Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

Finovate Debuts: CardLinx Helps Members Find & Post Card-Linked Offers

Finovate Debuts: CardLinx Helps Members Find & Post Card-Linked Offers
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: CardLinX, Finovate Debuts

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The first card-linked offers company, Cardlytics, launched in 2008. The fintech community started paying attention to the linked-offers trend around 2012, but by that time, so many players had entered into the market that it had become fragmented, making it difficult to compete.

The CardLinx Association launched to unite retailers, advertisers, publishers, payment networks, payment processors and technology providers in the space; enhancing the interoperability of loyalty programs to create a better customer shopping and merchant experience. The collaborative platform brings cohesiveness by developing standards for the industry.

At FinovateSpring 2016, The CardLinx Association debuted Listing Information Monitor eCenter (CLIMe). “How do you get all of these companies to work together?” the company’s CEO and founder, Silvio Tavares, asked in his demo. He addressed the question by showing the logos of the companies that have partnered under The CardLinx Association.

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These companies represent some of the members that share data on CLIMe. Companies use the database to search offers and offer requests; card-linked technology providers list offers, and banks and digital publishers request offers.

Company facts:

  • Headquartered in San Bruno, CA
  • Founded in 2013
  • Membership has doubled every year
SilvioDemoThe CardLinx Association’s Silvio Tavares, CEO and president, demoed at FinovateSpring 2016 in San Jose

Silvio-HIRES_4x5We interviewed Silvio Tavares, the company’s CEO and president, after his FinovateSpring 2016 demo in San Jose.

Finovate: What problem does CLIMe solve?

Tavares: Card-linked offers enable merchants to deliver targeted discounts and loyalty benefits through mobile apps hosted by banks and digital publishers. The cool thing for consumers is that the offers can be used without a paper coupon or promo code. All they need to do is pay with their existing card. Prior to CLIMe, the CardLinx Listing Information Monitor eCenter, digital publishers had often found it cumbersome to consistently source high-quality merchant card-linked offers. Merchants and retailers have also found it difficult to find the broadest possible audience for their card-linked offers and card-linked loyalty programs. CLIMe solves both of these problems by providing a central online platform for merchants and their card-linked technology partners to publish the availability of their card-linked offers to large-scale digital publishers and payment card issuers.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Tavares: The CardLinx Association is a global multi-industry association focused on growing the card-linking industry. Our members include companies from the entire digital commerce ecosystem from digital publishers to payment systems to payment processors to card-linking technology companies to retailers and advertisers. For example, Facebook, Microsoft, Samsung, MasterCard, American Express, Airbnb, Whole Foods and Sears are all members. Our members are interested in developing the card-linking industry through developing common standards and industry services to minimize and eliminate friction in the sourcing, serving, publishing, redeeming, and cross syndicating of card-linked offers and loyalty programs.

Finovate: How does CLIMe solve the problem better?

Tavares: As a multi-industry association, CardLinx has the reach to make sure all participants in the card-linking ecosystem can access and distribute the latest offers and benefits through CLIMe. Before CLIMe, a central database for card-linking offers was unavailable.

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

Tavares: Go Daddy, a leading hosting company recently joined CardLinx and used CLIMe to publish an offer for their web-hosting services. Using CLIMe enabled them to get their offer to multiple banks and digital publishers. This enabled them to get a much broader reach for their offer in a very short amount of time.

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

Tavares: When I listened to our members and others in the card-linking industry, a central repository of offers and benefits like CLIMe was a recurring item on the wishlist to help propel the growth of the industry. By the time I was at CardLinx, I had the mandate from our board and feedback from others in the industry that a centralized database would ease the sourcing of card-linked offers with the end result of bringing card-linking to more consumers.

Additionally, before starting the CardLinx Association over two years ago, I was in the payments industry for many years first at Visa and First Data. Before that I was an investment banker and attorney in the field so I’ve seen the payments industry develop over the years and was able to identify areas where collaboration among companies and industries would benefit all.

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

Tavares: CardLinx is working on our next set of industry standards. In the past we have addressed common card-linked insertion orders, fraud reporting and prevention, priority of offer redemptions and standard reporting metrics. We are currently working on standards to enable uniform opt-in consents for consumers and also new standards for SKU/Item level offers.

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

Tavares: The CardLinx Association has been doubling in size every year since we started. We see our membership continuing to grow, especially with retailers and advertisers as well as internationally. In the past year, we have added members from South Korea, Japan, Germany and as far away as Iceland. Card-linking is becoming the technology of choice for digital commerce.

Also, we see card-linking moving beyond just cards and mobile phones to what we call the Internet of Commerce Things or IoCT. The IoCT is using card-linking to enable everyday objects to pay and be used for commerce. These things include watches that can pay, fitness trackers that can pay, refrigerators that can pay and even cars that can pay. The CardLinx Association will play a central role in standardizing and facilitating the growth of the Internet of Commerce Things.

Finovate: What kind of metrics or facts about CardLinX can we share with our readers?

Tavares: In our annual survey sourced from the largest merchants, payment companies, publishers and card-linked technology companies, over 50% of respondents noted that card-linking transactions have grown by at least 50% in the last 12 months.  This compares to last year’s February survey when the majority of respondents reported growth of at least 10%. So card-linking offers and loyalty programs are still growing at a rapid pace because innovations to create branded purchases are on the rise as is consumer awareness of card-linking. Additionally, over 60% of respondents say that card-linking has the potential to grow to over a $10 billion revenue industry in the U.S. alone. So there is a lot of room for new entrants to the card-linking industry.

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Personal Capital Offers Digital Wealth Management for BancAlliance’s Member Banks

Personal Capital Offers Digital Wealth Management for BancAlliance’s Member Banks
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Personal Capital

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California-based wealth-management platform Personal Capital is partnering with BancAlliance, a vital connection that will give the former access to BancAlliance’s network of 200 community banks.

Screen Shot 2016-07-12 at 9.16.05 AMBancAlliance’s member banks—ranging in size from $200 million to $10 billion AUM across 40 U.S. states—receive access to programs and services that help them compete against larger financial institutions. The member banks can now offer co-branded personal finance and wealth-management tools powered by Personal Capital. In a press release Brian Graham, CEO of BancAlliance, said, “With Personal Capital, we are able to give our members the best tools available today to help their customers plan for their own futures. Moreover, our members will gain an entirely new marketing channel through Personal Capital.”

The aim is to broaden the scope of products and services banks offer their clients and to give clients tools to grow, manage and understand their net worth. Personal Capital CEO Bill Harris says, “Through the partnership with BancAlliance, customers have access to tools and advice that have traditionally been reserved for only the ultra-wealthy.”

Personal Capital has helped its one million registered users track $245 billion and has $2.5 billion AUM. Last month the company hired former Yodlee CFO Mike Armsby as its new CFO. In May, Personal Capital picked up an investment of $50 million, boosting its valuation to $500 million. The company expects to raise another $25 million in 2017.

Personal Capital most recently presented at FinDEVr San Francisco 2015, where the company’s CTO Fritz Robbins talked about data-driven retirement planning. At FinovateSpring 2014, CEO Bill Harris and Chief Product Officer Jim Del Favero debuted One Click Investment Proposals.

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Revolut Lands $8.7 Million, Launches Crowdfunding Campaign

Revolut Lands $8.7 Million, Launches Crowdfunding Campaign
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Revolut

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While some European fintech companies are worried Brexit will stifle the tech industry, London-based Revolut’s latest news indicates there’s still room for growth. The company, which offers a multicurrency-payments platform, closed on $8.7 million (£6.8 million) from big-name investors and has a goal to pull in more through a public crowdfunding campaign.

Investors include Ribbit Capital along with existing contributors Balderton Capital, Index Ventures, Point Nine Capital, Venrex and Seedcamp. Today’s Series A round brings the company’s total funding to $13.2 million since it was founded in 2013. According to Business Insider, the company is now valued at $54 million (£42 million).

Revolut is offering the public an opportunity to invest by launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise another $1.3 million (£1 million) hosted on Crowdcube, where investors can participate with as little as £10. Starting today, Revolut is inviting the most active of its 200,000 users to preregister. Others will be able to register when the campaign opens in a week. According to the company’s pitch site on Crowdcube:

Revolut will be inviting people to invest based on the number of contacts in their Revolut contact book. People with the most contacts will be granted priority access by Revolut from Wednesday 20th, 24 hours before the pitch is available to the public.

At press time the company has already far exceeded its $1.3 million goal; 4,832 people have committed to invest more than $11.7 million (£8.5 million).

The Revolut app, combined with a prepaid MasterCard, lets users load money from the bank account in their domestic currency and spend it in 90 different currencies across the globe, including bitcoin, at the interbank rate. The company is seeing more than 1,500 new customers register each day. Since the platform went live about a year ago, users have transferred more than $500 million on its cards. Here’s a look at the growth:Screen Shot 2016-07-11 at 8.21.26 AM

Revolut debuted at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. Revolut’s CEO and founder Nikolay Storonsky began working on the idea after his bank charged him $2,000 in fees after spending $12,000 while traveling abroad. “That is why we built Revolut,” Storonsky said during the demo. “It allows you to exchange, send, and spend your money, completely avoiding all your banking fees without actually using a bank.”

16389701948_d2c7ec0dce_kCEO Nikolay Storonsky, founder, and CTO Vlad Yatsenko debuted Revolut at FinovateEurope 2015 in London.

In May of this year, Revolut received an e-money license from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority to bolster currency exchange functionality in the app. Post-Brexit, the company anticipates it will receive passporting rights from the E.U. to use the license in other countries. If the license falls through, CEO Storonsky tells Business Insider, “We’ll just set up … an office in Berlin and get licensed there.”

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Experian and Neustar Partner to Empower Marketers with More Data

Experian and Neustar Partner to Empower Marketers with More Data
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Experian, Neustar

Proving that data is power when it comes to marketing, two Finovate alums with massive amounts of data have combined forces. Neustar and Experian began working together late last month to pool their data to help marketers find and onboard customers.Screen Shot 2016-07-08 at 7.54.12 AM

The solution combines Neustar’s Omnichannel Onboarding, a data onboarding solution, with the new digital data co-op from Experian Marketing Services, as well as Experian’s data quality, matching logic and global media partnerships.

The end result is a solution that will enable marketers to pool their customer data, allowing Neustar and Experian to find customers online. The companies are calling it a “digital data exchange.” In an interview with Beet.TV, Brienna Pinnow, Experian’s director of product marketing, said that by bringing together the “two huge data leaders” the companies are “taking onboarding to the next level.” Pinnow describes the offering as a “paid plus co-op sort of mentality,” and added, “Now you can reach even more people because we have such a large linkage pool for advertisers to leverage.”

26921703840_8f53012cb8_kNeustar’s Andrew Artemenko, senior director of digital strategy, debuted PlatformOne at FinovateSpring 2016

Founded in 1999, Neustar debuted PlatformOne at FinovateSpring 2016. PlatformOne helps marketers identify and understand their customers while offering insight into reach and frequency. The Virginia-based company recently partnered with Twitter in Spain to help marketers optimize their campaign spending by offering insights using its MarketShare DecisionCloud planning tool.

Experian last demoed at FinovateFall 2012, where it debuted Premium Pre-qualification a credit-screening tool. Late last month the company announced that Freddie Mac will leverage Experian’s FICO scores to offer investors the information they need to value credit-risk transfer securities.

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Finovate Debuts: brandCrowder Offers Crowdfunding for Franchises

Finovate Debuts: brandCrowder Offers Crowdfunding for Franchises
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: brandCrowder, Finovate Debuts

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With Brexit and other turmoil driving recent market uncertainty, alternative investments are getting an even closer look. The most recent startup to join the alt-investment movement is brandCrowder, a company that facilitates investment in franchises.

In his FinovateSpring 2016 demo Ijeoma Onuosa, the company’s president and co-founder, said, “brandCrowder, in essence, seeks to lower the barrier of entry into the market and offer to the market our curated deals.” Onuosa went on to detail how franchise-related equities have outperformed the U.S. stock market by 33%.

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Accredited investors can invest in single company funds, syndicated funds, and portfolio funds while nonaccredited investors can participate in national deals that fall under Regulation D of the JOBS Act. brandCrowder’s goal is to let everyone compete on a level playing field that Onuosa describes as a “yield-rich environment.”

Company facts:

  • Founded in 2015
  • Headquartered in Birmingham, Michigan
  • Offers franchise deals for 3,800 brands in 170 industry sectors
26593177943_e4eeeb0c89_kCFO Francois Nabwangu and President Ijeoma Onuosa, co-founder, demoed brandCrowder at FinovateSpring 2016

ArmiakBefore brandCrowder stepped onto the FinovateSpring 2016 stage, I chatted with Robert Armiak, the company’s CEO. Prior to joining brandCrowder, Armiak spent 18 years at Alliance Data where he served as SVP of finance and treasurer.

Finovate: What problem does brandCrowder solve?

Armiak: Two Pain Points—One Solution

  • Issue #1
    Traditional bank underwriting for portfolio holders of operating franchise units is broken (i.e., this $10 trillion market is illiquid, how does “McDonald’s guy” gain liquidity).
  • Issue #2
    Consumer access to higher-yielding alternative asset choices (i.e., if you’re a non-operator investor, how do you passively participate in profits much like the stock market).

Solution
Equity participation in franchise-generated free cash flow via commonly accepted and widely adopted structured financial products and recently adopted Title II and III regulations and guidelines.

nonaccreditej

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Armiak: 

  • Franchisor
  • Franchisees
  • Institutional Investors
  • Accredited Investors
  • Non-accredited Investors

Finovate: How does brandCrowder solve the problem better?

Armiak: Our executive team is leveraging decades of industry-specific knowledge into an efficiency-focused, alternative-investing platform that will ultimately increase the velocity of capital in the United States.

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

Armiak: Former board member, SVP finance and treasurer Alliance Data Systems (NYSE; ADS). Helped form ADS and took the “Big Data” company public in 2001 at a $500mm market cap which has since grown to more than $13 billion. Issued nearly $11 billion of asset-backed securities and another $7 billion of debt and equity to fund ADS growth.

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

Armiak: Beta launch (August 2016)

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

Armiak: Actively assisting hundreds of brands, thousands of franchisees and millions of investors reach their near- and medium-term franchising goals more efficiently.

listingej

Finovate What kind of metrics or facts about brandCrowder can we share with readers?

Armiak: We have over $300 million in offerings from some of America’s favorite brands in our current pipeline ready to come to market.

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Coinbase Lands $10.5 Million in Strategic Investment from Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ

Coinbase Lands $10.5 Million in Strategic Investment from Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Coinbase, Funding

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Coinbase, a Bitcoin platform for merchant processing and consumer wallets, received backing from Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU), Mitsubishi UFJ Capital (MUCAP) and Sozo Ventures today.

The three firms have made a strategic investment of $10.5 million in Coinbase, bringing the company’s total funding to just north of $116 million. Previous investors in Coinbase include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the New York Stock Exchange, BBVA Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz.

BTMU, the largest bank in Japan, plans to work with the San Francisco-based company to fuel its international expansion. Coinbase does not currently support digital currency-exchange services in Japan, but said in a blog post that it is looking forward to working with BTMU “to support this focus in key markets in Asia and globally.”

Late last month Coinbase announced it now accepts PayPal for selling bitcoin. Coinbase users in the U.S. can now sell bitcoin and have the funds deposited in their PayPal wallet. The company plans to add support for other countries in the future. Coinbase also added support for purchasing bitcoin with credit cards. Both services are still in beta.

At FinovateSpring 2014, Coinbase debuted Instant Exchange, a merchant-payment solution that allows businesses to accept bitcoin without any exchange-rate risk, shielding them from market volatility. Coinbase has 4 million customers across a supported network of 32 countries and has seen $4 billion in bitcoin exchanged over its platform since launching in 2012.

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eMoney Advisor’s emX Pro Fuels Wealth Planning Solution for Waddell & Reed Advisors

eMoney Advisor’s emX Pro Fuels Wealth Planning Solution for Waddell & Reed Advisors
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: eMoney Advisor

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eMoney Advisor, acquired by Fidelity Investments in 2015 for $250 million, is offering advisers the tools they need to compete against the robo-advisers that seem to be taking over wealth management. This week, financial planning firm Waddell & Reed has partnered with eMoney to leverage its emX Pro platform.

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Waddell & Reed will deliver emX Pro, along with solutions from Envestnet and Docupace, to its network of 1,800 financial professionals to enhance planning, proposal, and processing for advisers and their clients. Ed O’Brien, CEO of eMoney Advisor, said that emX Pro will help Waddell & Reed advisers to “build deeper, more collaborative client relationships, expertly plan investment portfolios and deliver sound financial advice while helping make sense of their business’s big-picture, including a view of assets held away.” O’Brien adds that using emX Pro gives the advisers “a distinct competitive advantage.”

Founded in 2000, eMoney debuted emX at FinovateFall 2014. emX delivers a suite of interactive wealth management tools to help advisers identify business opportunities and deliver an experience to serve a client’s financial planning needs, from basic to advanced.

eMoney is based in Radnor, PA and serves 37,000 financial professionals. The company, whose top clients include TD Ameritrade, RBC Wealth Management, MetLife, Mass Mutual, New York Life, and Allstate, has 360+ employees and $1.7 trillion in assets under management. In March, eMoney Advisor brought on Ed O’Brien as CEO, taking the seat of the company’s founder, Edmond Walters.

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StockTwits Has a Big Week: New Funding, New CEO

StockTwits Has a Big Week: New Funding, New CEO
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Stocktwits

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StockTwits, a social network for stock market investing, returned from the U.S. Fourth of July holiday with a double bang. The San Diego-based company today announced it not only closed on new funding, but also appointed a new CEO.

The $2 million funding round was led by Social Leverage and brings the company’s total to $13 million. StockTwits will use the funds to boost engagement by adding premium features and content such as video to help engage users. IanRosenThe company counts 1.5 million active users each month, 60% of whom are under the age of 44.

Driving this change is Ian Rosen (pictured right), who has been appointed CEO of StockTwits effective July 6. Rosen has served as an adviser to the company since 2013 and is taking the seat of Howard Lindzon who founded StockTwits in 2008. Lindzon has filled the role of executive chairman. Rosen most recently served as CEO of Even Financial, a supply-side platform for online lending. Prior to that he was general manager of MarketWatch, a financial media business.

StockTwitsDemo

At FinDEVr San Francisco 2014, Lindzon showed off the company’s API that provides financial institutions real-time data on stock market sentiment. The company plans to further leverage and grow how it uses this data. Speaking to TechCrunch, Lindzon said, “Data business is doubling this year and we are focused on widening the top of the brand funnel with some new ideas.”

In addition to its FinDEVr presentation, StockTwits has also presented at FinovateEurope 2011 where it debuted its blog network and StockTwits Connect. The company is the inventor of the CashTag, a method of linking a company stock to a feed using a dollar sign, for example $AAPL.

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FinDEVr APIntelligence

FinDEVr APIntelligence
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinDEVr APIntelligence, Intuit, Markit, Quovo, Temenos, Token

FinDEVrSV16-LogoV2(wdate)Our FinDEVr New York developer showcase was a success! FinDEVr Silicon Valley will be held October 18 & 19 in Santa Clara. Register today and save.

On FinDEVr.com

  • Quovo Teams Up with Totum Wealth to Improve Client Account Aggregation for Wealth Managers

The latest from FinDEVr New York 2016 presenters

  • Markit chooses corporate events data from Wall Street Horizon for its research, analysis, and news interface, Markit Hub.

Alumni updates

  • PYMNTS talks to Token CEO Steve Kirsh about how Token helps banks comply with the EU’s PSD2.
  • Forbes looks at how Intuit QuickBooks is hiring app developers to help it improve the user experience.
  • Temenos to Power Wealth Management Solution for Standard Chartered.

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

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Jumio to Power KYC & AML Services for Krypto Commerce

Jumio to Power KYC & AML Services for Krypto Commerce
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Jumio

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Mobile authentication company Jumio announced this week it will provide anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) services for Krypto Commerce.

The Spanish crypto-currency company will use Jumio’s NetVerify to validate applicant identities for its new PoolMiner’s card, an online-only prepaid debit card for crypto-currencies. Rubén Arcas, project director at Krypto Commerce said that while “compliance and security are critical to our proposition,” he doesn’t want to compromise by offering “a clunky verification system that doesn’t provide a good user experience.” Arcas goes on to say that Jumio, which accepts IDs from 200+ global territories, is perfect for Krypto Commerce’s needs.

The new card is available to users in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, South America, Russia, and will soon be open to U.S. users. New applicants scan their passports and answer a few questions to confirm identity.

Palo Alto-based Jumio demoed NetVerify at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. Presenters David Pope and John McIntosh showed how scanning a government-issued ID facilitates the onboarding process. The company announced last month that NetVerify is powering identity verification for Switzerland-based bob Finance, which enables clients to check their credit score for free.

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Temenos to Power Wealth Management Solution for Standard Chartered

Temenos to Power Wealth Management Solution for Standard Chartered
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Temenos

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Banking software provider Temenos scored a new client for its WealthSuite solution this week. Standard Chartered Bank has selected the Switzerland-based company’s wealth-management offering to deploy to clients in more than 30 markets.

The banking giant opted for WealthSuite to increase automation and standardize operations to benefit from economies of scale. Standard Chartered expects the upgrade to bring faster fulfillment, better reporting capabilities, higher levels of personalization, and a more consistent user experience.

Founded in 1993, Temenos debuted its Connect Mobile Banking suite at FinovateEurope 2015. The product suite offers multi-device banking solutions to deliver a consistent user experience across mobile, web, smart TV, and even smart watches. To start the demo the company’s UXP Product Director, Dharmesh Mistry, said, “It’s no longer possible to provide all of your applications by writing code, and writing them individually for individual devices. A different approach is required. Temenos has launched the smart hybrid platform and marketplace to solve this exact problem.”

Temenos employs 4,000 people across 130 countries, has profits of over $130 million and a market cap of $3+ billion. The company processes daily transactions of 500+ million banking customers for 2,000+ firms across the globe, including 38 of the top-50 banks. Earlier this year, Temenos won The Banker Middle East’s award for Best Core Banking System.

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Finovate Debuts: BaseVenture’s Command Center for Fund Managers & Administrators

Finovate Debuts: BaseVenture’s Command Center for Fund Managers & Administrators
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BaseVenture, Finovate Debuts

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BaseVenture helps fund-managers and -administrators digitize and manage funds holistically. The company was launched by two of the former C-level executives of mFoundry (FinovateFall 2010 demo) after selling the mobile banking and payments company to FIS in 2013.

“Until now, the industries had to rely upon spreadsheets, PDFs, emails, and other antiquated technology to manage their funds and report returns to their investors,” said CEO John Pizzi during the FinovateSpring 2016 demo of FundManager.io, BaseVenture’s flagship product. “Those days are over.”

FundManager.io is a SaaS platform designed to give fund managers a central place to manage investors, execute trades, and raise capital. The platform offers filtering, finding, sharing, and tagging capabilities to facilitate easy document sorting and compliance.

Company facts:

  • Headquartered San Rafael, California
  • Founded in 2015
  • 25 customers
  • 15 employees
  • $2.5 million raised
Screen Shot 2016-06-28 at 2.55.53 PMCEO John Pizzi, co-founder, and Steve Lemmer, director of product, at their FinovateSpring 2016 demo of BaseVenture’s FundManager.io

John_PizziBaseVenture CEO John Pizzi offered to give us some additional insight into the company after his demo at FinovateSpring earlier this year. Pizzi was formerly president and COO of mFoundry before selling to FIS in 2013. Prior to that, he was VP of Arc Worldwide, a marketing services company.

Finovate: What problem does BaseVenture solve?

Pizzi: We solve a very simple, yet complicated, problem—private fund management and administration is inefficient, antiquated, and overpriced. Technology innovation for this industry has been overlooked for decades—despite it being the fastest growing category of investment activity—and the industry spend on third-party services is enormous.

Private funds—think: hedge, real estate, private equity—spend 60% of their expenses on manual solutions to operations and business-management needs. They spend less than 40% on things that matter: raising capital and creating higher returns. To further complicate things, the industry is at the beginning of massive changes that will trigger greater regulatory and compliance scrutiny and requirements that these funds aren’t prepared to address.

Our SaaS platform—FundManager.io—changes all that. It uses modern technology to automate private fund management and administration from end to end. The result for our clients is more time and money to focus on growth and more satisfied investors.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Pizzi: We help anyone managing investors to automate their operations. Our typical clients include private banks and trusts, fund administrators, fund managers, family offices, wealth advisers and more.

We also help RIA platforms and custodians standardize their approval processes and better manage investments on their platforms. You can learn more about BaseVenture and our award-winning platform, FundManager.io, on our website (www.baseventure.com).

Finovate: How does BaseVenture solve the problem better?

Pizzi: BaseVenture is the only SaaS solution that was created to specifically focus on solving the inefficiency of operations and compliance requirements for alternative investments.

We have tackled head-on the toughest and costliest operational and compliance-related problems that our customers face, using modern, easy-to-use software in the cloud. We’ve been successful, in part, because our team is the perfect blend of FinTech and Alternative Investment veterans, resulting in state-of-the-art technology designed precisely to solve the most pressing industry challenges.

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

Pizzi: My favorite implementation of our software was with our first fund administrator client. They had a large offshore staff that struggled to keep up with the growing business—manually processing investments, financial accounting, reporting and compliance activities.

We introduced our FundManager.io platform and transformed their operations. The manual tasks were automated by software: the data no longer had to be input manually; the reports were automatically generated and shared; and compliance procedures became electronic and fully auditable.

It was a tremendous success, not only for staff who could now focus on higher-value activities, but also for the business, [now] able to grow at a faster rate and with higher levels of profitability.

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

Pizzi: This is my second FinTech startup. I was previously the COO of mFoundry, the leading mobile banking and payments company in North America, which was sold to FIS in 2013. So I am very comfortable tackling the unique challenges of building a successful FinTech company and delivering a technology solution that is financial-grade.

But my real confidence comes from our team. My co-founder Kim Vogel and I have brought together an all-star team of technology, product and business leaders and together we’ve created a world-class product. And the reception we are getting in the market from our customers and partners is just tremendous.

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

Pizzi: The next few months are exciting. We’re growing fast, adding new customers, expanding our product and hiring new people. While I don’t want to spoil any surprises, I can share a few highlights:

  • We are launching new functionality that private banks and trusts are going to love. It allows them to more efficiently manage private funds, giving them the ability to grow their business by supporting incrementally more funds on their platform.
  • We are introducing a full suite of automated workflow features that we’ve been working on with a select group of customers. They change the game by eliminating an immense amount of repetitive manual labor.
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Finovate: Where do you see BaseVenture a year or two from now?

Pizzi: In a year or two, BaseVenture will be at the center of how private funds are administered and managed.

We’re already becoming the “go to” partner for any fund administrator, private bank, or fund manager that is looking to simplify and modernize their operations. But the effect that we’re having on improving compliance, creating efficiency, and enabling growth will reach far and wide into the wealth services industry.
The compliance area in particular is one of great importance, and BaseVenture will be a respected voice in helping the industry meet the growing and needed demands of increasing compliance, without hamstringing a fund managers’ ability to sustain and grow their businesses.

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