Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

All News is Good News from 2016 FinovateEurope Best of Show Winners

All News is Good News from 2016 FinovateEurope Best of Show Winners
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Capitali.se, DriveWealth, EyeVerify, FinovateEurope 2017, IDscan Biometrics, Swipestox

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At FinovateEurope 2016, six companies took home Best of Show trophies after an audience vote favored their seven minute demos on the Finovate stage in London. FinovateEurope returns to London in less than two weeks, on February 7 and 8, where we’ll see 55 companies debut their newest technology and vie for a chance to win the audience’s vote for Best of Show. Tickets are still available. Register to save your spot today.

Today, we’re taking a look at the successes from the six Best of Show-winning companies from last year.

25107877391_5fb99d5838_kCapitali.se
Offers natural language trade automation for automatically managed investment portfolios
Demo video

What’s new:

  • Recognized by PYMNTS.com as representing fintech innovation in Israel
  • Cited as a top B2B wealth tech player
  • Listed by The Next Web as 1 of 6 fintech startups to help you make the most of your money

DriveWealth25201110835_5b8991a5e9_k
Enables real-time fractional share investing and trading in U.S. equities for mass retail investors
Demo video

What’s new:

  • Brought Roboadvisory to Latin America in new partnership with Alkanza
  • Added a new real-time margin feature
  • Expanded APIs for wealth managers
  • Brought robo advisory to China in new partnership with CreditEase
  • Inked new partnership with Stoxs

25174331736_4f20b80c80_kEyeVerify
Offers a scalable biometric authentication solution
Demo video

What’s new:

  • Acquired by Ant Financial
  • Partnered with Bioconnect to boost payment security
  • Selected by Wells Fargo for its biometric authentication technology

24905480290_e037cec5e7_kIDScan Biometrics
Offers a digital onboarding suite with facial recognition technology
Demo video

What’s new:

  • Acquired by GBG Group
  • Included in Mercator Advisory Group’s biometric authentication report

 

SwipeStox
Offers a mobile, social trading 25082834042_60b88fc576_kapp that enables users to copy single trades of other users
Demo video

What’s new:

  • Won Digital Top 50 Award
  • Won Wolves Summit 2016
  • Launched WebTrader to expand beyond mobile
  • Launched Live Trading on its app

The sixth Best of Show winner, Valuto, shut down in August of 2016. Its parent company Currency One cited “an unsatisfactory pace of development” as the reason for the closure.

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Wipro Agrees to Acquire InfoSERVER for $8.7 Million

Wipro Agrees to Acquire InfoSERVER for $8.7 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Mergers & Acquisitions, wipro

Screen Shot 2017-01-27 at 1.11.41 PM

Information technology company Wipro announced today it has agreed to acquire Brazil-based InfoSERVER for $8.7 million. In the press release, India-based Wipro noted that it sees Brazil as a strategic “growth and investment region.”

Today’s deal marks the company’s 11th acquisition. Wipro expects that IT services provider InfoSERVER will help it “[expand] its presence in the country’s highly traditional and competitive banking, financial services and insurance market” as well as add “invaluable domain and process knowledge on the sector.” Wipro’s presence in Latin America already spans Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. The company is hoping today’s partnership will help it expand in the LATAM market. InfoSERVER has been working with Brazilian banks for 20 years and counts some of the largest banks in Brazil as its clients.

InfoSERVER’s VP and head of sales, Fabiano Funari, said that he is excited about the deal. Funari anticipates that Wipro’s “global client base, delivery expertise and scale” will help the company expand its global reach as well as the breadth of its offerings.

Founded in 1945, Wipro went public in 2000. Wipro demoed at FinovateEurope 2015 where it debuted ngGenie MyAdvisor. MyAdvisor is a natural language chatbot that uses machine learning to learn consumers’ spending patterns and transactions to provide personalized assistance. Most recently the company was positioned as a “Leader” in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for application testing services.

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Insuritas’ Growth Scales with the Popularity of Insurtech

Insuritas’ Growth Scales with the Popularity of Insurtech
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Insuritas

Screen Shot 2017-01-27 at 7.19.33 AM

Insurance marketplace solutions company Insuritas released some key growth metrics this week. The Connecticut-based company announced that 2016 marked its third consecutive year of growth.

Below are the company’s 2016 metrics:

  • Its total addressable market with bank and credit union partners grew by 42.4%
  • Policy sales grew by 33.7% in 2016
  • Its platform is now available to 7.4+ million retail households and 1.2+ million small businesses
  • Clients include banks and credit unions ranging in size from $25 million to $70+ billion

In the release, Insuritas COO Matt Chesky said, “as the traditional brick and mortar agency system continues to decline, we are relentlessly focused on enabling our clients to capture an increasing share of that business.” The company attributes its success to its three main offerings:

  1. LoanINSURE, which enables banks to offer insurance quotes with every loan transaction
  2. InsureNOW, which helps customers quote their insurance at their policy’s renewal
  3. E-InsuranceAISLE, an online insurance agency that allows customers to shop, compare and buy policies within their bank’s website

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Above: Insuritas CEO Jeffrey Chesky and then-SVP Matt Chesky debut SmartCART at FinovateSpring 2014

At FinovateSpring 2014, the company’s CEO Jeffrey Chesky, and then-SVP Matt Chesky debuted SmartCART, a technology that allows banks to host an online market for financial products within its own website. The marketplace lets consumers shop, compare and buy consumer and small business insurance products from multiple carriers.

Founded in 1998, Insuritas most recently teamed up with Kentucky-based Paducah Bank. Through the partnership, Insuritas will power the bank’s Paducah Insurance Agency, which is expected to drive fee income.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Blackhawk Network, eSignLive, IBM, Insuritas, LendingRobot, Misys, Thomson Reuters, wipro

On Finovate.com

  • New Robo Fund from LendingRobot Leverages Automation and the Blockchain.
  • Insuritas’ Growth Scales with the Popularity of Insurtech.
  • Wipro Agrees to Acquire InfoSERVER for $8.7 Million

Around the web

  • G2Crowd lists eSignLive as the top eSignature product for mid-market. Come see eSignLive’s demo at FinovateEurope Feb 7 & 8.
  • Blackhawk Network’s customer experience insights featured in Loyalty360.
  • Misys to offer peer lending technology to help banks compete with P2P startups.
  • Thomson Reuters introduces new end-to-end, compliance dashboard, Regulatory Change Management.
  • IBM Security announces plan to acquire business data risk management specialist, Agile 3 Solutions.

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 $35 Million in Funding

WorkFusion Closes $35 Million in Funding
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, WorkFusion

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Today’s investment in WorkFusion is a reminder that AI is one of the hottest trends in fintech. With AI already proving to be one of the hottest trends in fintech this year, the news of today’s investment is not surprising. The AI automation company announced today it raised $35 million in a round led by Georgian Partners. Existing investors Mohr Davidow Ventures, iNovia, Nokia Growth Partners, Greycroft, and RTP Ventures also participated in the Series D round, bringing the company’s total funding to $71 million.

New York-based WorkFusion plans to use the funds to “accelerate customer adoption of AI-powered automation.” Justin LaFayette, Managing Partner at Georgian Partners said he invested in WorkFusion because it “has made machine learning practical and powerful for enterprise operations.”

Founded in 2010, WorkFusion leverages self-learning and automation to eliminate manual, back-office work. The company also offers AI-powered chatbots to assist with front-office operations. At FinovateFall 2014, WorkFusion debuted Active Learning Automation, a system that actively tracks human work to establish patterns and automatically trains algorithms to follow those patterns.

The company highlighted a number of its 2016 successes in today’s press release:

For further coverage, check out our Finovate Debuts feature on WorkFusion.

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SocietyOne Appoints Former Westpac Exec as Chief Investment Officer

SocietyOne Appoints Former Westpac Exec as Chief Investment Officer
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: On Deck Capital, SocietyOne

Screen Shot 2017-01-25 at 10.54.12 AM

Screen Shot 2017-01-25 at 11.04.59 AMAustralia-based P2P lender SocietyOne landed an all-star player for its newly-created chief investment officer position. The company has appointed John Cummins, industry veteran and former Westpac, RBS, and Macquarie employee to serve in the newly-created position.

Cummins previously served as head of institutional markets at FIIG Securities. In his new role at SocietyOne, Cummins will manage the company’s funding requirements and be in charge of investor relations.

SocietyOne’s online platform uses risk-based pricing to connect borrowers and investors to loans using its ClearMatch technology, which it launched at FinovateAsia 2012. ClearMatch allows investors to bid together at different interest rates and amounts against a single loan.

Jason Yetton, who was appointed SocietyOne’s CEO in April 2016, said Cummins has “specialist knowledge of the fixed income and credit markets, which will be of critical importance to our future growth given the opportunities that we offer our growing base of investor funders to earn solid returns from a new asset class.” Yetton also mentioned Cummins will be key in growing the company’s borrower base to 100,000 within five years and increasing its share in the $100 billion consumer lending market.

Founded in 2011, SocietyOne has facilitated a total of $200 million in loans. Of that amount, $129 million was done in 2016 alone, which indicates a 320% increase in loan bookings in the course of a single year. The company recently took in a $1.5 million equity investment from Beyond Bank Australia, bringing its total funding to $55 million.

Somewhat ironically, the same day SocietyOne announced Cummins as its new CIO, U.S.-based alternative lender OnDeck announced it appointed SocietyOne’s former chief financial officer, Jerry Yohananov, to its management team. OnDeck most recently presented at FinDEVr New York 2016. At FinovateSpring 2012, the company debuted OnDeck Connect.

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FinDEVr APIntelligence

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Arxan Technologies, Avoka, Currency Cloud, Evo Snap*, Kontomatik, PayNearMe, SimplyTapp, Stocktwits, Stratumn, Temenos, Xignite

FDNY17_EventLogo_v1(wdate)Tickets for upcoming FinDEVr London and FinDEVr New York are at their lowest prices now. Register for FinDEVr New York now and save!

On FinDEVr.com

  • SimplyTapp Launches New Payments and E-Commerce App, Gane.

Alumni updates

  • Let’s Talk Payments interviews Marcin Truszel, Founder & CEO of Kontomatik.
  • StockTwits Partners with TradeIt to Expand Beyond Robinhood’s Brokerage.
  • Xignite adds senior sales, business development talent; unveils new offices in New York financial district.
  • Arxan Technologies partners with Cisco as to protect connected medical devices.
  • CurrencyCloud Taps Former Misys Executive Ed Addario as New CTO.
  • Quicken to Leverage PayNearMe’s Prism API.
  • The Banker interviews Avoka European GM, Richard Austen.
  • Persia International Bank chooses core banking technology from Temenos.
  • WISeKey and Stratumn partner to provide enterprise-grade process security software based on blockchain technologies.
  • EVO Payments acquires Sterling Payment Technologies.
  • Rabobank to deploy UP Immediate Payments from ACI Worldwide.

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

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: GainX

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

Screen Shot 2017-01-24 at 10.44.06 AM

Screen Shot 2017-01-23 at 4.27.53 PMA 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.

The GainX Innovation Strategy Management AI platform enables FSIs to adapt, innovate, and commercialize repeatedly. Its end-to-end ISM solution eliminates the complexity of enterprise innovation.

Features of the GainX Flow-AI

  • Predicts and manages innovation risk in real-time
  • Accelerates the flow of innovation
  • Enables enterprise-wide cultural transformation, saving FSIs millions in losses

Why it’s great
GainX aligns and accelerates all strategic innovation and cultural transformation efforts for a very real, measurable market advantage.

PresentersScreen Shot 2017-01-24 at 10.47.02 AM

Angelique Mohring, CEO and Founder
Mohring founded GainX after working with Global 1000s for 20+ years as a tech executive and global change agent. She is an expert in innovation strategy, tech, and economic growth through innovation.
LinkedIn

Screen Shot 2017-01-24 at 10.47.20 AMMalcolm van Raalte, CTO and Co-Founder
van Raalte has 20+ years of experience in building technology platforms in fast-growing, high-tech businesses. He has been instrumental in building the GainX platform into a world-class solution.
LinkedIn

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: VASCO & eSignLive

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

Screen Shot 2017-01-24 at 9.48.14 AM

Screen Shot 2017-01-23 at 4.27.53 PMA 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.

VASCO is a global leader in delivering trust & business productivity solutions to the digital market. Together with eSignLive, VASCO will introduce its smile & sign mobile onboarding innovation.

Features

  • Protect mobile apps and prevent attacks
  • Integrate e-signatures to capture intent and consent
  • Add biometrics (e.g., “selfie” authentication) to securely authenticate clients before signing

Why it’s great
Our smile & sign innovation allows FIs to onboard clients natively via their mobile app in a secure and frictionless way with next-gen face authentication and compliant e-signature technology.Screen Shot 2017-01-24 at 10.00.08 AM

Presenters

Tommy Petrogiannis, President, eSignLive by VASCO
LinkedIn

Screen Shot 2017-01-24 at 10.00.18 AMGuillaume Teixeron, Product Manager, VASCO
LinkedIn

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: aixigo

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

Screen Shot 2017-01-24 at 11.57.38 AM

Screen Shot 2017-01-23 at 4.27.53 PMA 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.

aixigo offers digital wealth management and personal investment services. It delivers a high performance portfolio management set of APIs, capable of handling millions of customers in milliseconds.

Features

  • Covers every aspect of a digital wealth management offer
  • Highly efficiently serves millions of portfolios
  • Handles millions of customers in milliseconds

Why it’s great
It calculates portfolio insights flexibly, more accurately, and much faster than any system has ever done before.

PresentersScreen Shot 2017-01-24 at 1.16.19 PM

Mario Alves, Head of Marketing & Sales
LinkedIn

 

Marcus Gruendler, Manager Product Base PMSScreen Shot 2017-01-24 at 1.16.31 PM
LinkedIn

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: SaleMove

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

Screen Shot 2017-01-23 at 5.16.13 PM

Screen Shot 2017-01-23 at 4.27.53 PMA 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.

SaleMove enables companies to identify and engage their highest-value website visitors through video, audio, chat, and dual-cursor cobrowsing – all without downloads or installations.

Features

  • Gain valuable insight and context about your website visitors
  • Increase online conversions through high-touch interactions
  • Improve customer support and satisfaction

Why it’s great
SaleMove breathes life into the online customer experience and enables companies to deliver an in-person experience online.

Presenter46268120_dan_headshot

Dan Michaeli, Co-Founder & CEO
Originally from Guatemala, Michaeli is the CEO and co-Founder of SaleMove. Since graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Michaeli has focused on venture capital, tech/strategy consulting, and startups.
LinkedIn

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Dorsum

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

Screen Shot 2017-01-23 at 4.32.50 PM

Screen Shot 2017-01-23 at 4.27.53 PMA 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.

Dorsum, a financial software vendor for over 20 years, introduces Botboarding, the new platform for financial institutions to build and manage chatbots to acquire new customers.

Features

  • Acquire new customers on Facebook Messenger with a chatbot
  • Score leads with fluid, human-like conversations
  • Build, manage, and optimize your chatbots to best suit your business

Why it’s great
Botboarding provides an advanced platform for chatbots about your banking products in Facebook Messenger. Get your own chatbot and join the conversation.Screen Shot 2017-01-23 at 4.44.13 PM

Presenters

Imre Rokob, Business Development Director
Rokob is leading the innovation and business development at Dorsum with 15 years of experience in investment software development.Screen Shot 2017-01-23 at 4.44.30 PM
LinkedIn

Renata Stein, Business Development Consultant
Stein has over 10 years of multinational sales experience in the IT and financial services industry. She drives Dorsum’s international market expansion.
LinkedIn

Peter Sallai, Head of Mobile DevelopmentScreen Shot 2017-01-23 at 4.44.57 PM
Sallai is the frontend service professional, working on mobile and web projects for the financial and airline industry in the last 15 years.
LinkedIn

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