Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

Payfone Lands $23.5 Million in Funding

Payfone Lands $23.5 Million in Funding
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Payfone

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Mobile authentication company Payfone closed a $23.5 million round of funding today. BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners and Andrew Prozes led the round, while new investors Strauss Zelnick, Maclab Development Group and Transaction Network Services, along with existing investors RRE Ventures, Opus Capital, Relay Ventures, Early Warning Services, American Express Ventures, Verizon Ventures, and Rogers Venture Partners also contributed.

This Series E round brings the New York-based company’s total funding to just over $66 million and bolsters Payfone’s Board of Directors with the addition of Mike Spadafore of Sandbox Industries and Andrew Prozes, the former CEO of LexisNexis.

When it launched in 2008, Payfone sought to fight the mobile payments battle but pivoted just over 3 years ago to focus on mobile authentication solutions. In its former life as a payments company, Payfone launched 1 Touch Checkout at FinovateFall 2012 in New York. Today, the company offers a non-intrusive authentication option for end clients that uses the identity of their mobile phone to offer persistent protection against fraud.

At the 2015 Fierce Innovation Awards, Payfone won the Over-the-Top (OTT) Monetization and Customer Security categories. In 2016, the company deployed its technology at a Tier-1 bank in the U.S., marking 50 million bank accounts protected by Payfone.

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Finovate Debuts: Sindeo Revamps the Mortgage Application Process

Finovate Debuts: Sindeo Revamps the Mortgage Application Process
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Finovate Debuts, Sindeo

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Home financing startup Sindeo offers customers access to a marketplace of over 1,000 loan programs to help them find the best mortgage. Its platform streamlines the mortgage application process and offers borrowers guidance from Mortgage Advisors.

Kicking off the company’s demo at FinovateFall 2016, Sindeo’s co-founder Ori Zohar described a home purchase as “the largest financial decision that most people are going to make in their lives” and added that getting a mortgage is a “difficult and confusing process.” Explaining his company’s proposed solution, Zohar said, “Sindeo is creating a streamlined online mortgage experience. We can get you a loan with any of the lenders in our growing marketplace which currently has over 45 lenders and over 1,000 loan products. We have technology integrated all the way from quotes to close.”

On the Finovate stage, the Sindeo team launched QuickStart, a CFPB compliant mortgage pre-qualification tool that helps borrowers find a home loan, complete the application and underwriting process, and generate a pre-qualification letter, all in less than 10 minutes.

Company facts

  • 100+ employees
  • Originating loans in eleven states
  • $20+ million in funding to-date
  • 60+ NPS
  • Saved customers $17 million
29100750683_4d371ff788_kAimeelene Gaspar (SVP, Product) and Ori Zohar (Co-Founder) demo Sindeo at FinovateFall 2016 in New York

We interviewed Ori Zohar (pictured right), Sindeo’s co-founder, to get a deeper look into Sindeo’s background and future plans.screen-shot-2016-12-19-at-10-31-08-am

Finovate: What problem does Sindeo solve?

Ori Zohar: Getting a mortgage today is a stressful, confusing, low-tech process. It’s rife with unnecessary delays and unexpected costs. It’s the biggest financial decision most people make in their lifetimes, yet there isn’t a good partner to guide customers in a high tech, friendly way.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Zohar: Homeowners and future homeowners.

Finovate: How does Sindeo solve the problem better?

Zohar: We’ve created a mortgage marketplace where customers can shop one thousand loan products, apply in minutes by filling out just one application, and close with speed and transparency. Sindeo not only saves our customers time, but also tens of thousands of dollars over the life of the loan.

screen-shot-2016-12-19-at-11-28-20-am(above) A screenshot from Sindeo’s loan marketplace

 

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of your solution.

Zohar: After a couple of years of some really hard work, it’s fantastic to see us delivering on our vision – especially with the technology. From the start, Sindeo has been about rebuilding the home financing experience from the ground up by providing customers with access to a broad marketplace of loan programs, expert and unbiased guidance from Mortgage Advisors that are compensated based on customer satisfaction, and innovative technology that streamlines the entire mortgage process.

Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?

Zohar: I’m a serial entrepreneur, having started my first business when I was 15. After graduating from college, I began working with global ad agencies on solving complex problems for clients in the luxury clothing, automotive, and financial services industries. Eventually, I started looking for my next entrepreneurial opportunity. After I met Nick Stamos, my co-founder, we knew we found a huge opportunity to create a new path to bring home financing into the modern era.

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from Sindeo that we can look forward to over the next few months?

Zohar: Sindeo is an end-to-end solution, and SindeoOne is just the beginning! We’re going to continue to add features to SindeoOne like verification of assets, income and employment directly into the application. We’re also streamlining and automating our back-end processes, so that our mortgage advisors can spend more time helping our customers.

Finovate: Where do you see Sindeo a year or two from now?

Zohar: I expect that not only will Sindeo be available to consumers in every state, but we will have introduced a fully digital mortgage that will allow consumers to find the right loan at the right price and close as quickly as possible.

Watch Sindeo’s demo from FinovateFall 2016 in New York with Aimeelene Gaspar (SVP, Product) and Ori Zohar (Co-Founder)

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Wealthify

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Wealthify
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2017, FinovateEurope 2017 Sneak Peek, Wealthify

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FE2017-V2-wdateA look at the companies demoing live at FinovateEurope on the 7 and 8 of February 2017 in London. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.

Wealthify is an online investment service using smart technology to make investing easy and affordable for everyone, regardless of their experience.

Features

  • Start investing with just £250, and no tie in.
  • Our experts build and manage your investment plan for a simple, low annual fee.
  • 24/7 access to check your performance, top up, or withdraw.

Why it’s great
We aim to democratise investing and help 1 million U.K. savers make their money work harder by helping them to become investors in the next 10 years.

Presentersscreen-shot-2017-01-03-at-2-24-59-pm
Richard Theo, Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Theo is a serial entrepreneur with a passion and enthusiasm for technology that has driven him to establish a string of successful companies, including ActiveQuote, and most recently, Wealthify.
LinkedIn

Michelle Pearce, Founder & Chief Investing Officerscreen-shot-2017-01-03-at-2-29-54-pm
Guernsey-born Pearce left medical school to pursue a long-standing passion for investing. She worked as a Chartered Wealth Manager for Brookes MacDonald, before co-founding Wealthify in 2014.
LinkedIn

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Leveris

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Leveris
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2017, FinovateEurope 2017 Sneak Peek, Leveris

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FE2017-V2-wdateA look at the companies demoing live at FinovateEurope on the 7 and 8 of February 2017 in London. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.

Leveris delivers full-stack, standalone, core bank and lending platforms for traditional banks, challenger banks and consumer brands.

Features

  • Lower Cost: Cloud-native
  • Marketplace banking: Plug-n-play third party product and/or service
  • Lending solution means revenue from day one

Why it’s great
Banking platforms like Leveris will help banks create new ways to make money by delivering value through data. Banks will ultimately become data platforms and to a lesser extent, banks.

Presenterscreen-shot-2017-01-03-at-1-28-54-pm

Conor Fennelly, Founder & CEO
Fennelly has been at the forefront of enterprise software development for the financial services industry since 1995. He has engineered innovative solutions for banks, blue chips and governments.
LinkedIn

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FinDEVr APIntelligence

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Avalara, Craft Silicon, FinDEVr APIntelligence, Flybits, PayPal, ScientiaMobile, Sindeo, Streamdata.io, Trulioo, Xero

FDNY17_EventLogo_v1(wdate)FinDEVr Silicon Valley was a success! Tickets for upcoming FinDEVr London and FinDEVr New York are at their lowest prices now. Register today for London or New York to save your spot!

On FinDEVr.com

  • Avalara Adds New CMO Jeremy Korst.

The latest from FinDEVr Silicon Valley presenters

  • Finovate Debuts: Sindeo Revamps the Mortgage Application Process.

Alumni updates

  • Flybits CEO Hossein Rahnama interviewed in TechRepublic feature on IoT trends in 2017.
  • ScientiaMobile recognized by CIOReview as one of the most promising CDN solution providers of 2016.
  • AFK Insider lists Craft Silicon’s Uber-challenging app, Little, in its look at major technology developments in Africa in 2016.
  • FinDEVr alum Streamdata.io joins Google Technological Partner program.
  • Inc. lists Xero and PayPal among 8 business apps that will crush it in 2017.
  • LTP: Trulioo CEO Stephen Ufford writes about the problem of gift card fraud.

Stay current on daily news from the fintech developer community! Follow FinDEVr on Twitter.

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: unblu

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: unblu
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2017, FinovateEurope 2017 Sneak Peek, unblu

screen-shot-2017-01-03-at-1-43-40-pmFE2017-V2-wdateA look at the companies demoing live at FinovateEurope on the 7 and 8 of February 2017 in London. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.

unblu’s live collaboration suite helps the world’s leading banks deliver an in-person experience online. Over 80 banks worldwide trust unblu.

Features

  • Facilitates customer acquisition and end-to-end onboarding
  • Lifts conversion rates and increases sales through live engagements
  • Offers customers consulting from the comfort of their home

Why it’s great
Allows you to create a virtual branch rivaling any high-street presence. unblu is changing how banks do business and deliver services through their digital channels.

screen-shot-2017-01-03-at-1-52-16-pmPresenters

Jens Rabe, CMO
Rabe loves to understand technology and its potential impact on real life problems to help design new ways in which business can be done.
LinkedIn

screen-shot-2017-01-03-at-1-56-39-pmLuc Haldimann, CEO, unblu
Haldimann combines vision, persistence and entrepreneurship. A true inventor, he strives to make lasting contributions to the technology and business worlds.
LinkedIn

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Wealth Wizards

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Wealth Wizards
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2017, FinovateEurope 2017 Sneak Peek, Wealth Wizards

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FE2017-V2-wdateA look at the companies demoing live at FinovateEurope on 7 & 8 February, 2017 in London. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.

Wealth Wizards is the U.K.’s first independent online financial adviser. It is here to revolutionise financial advice and make it accessible to everyone.

Features

  • Gives the user a manageable plan for retirement
  • Checks whether new pension contributions are affordable
  • Fully-regulated advice, online

Why it’s great
It is making planning for retirement a lot less daunting thanks to the use of tech.

screen-shot-2017-01-03-at-2-54-10-pmPresenters

Andrew Firth, Chief Executive
Part of the founding team of Egg, Firth is passionate about pioneering the development of automated financial advice in the U.K.
LinkedIn

screen-shot-2017-01-03-at-2-54-32-pmPeet Denny, Chief Technology Officer
Denny is a pragmatic and business-outcome-driven senior technical consultant and champion of achieving business agility through technical excellence.
LinkedIn

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Simple’s Annual Disclosure Will Be the Only One You’ll Read This Year

Simple’s Annual Disclosure Will Be the Only One You’ll Read This Year
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Simple

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When it comes to annual disclosures from financial services companies, I’ll be honest—I never read them. When they arrive as direct mail, I shred them. When they arrive in digital form, I file the unopened email into a folder.

All of this changed last week when I received an email from BBVA-owned Simple (FF11) titled Lint, floss, Regulation E. (Required legalese inside). Here’s how the email began:

Today’s the wonderful day! We’re legally required—and freely excited—to send you these very important Annual Disclosures of Regulation E Guidelines for Electronic Fund Transfers and Privacy Practices.

Encouraging expressions motivate readers to continue, saying, “Don’t sleep too soon!” and “Let go your reluctance!” Following these energy-inducing phrases, the email launches into “lines of regulatory poetry,” otherwise known as Regulation E, (a siren song to fraud).

To reward users for reaching the end of the disclosures, the email concludes with a “Museum of the Mundane.” In case you aren’t a Simple customer and don’t have the luxury of reading the most entertaining regulatory disclosure email ever created, here are the features from the “Museum:”

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Simple concludes the entertaining email with mundane wishes:

Give thanks, Julie! Today’s a bigger day than you thought. Pull out a blanket, pop some champagne, and gather your friends for a reading of this caring, protective, regulatory gift. Regulation E! Yes, please!

There you have it. From Team Simple to you and yours, bidding you mundane wishes this holiday season.

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Nutmeg Closes $14.6 Million Series D Round

Nutmeg Closes $14.6 Million Series D Round
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Nutmeg

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U.K.-based wealth management company Nutmeg brought its total funding to $90 million today after closing its Series D round, which was led by Taipei Fubon Bank.

The news comes hot on the heels of Nutmeg’s most recent funding when it scored $37 million in Series C funding last month from Convoy, Hong Kong’s largest firm of independent financial advisers. Adding two Asian investors in the past two months comes as a hint as to what’s next for the roboadvisor. Nutmeg CEO Martin Stead told TechCrunch,

There is a very significant market opportunity before us, in the U.K. and beyond, and we are going to capture it. With these new funds, we will continue to invest in product innovations which disrupt the industry and deliver a better deal–and a better experience–for customers. And, we are going to expand into new categories and new territories.

Expansion into the Asia Pacific region is a logical move, since it’s currently experiencing a fintech boom, while the U.S. market is saturated (see our wealth tech coverage for more on this).

Nutmeg, which manages $735 million for its 25,000 clients, debuted its digital wealth management technology at FinovateEurope 2012 in London. In early 2016 the company was recognized on the European Top 100 List at the European Fintech Awards, and the company’s former CEO and founder Nick Hungerford was named one of the U.K.’s coolest people in fintech. In May of 2016, Martin Stead, Nutmeg’s former chief revenue officer, assumed the role of CEO.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Credit Karma, Mint, Nutmeg, Simple, Taulia

On Finovate.com

  • “Nutmeg Closes $14.6 Million Series D Round”

Around the web

  • Taulia reaches supply chain finance into aerospace sector.
  • The New York Times highlights Credit Karma and Mint.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Top Direct-to-Consumer Wealthtech Plays

Top Direct-to-Consumer Wealthtech Plays
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: AnalytixInsight, ayondo, Betterment, blooom, eToro, FutureAdvisor, Hedgeable, LearnVest, M1 Finance, Motif Investing, Nutmeg, OurCrowd, Personal Capital, Scalable Capital, Seeking Alpha, SigFig, TickerTags, vaamo, Wealthfront, Wealthtech, WiseBanyan

wealthtech4

Our wealthtech industry coverage continues this week. We looked at the industry last week and reviewed the top trends earlier this month. Today we’re taking a look at industry players with B2C offerings—in other words, companies that market directly to consumers and not through businesses.

Since wealthtech is broader than just roboadvisers, we’ve divided B2C wealthtech players into seven categories and laid out our top picks for each group. Since category sizes vary, the number of our selections also vary.

Top in-house builds from traditional players
These are offerings from traditional wealth management firms that have been built in-house (or purchased and then white-labeled) and marketed under the firm’s brand.

Fully automated roboadvisers
These are online platforms that provide automated, algorithm-based portfolio management without intervention from human advisers and without personalized, one-on-one conversations with a human adviser.

screen-shot-2016-12-22-at-4-06-40-pmAcorns takes a unique approach by linking a user’s debit card and investing their “spare change”

Hybrid roboadvisers
These are traditional advisory services, including personalized conversations and actively managed portfolios blended with computerized portfolio recommendations. Business Insider reports hybrid roboadvisers will manage 10% of all investable assets by 2025.

screen-shot-2016-12-22-at-4-11-08-pmSigFig has partnered with multiple banks, including Wells Fargo, Pershing, and Citizens Bank

Non-U.S. roboadvisers

Alternative investing platforms
These are platforms that link participants to unconventional investment types, such as private equity, hedge funds, futures, real estate, etc.

screen-shot-2016-12-22-at-4-18-08-pmWith Motif, uses invest in grouped stocks and ETFs that revolve around a common theme

Non-U.S. alternative investing platforms

News and information companies
These are online platforms that help users discover news and market trends before they go mainstream. Some include social networking aspects.

screen-shot-2016-12-22-at-4-23-47-pmTickerTags helps users discover trends even before they become news

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Finovate Debuts: Agreement Express Helps Advisers Offer Nonintrusive Onboarding

Finovate Debuts: Agreement Express Helps Advisers Offer Nonintrusive Onboarding
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Agreement Express, Finovate Debuts

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Onboarding software provider Agreement Express helps wealth management firms, payments, and insurance companies create and manage a consistent onboarding experience across channels for all of their product offerings.

At FinovateFall 2016, the company demoed the newest version of its wealth management offering, an onboarding solution that helps advisers interact with clients in a nonintrusive, compliant manner. The new release improves the customer experience by helping firms gather and re-use existing client data instead of requesting the same information multiple times, which causes friction and deteriorates the client experience.

In his demo on the FinovateFall stage, Agreement Express CEO Mike Gardner opened by depicting the difficulty advisers have in getting solutions up-and-running quickly, saying, “At Agreement Express, we unite advisers, clients, back office teams, and compliance … in one platform that allows transformation in just two weeks.” He later noted the software is made to work quickly even for large firms.

Company Facts

  • Founded in 2001
  • Headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
  • Working with Global Payments and M&T Bank
29615085762_a907570331_kCEO Mike Gardner and Account Exec Andrew Grocholski demoed Agreement Express at FinovateFall 2016

screen-shot-2016-12-19-at-4-10-26-pmAfter his presentation at FinovateFall, we conducted an interview with Mike Gardner, Agreement Express CEO, to gather more information about the company and its future plans.

Finovate: What problem does Agreement Express solve?

Mike Gardner: Agreement Express solves the problem of slow, inefficient, paper-based client onboarding in financial services. Because it’s such a huge problem, FIs usually go one of two routes: reducing the scope and only solving one piece of the project, or trying to solve the whole thing in one go with a massive BPM project that takes a couple of years to go live. Agreement Express is onboarding software that financial institutions can implement in just a few weeks, and gives them the data and flexibility they need to iterate and configure their process on an ongoing basis. It’s essentially building the perfect path as you go, enabling firms to receive immediate value and get in the fast-paced technology race, without the risk of trying to predict the future and get it all right without consulting meaningful data.

agreement-express-product-screenshot-1Agreement Express document management screen

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Gardner: We service key financial institution markets globally, primarily wealth management, payments, banking, and insurance. In those markets, we serve Fortune 1000 companies and top industry leaders such as Global Payments, Elavon, M&T Bank, National Bank Correspondent Network, Questrade, and more.

Finovate: How does Agreement Express solve the problem better?

Gardner: Agreement Express does two things that sets it apart from the competition: it solves the entire client onboarding problem from front to back office, and enables firms to go live in weeks, not months or years.

Our platform solves more of the problem in less time, and allows users to configure and iterate on an ongoing basis. This allows firms to realize tremendous value right away, and lowers the risk of trying to get everything perfect in advance and delaying time-to-value for a year or more.

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of your solution.

Gardner: We are proud of the work we’ve done with all of our clients, but one that comes to mind is Global Payments, one of the largest merchant acquirers in the world. By consolidating all of their merchant onboarding processes into Agreement Express, they were able to increase application return rates from 40% to 100%, and virtually eliminate back-office data entry. It was exciting to watch such a large institution make so much digital progress in a short time.

agreement-express-product-screenshot-3Agreement Express adviser workspace

Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?

Gardner: We work with some of the largest global merchant acquirers, which gave us the confidence that we could successfully help Global Payments make a significant digital transformation.

Finovate: Where do you see Agreement Express a year or two from now?

Gardner: On our current trajectory, we’ll be continuing our global expansion, opening new offices around the world. We’ll be continuing to make Agreement Express accessible to the entire financial services enterprise, from the largest firms to the smallest partners in their network. Typically, software is either made for big or small companies, but Agreement Express will be used by the whole ecosystem for a completely integrated client onboarding experience.

Check out the video of Mike Gardner (CEO) and Andrew Grocholski (Account Executive) demoing Agreement Express at FinovateFall 2016.

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