Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

defi SOLUTIONS Lands $55 Million

defi SOLUTIONS Lands $55 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: defi Solutions, Funding

Loan origination solutions company defi SOLUTIONS just closed on $55 million in funding. The Series C round comes from Bain Capital Ventures, offering social proof along with a stamp of approval for defi’s suite of loan services. This is the Texas-based company’s first round of financing.

The primary capital portion of the investment will be used to accelerate product development, expand resources and facilities, and grow the number of employees by nearly 50% this year.

This comes at a time when there has been significant rise in auto lending, especially to sub-prime borrowers. Simultaneously, however, loan defaults are soaring as a result of hastily made loans. defi helps lenders take advantage of the opportunity while mitigating risk. Additionally, senior principal at Bain Capital Ventures, Brian Goldsmith explained, “defi delivers competitive advantages that enable forward-thinking lenders to own their processes and exceed their business objectives through one holistic platform.” Goldsmith added, “Our team is thrilled to support defi SOLUTIONS’ growth trajectory in a space that is primed to expand and remain competitive with the increased use of new technology.”

Founded in 2012, defi originally offered a flagship auto financing service. Since then, the company has broadened its offerings to include a full suite of configurable Software-as-a-Service loan origination solutions and has experienced a 70+% compounded annual growth rate. Most recently, defi has added a loan management and servicing system, an analytics and reporting system with dashboards for real-time reporting, a direct lending application portal, a digital loan document service with e-signature, and an online auto loan portfolio marketplace.

At FinovateSpring 2014, defi CEO and founder Stephanie Alsbrooks showcased the company’s loan origination solution for auto lenders. Last month, the Caruth Institute for Entrepreneurship at the SMU Cox School of Business ranked the company number 37 on the top 100 fastest-growing privately-held businesses in the Dallas area.

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ThreatMetrix Teams Up with GlobalOnePay

ThreatMetrix Teams Up with GlobalOnePay
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ThreatMetrix

Authentication and fraud prevention company ThreatMetrix has partnered with GlobalOnePay, a division of Pivotal Payments. ThreatMetrix will power GlobalOnePay’s Sentinel Defend, a fraud detection and scoring engine that protects cross-border transactions.

This will enable Sentinel Defend to leverage ThreatMetrix’s Digital Identity Network, a program that analyzes and scores 100 million transactions per day to reduce fraud by using anonymized data to offer real-time intelligence on a person’s identity. By running in the background, the network offers a user experience with less friction.

The ThreatMetrix Digital Identity Network delivers the intelligence needed to safely accept more orders across markets, even where identity verification is challenging,” said Leah Evanski, VP of strategic alliances at ThreatMetrix. “We are proud to work with GlobalOnePay, a company that is dedicated to ensuring their customers can safely and easily grow their business globally.”

Tedd Huff, GlobalOnePay’s VP of Product said that the company’s merchant clients “expect the highest level of card processing security available.” Huff continued, “This is why we look to the most innovative approaches on the market to ensure we stay one step ahead of emerging fraud patterns.”

Founded in 2009, San Jose-based ThreatMetrix offers insights into 1.4 billion anonymized user identities to deliver intelligence for 100 million daily authentication decisions. The company verifies more than 20 billion annual transactions supporting 30,000 websites and 4,500 customers across the globe through its Digital Identity Network, which feeds into ThreatMetrix’s Digital Identity Graph.

Launched at FinovateSpring 2016, the Digital Identity Graph gathers information on billions of transactions collected from tens of thousands of websites to build a user’s digital identity by analyzing connections between the user, their locations, behaviors, and devices. At FinovateSpring 2017, the company’s CTO, Andreas Baumhof, and Sr. Director Product Management, Dean Weinert, launched SmartAuthentication for banks with multiple authentication methods.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Coinbase, Jumio, ThreatMetrix, Tink, YellowDog

On Finovate.com

  • Coinbase Brings on Engineering Talent from Memo.AI.
  • ThreatMetrix Teams Up with GlobalOnePay.
  • Jumio Partners with Byteball to Bring KYC to ICO Issuers.

Around the web

  • YellowDog celebrates 3 years, shares how it went from 1 to 17 employees, from £0 to £2.8 million in funding, and 4 awards. YellowDog will demo at FinovateEurope in March.
  • Computer Weekly interviews Tink CEO Daniel Kjellén, one of our featured speakers at FinovateEurope in London.

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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Coinbase Brings on Engineering Talent from Memo.AI

Coinbase Brings on Engineering Talent from Memo.AI
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Coinbase

Last month we reported that digital currency wallet Coinbase had the pedal to the metal to keep up with burgeoning bitcoin demand. This week, it appears the company is furthering its growth goal by acquiring the engineering team at Memo.AI.

Founded in 2016, Memo.AI is a startup that built a bot that turns Slack chats into a searchable knowledge base. The company has stopped accepting new users and will shut down its services on March 16 of this year.

In a blog post announcing the change, Memo.AI founder Mircea Pașoi said, “We’re happy to announce that most of the Memo engineering team will be joining Coinbase, one of the world’s most popular ways to buy and sell cryptocurrencies! We decided to join Coinbase because we’re super excited about the company’s mission of building an open financial system.”

If you’ve been following Coinbase’s success, you can guess that this “aqui-hire” buy is a good move right now. In a blog post earlier this month titled, “Customer support: failure is not an option,” newly-minted Coinbase VP and GM Dan Romero illustrated the company’s recent explosive growth.

In November and December of last year, Coinbase saw transaction volumes grow by almost 3x. Additionally, the company has expanded the capacity of number of peak transactions it can process per hour by 77x and number of customer support agents by almost 9x.

Founded in 2012, Coinbase demoed Instant Exchange at FinovateSpring 2014. Last August, the company became a fintech unicorn after it closed a $100 million round of Series D funding. At that point, Pitchbook estimated Coinbase’s value to be $1.6 billion.

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ShopKeep Integrates First Data’s Clover POS Technology

ShopKeep Integrates First Data’s Clover POS Technology
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ShopKeep POS

Cloud payments and point-of-sale system startup ShopKeep has integrated with the Clover Mini by deepening ties with First Data.

First Data, which acquired Clover in 2013 for its point-of-sale (POS) technology, first strengthened its strategic partnership in February of last year by making ShopKeep’s software available to clients in First Data’s distribution network. Following that move, First Data participated in a strategic investment round in ShopKeep in late 2017.

Adding ShopKeep to the Clover Mini, an all-in-one POS device with an integrated receipt printer, will help streamline merchant operations, improve the customer experience, and expand business intelligence in a secure environment.

Michael DeSimone, CEO of ShopKeep said, “We highly value our partnership with First Data and their continued investment in expanding the capabilities of the Clover platform clearly demonstrates their commitment to U.S. small businesses.”DeSimone added, “We are excited for both our present offering, as well as all future initiatives with First Data and Clover technology.”

And this seems to be just the start of even further integration. ShopKeep, which began selling Clover Mini in December, plans to further expand its partnership with First Data across multiple hardware and payment platforms.

ShopKeep founder Jason Richelson demoed the point-of-sale platform at FinovateSpring 2012. In November of last year, the New York-based company integrated with digital knowledge management company Yext to offer merchants access to the Yext Knowledge Manager directly from the ShopKeep back office interface.

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Flywire Acquires OnPlan Holdings

Flywire Acquires OnPlan Holdings
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Flywire, Mergers & Acquisitions

Global payment and receivables solutions company Flywire announced today it has acquired OnPlanU and OnPlan Health, both subsidiaries of OnPlan Holdings. The terms of the deal were undisclosed.

OnPlan Health is a web portal and payment solution that offers providers an automated way to settle patient balances. OnPlanU is a student billing and payment solution that enables universities to automate account setup and payments and set up tailored payment schedules for students.

Flywire said that clients have been pushing the company to offer the ability to manage payments and receivables from a single platform. CEO Mike Massaro said that the acquisition “brings a tremendous amount of technical capability and domain expertise to address it. In a short period of time, [OnPlan has] built a very strong product.”

The acquisition not only furthers Flywire’s reach into the healthcare payments space, it also adds more depth to the company’s education payments offerings. Adding OnPlan’s capabilities makes Flywire’s solutions more holistic, covering a range of globally-available services, including:

  • Invoicing
  • Secure payment processing
  • Consumer engagement
  • Recurring payments
  • Automated payment plans
  • Payment tracking
  • Reconciliation
  • Past due payments

OnPlan’s CEO John Talaga and CTO David King will join Flywire’s leadership team, bringing their expertise in healthcare. Talaga will lead Flywire’s healthcare segment, while King will lead the company’s product and development teams focused on education and healthcare. The rest of the OnPlan team will merge into Flywire, working from OnPlan’s Chicago-based office.

Talaga said that Flywire and OnPlan solve “distinct, but related problems, both taking cost and friction out of the payment and receivables process.” He continued, “While we complement their platform in several important ways, Flywire offers OnPlan tremendous scale with supportive and engaged investors, capital for growth, access to new markets, and a global customer support infrastructure.”

Discussing the deal in a press release, managing director of Bain Capital and Flywire board member Matt Harris said, “Both firms share a culture that is all about how to make life better for their clients. That, combined with their complementary capabilities, makes this a perfect fit and will add tremendous value for their customers.”

Flywire, which originally launched as peerTransfer in 2011, facilitates international payments for healthcare, education, and business. The company is headquartered in Boston with operations in the U.K., China, Japan, Singapore, Australia, and Spain. The company’s platform processes billions of dollars in payments every year in over 120 different local currencies, connecting more than 1,400 businesses and universities with their customers.

At FinovateSpring 2011, the company presented its original tuition payment platform. Last August, Flywire expanded its operations to Japan and formed a partnership with Volvo to help international student lease vehicles. Flywire has raised a total of $43.2 million.

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Upserve Bolsters Online Ordering Features

Upserve Bolsters Online Ordering Features
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Upserve

Food services payments and analytics company Upserve strengthened its mobile ordering capabilities this week. The company, which originally launched as Swipely in 2009, first introduced a basic online ordering service in September of last year.

Overall, the new capabilities aim to help restaurants create a better guest experience while streamlining their operations. Here are the highlights:

  • Offers an embeddable ordering experience that lets restaurants take online orders straight from their website, meaning the guest never has to switch back-and-forth between channels or websites.
  • Allows guests to use their social logins to authenticate themselves before they make their order.
  • Lets restaurants accept orders up to seven days in advance.
  • Segments the online ordering audience to compare them with eat-in guests and send them targeted advertising.
  • Sends notifications to the kitchen when new online orders come in, and allows restaurants to send “your order is ready” texts to the client.

The online ordering system is included with Upserve Pro and is available at an extra cost for Upserve Core customers.

Upserve demoed as Swipely at FinovateSpring 2012 and has raised more than $40 million. Angus Davis is founder and CEO of the Rhode Island-based company. In May of 2017, Upserve announced it was managing $11 billion in annual transaction volume for 32 million active diners and more than 23 million meals per month, figures that grew 100% from the year prior.

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Revolut Adds Travel Insurance to its Insurtech Offerings

Revolut Adds Travel Insurance to its Insurtech Offerings
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Revolut

Global banking company Revolut is further integrating itself into the insurtech industry today. The U.K.-based company launched a pay-per-day travel insurance offering for its users.

The new, flexible policy uses geolocation, automatically turning coverage on and off when users leave and return to their home country. When they sign up for the service, users receive medical and dental coverage, paying as little as $1.38 (£1.00) per day. To protect travelers from overpaying, the coverage is capped at 40 days. For frequent travelers, Revolut offers annual coverage of $41.50 (£30) per year.

https://youtu.be/LulptJxTklM

With the Revolut app, users can select insurance options, such as adding coverage for a companion or adding winter sports coverage, to tailor it to their needs. In the event a user experiences a serious illness or bodily injury on their trip, Revolut will cover up to £15,000,000 (or emergency dental treatment up to £300) after the traveler pays the first £75.

The travel insurance currently covers all Revolut users in the European Economic Area, with the exception of Swiss residents. To qualify, travelers must be younger than 84 years of age, be registered under their country’s healthcare system, and not be traveling against medical advice.

This isn’t Revolut’s first foray into insurance offerings. Last September, the startup began offering device insurance coverage for cell phones. Users can insure their device for $1.38 (£1) per week or $58 (£42) per year.

This expansion of services is indicative of an industry trend many analysts predicted would spread in 2018– the “rebundling of fintech.” In an attempt to compete with banks, some startups are becoming more “bank-like” by acting as a one-stop shop for many of consumers’ financial needs. SoFi is a great example of this– what started out as a very specific student lending startup, has evolved into a larger company that now offers a range of seven borrowing options, wealth management, and life insurance.

Founded in 2013, Revolut debuted at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. The company’s CEO and founder Nikolay Storonsky showed off the app’s money transfer capabilities that help users avoid banking fees without actually using a bank.

Over the past two years, Revolut has processed 42 million transactions for 1 million users in Europe, tallying up $160 million in savings on foreign transaction fees. Last month, the company launched cryptocurrency trading and in November revealed plans to expand to Singapore.

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Going Beyond the Demos this Year

Going Beyond the Demos this Year
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2018

FinovateEurope is bringing you more this year. In addition to two days packed full of demos, we’ve added two days of discussion that will help you not only digest the new innovations, but also bring an analytical perspective from top industry leaders on key fintech trends and issues.

It’s all happening March 6 through 9 at ExCeL London (register today). To help you curate your schedule, here’s a list of the top themes you can expect to see at FinovateEurope:

Geopolitics

We’re just days into the new PSD2 environment, and that’s only one of many geopolitical changes impacting banks and fintechs alike. GDPR and MIFID II, along with yet-to-be-seen influences from Brexit will all take their toll this year. Hear what experts have to say about these and other international regulations, and what types of regtech solutions can help.

AI

AI has proven to be one of the hottest issues in fintech and is sure to pulse throughout discussions this year. Learn what the industry’s top influencers have to say about the topic, along with how it will tie in with deep learning, machine learning, and new credit scoring techniques.

Security

This ever-present fintech topic grows new meanings and nuances each month, as hackers become more sophisticated. Hear why technologists say you should be afraid (very, very afraid) and what you can do to prevent a security breach.

Investing

After the robo advisor craze of 2014 and 2015, it’s time to take another look at this space and explore the newest emerging investing technologies, such as quantum computing, and how they can revolutionize you and your clients’ portfolios.

Banking

These sessions will go beyond a web and mobile banking toolkit. See what’s new in digital banking, hear how challenger banks are changing the game, and what you can do to compete.

Blockchain

Bitcoin may be on the downtrend but the blockchain is just getting started. Learn about how your firm can leverage the blockchain beyond payments.

Payments

It’s not only payment types and user experiences that are changing. Digital giants such as Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Alipay, and Tencent have entered the game and competition has never been more fierce.

Lending

Check out the new alt-lending landscape and see how some of technology’s biggest players such as Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Alipay, and Tencent are making changes to consumer and small business lending.

IoT, AR, and VR

These once-futuristic technologies are making their way into the mainstream– and quickly. Hear suggested timelines and how to prioritize these non-essential user experience channels.

Additionally, scattered throughout the sessions will be highlights such as:

  • Presentations from analyst all-stars
  • Discussion with industry leaders on seizing the fintech opportunity
  • Pitches from fresh startups
  • Where’s the VC money going in fintech?
  • What’s next?

And don’t forget the demos. If you still haven’t checked out our lineup for the first two days, be sure to visit the FinovateEurope website to learn more about the companies that will demo their newest technologies on stage.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Bluefin Payment Systems, Cloud Lending Solutions, Compass Plus, Envestnet, Expensify, FICO, Kinetica, Kreditech, NCR Corporation, Overbond, Revolut, Ripple, Tradeshift, Upserve, WorldPay

On Finovate.com

  • Revolut Adds Travel Insurance to its Insurtech Offerings.
  • Going Beyond the Demos this Year
  • Envestnet | Yodlee Unveils Single API Solution to Support PSD2, Open Banking Compliance.
  • Upserve Bolsters Online Ordering Features

Around the web

  • Expensify celebrates 10 years of expense reports.
  • Handelsblatt features Kreditech (article in German).
  • Kinetica and UClick push solutions to South Korea.
  • NCR to power prototype branch for UnionBank of the Philippines
  • Bluefin partners with AvantCom Payments Corporation (APC) to provide PCI-Validated P2PE to Oracle clients.
  • Worldpay expands payment processing into Turkey with iyzico.
  • VietinBank announces migration of debit card transactions to Compass Plus’ TranzWare system.
  • Barbican Insurance Group teams up with FICO to better measure the cybersecurity risk of the insured.
  • Cloud Lending Solutions unveils Xcelerate Software Implementation Program.
  • Panalpina World Transport chooses Tradeshift to support digitization of its procure-to-pay process.
  • Ripple joins sharing economy startup Omni’s $25 million fundraising with an investment of XRP.
  • Overbond wins Most Innovative Third-Party Technology Vendor (Front Office) category at American Financial Technology Awards.

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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Fintech for Your New Year’s Resolutions

Fintech for Your New Year’s Resolutions
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Thought Leadership

Make a New Year’s Resolution for 2018? While fintech can’t help you lose weight (yet!), there are plenty of players to help you achieve your financial resolutions. So here are a few specific financial goals you might have set for 2018 – along with the fintech innovators who can help you achieve them.

 Save more

After feeling the burn of holiday spending, many people are planning to buckle down and increase their savings in the new year.

  • Dyme
    Dyme offers an automated savings platform. The text-based app not only reminds users to save, it also automatically moves money from their checking account to their savings.
  • Meniga
    Meniga’s personal financial management (PFM) platform makes it easy for users to track their goals and inspires them to mitigate their spending habits to reach their goals on time.
  • Qapital
    Another PFM app, Qapital offers a visual way for users to see the progress of their savings goals.

Buy a house

Interest rates are on the rise, so if you’re looking to buy a home there’s no better time than the present.

  • Blend
    Blend helps put an end to the “document volleyball” that often occurs in the home buying process. Blend’s online portal offers secure and compliant document transmission and communication channels that help buyers, lenders, and agents stay on track.
  • Sindeo
    Sindeo’s platform offers users access to more than 1,000 loan programs and guidance from mortgage advisors. The company’s QuickStart program helps users complete a loan application and receive a pre-qualification letter in under 10 minutes.
  • Unison
    Unison Home Ownership Investors contributes up to half of the buyer’s down payment, lowering their monthly payments and helping them to avoid paying mortgage insurance. When the term of the loan is up or the buyer decides to sell their home, Unison claims a portion of the home’s appreciation.

Organize your retirement

It seems as if there is always something to be done when it comes to retirement funds– rollovers, maximize returns, minimize fees, optimize diversification…. Fortunately, wealth tech is one area of fintech where there are seemingly endless firms to help.

  • Wealthfront
    Wealthfront is one of the largest players in the wealth tech space. The company offers retirement and college savings plans, and allows users to borrow against their portfolios.
  • Blooom
    With transparent advice and low fees, Blooom has an algorithmic approach to investing that aims to maximize 401(k) returns.
  • Nutmeg
    U.K.-based Nutmeg algorithmically manages users’ ISA’s pensions, and general investments for less of a fee than a traditional investment advisor.
  • Scalable Capital
    U.K.-based Scalable Capital uses a technology-based approach to make wealth management available to everyone.

For a more complete list and analysis of players in the B2C wealth tech space, check out our previous coverage.

Pay down student loans

For many millennials, the burden of student loans is getting in the way of starting a family, buying a house, and even saving for retirement. Paying down loans faster has the potential to open up more opportunities.

  • Tuition.io
    While it’s not a B2C play, Tuition.io enables employers to offer a workplace benefit that assists employees by making contributions to their student loan payments.
  • Student Loan Genius
    Student Loan Genius follows a similar model to Tuition.io (though they might say it’s the other way around).
  • Personetics
    Personetics Act leverages AI to notify banks which of their clients have student loans and can pay the off faster. The technology finds unused funds that can be applied toward the balance and automatically pays down student loans on the client’s behalf.

Maximize your tax benefits

Whether you’re doing your personal taxes or trying to balance sales tax for your small business, these tools can help you get a head start on this annual task.

  • Xero
    Founded in 2006, Xero is a long-standing cloud accounting players for small businesses. XeroTax helps businesses to prepare, review and lodge returns for individual, partnership, company, trust, SMSF, FBT and activity statements.
  • Credit Karma
    Starting last year, Credit Karma began offering tax preparation and filing service for the 2017 tax year. Unlike many self-service tax preparation services, Credit Karma’s is free. And –bonus– the company partnered with American Express this year to offer an advance on your refund.
  • Avalara
    Similar to Xero, Avalara is focused on small businesses. The Seattle-based startup helps companies with VAT automation, as well as plan, manage, and prepare sales and use tax.

Give more

Looking for some extra karma this year? Here are some fintechs that can help boost charitable giving.

  • Betterment
    Yes, Betterment is a wealth management company and not a pure-play tax startup. However, last year the company announced a charitable giving feature that allows customers to donate shares from taxable accounts to charitable organizations.
  • Place2Give
    Canada-based Place2Give is a one-stop shop where users can search for and donate to North American charities.
  • Sustainably
    Sustainably is like Acorns for charitable giving. The U.K.-based company automates donations to users’ selected charities by rounding up their purchases to the nearest £1, making micro-donations.

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Cardlytics Appoints New CTO

Cardlytics Appoints New CTO
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Cardlytics

Data-driven marketing company Cardlytics is reinforcing its troops for the new year. The Atlanta-based company has appointed Sathish Gaddipati as Chief Technology Officer.

Gaddipati has been promoted to the new role, having previously served as Cardlytics’ Senior Vice President and Head of Technology. As CTO, Gaddipati is charged with leading platform engineering, technical product management, software development, data engineering, quality assurance, and IT operations.

Gaddipati, who has been with Cardlytics for a year, said that he realized the company “was the perfect fit for me.” He added, “It’s incredibly gratifying that our combined efforts have allowed us to continue providing sophisticated technology to leading financial institutions, and I look forward to working on exciting future developments.”

Prior to joining Cardlytics, Gaddipati, who has an MS in Industrial Management from the Indian Institute of Technology, held roles at The Weather Channel, The Walt Disney Company, NCR Corporation, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), Sun Microsystems, and Omnitracs.

Founded in 2008, Cardlytics has raised $203 million in funding. The company demoed its geolocation application at FinovateFall 2013. In 2016, Cardlytics analyzed approximately $1.3 trillion in U.S. purchase spend. Scott Grimes is CEO and cofounder.

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