies launches partnership with National Bankcard Services to enable prepaid at the gas pump.
  • Neustar expands its DDoS mitigation defense network in EMEA.

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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DAVO’s New Sales Apps Bring Savings Technology to Small Businesses

DAVO’s New Sales Apps Bring Savings Technology to Small Businesses
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: DAVO Technologies

Small business tools company DAVO launched two new apps to help small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with their cash management needs. DAVO Sweep & Save and DAVO Savings Club are the two new apps available to SMBs today.

Both apps are automated savings tools that use fractional daily funding technology, which connects to a merchant’s Point of Sale (POS) platform or accounting software to set aside cash to save for a future use. This automated savings technology is a similar concept to the consumer-facing apps Dyme and Digit, which move money from a user’s checking account into a separate savings account. Check out our overview of those platforms from last year.

DAVO Sweep & Save returns the saved amount to the merchant on a monthly basis to go toward expenses such as rent, business loans, or equipment leases, while DAVO Savings Club sets aside the cash on an annual basis. DAVO notes that the annual funds are intended for “an ongoing cookie jar or Christmas Club like savings.” With both Sweep & Save and Savings Club, merchants opt to either set aside a fixed dollar amount or percentage of daily sales to go toward the savings. “For example,” DAVO co-founder David Joseph explained, “using DAVO Savings Club a merchant can put aside $20 a day and at the end of a year have over $7,000 to use as they see fit. They won’t feel the $20/day but they will love having $7000.”

In a press release, Joseph said, “SMBs are passionate about their businesses and are very good at generating revenue but very often they are far less skilled at cash management. DAVO was originally started to solve the challenges of sales tax for SMBs, but has evolved into a powerful cash management tool.”

Founded in 2011, DAVO demoed its flagship product at FinovateFall 2015. During the demo, the company’s CEO Owen Brown showed how DAVO Sales Tax automatically and passively collects, files, and pays sales tax on a merchant’s behalf. Similar to the two savings apps launched today, the Sales Tax app integrates with a merchant’s POS and backend accounting platforms to set aside the sales tax collected each day. Last October, DAVO made the Sales Tax app available in the Square Marketplace. The company has raised $4 million. And with 1,800 clients, DAVO has grown its customer base by more than 12X since 2015.

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