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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

  • “OakNorth, “The First Cloud-Based Bank in the U.K.” is Powered by Mambu”
  • “Mobeam Barcode Beaming Technology Gains Broader Integration with Samsung Pay”
  • “Up from Down Under: VIX Verify Chooses Atlanta’s Transaction Alley for Americas Headquarters”
  • “Speed of Lightning, Roar of Thunder: Blockchain Unveils Off-Chain Bitcoin Payments Network”

The latest from FinDEVr New York 2016 presenters

  • Version 6.0 of PayPal app discontinues support for Amazon Fire, Windows, and Blackberry phones.

Alumni updates

  • “Twilio Readies for $100 Million IPO”
  • Let’s Talk Payments takes a look at the post-acquisition relationship between Envestnet and Yodlee.
  • Neyber selects Cloud Lending Solutions for loan automation.

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

BRIDGEi2i Closes Series A Funding Round

BRIDGEi2i Closes Series A Funding Round

Bridgei2iHomepage

Just a few days after celebrating its fifth birthday, BRIDGEi2i Analytics Solutions landed its first round of funding, pulling in an undisclosed amount of Series A growth capital from India-based Edelweiss Private Equity.

CEO Prithvijit Roy states the company will use the funds to, “accelerate the development of our machine-learning-based business applications along with significant expansion of our consulting teams across the United States and India.”

Pranav Parikh, head of private equity and VC funds at Edelweiss, says he is impressed with how BRIDGEi2i has “transform[ed] large enterprises through their impact-driven approach” since launching in 2011. Edelweiss now owns a minority stake in BRIDGEi2i and Parikh will join the Bangalore-based startup’s board of directors.

BRIDGEi2i was founded by former General Electric and Hewlett Packard executives who had a vision to offer data-driven insights to enterprises. Using big data, the company generates actionable insights about sales data and customer behavior to help manage risk and operations. The company’s customers include 10 of the Fortune 100, representing sectors in technology, manufacturing, financial services, insurance, and retail.

At FinovateAsia 2013, BRIDGEi2i launched Surveyi2i, a cloud-based platform to help easily view and analyze survey data. Surveyi2i offers quick insights into survey results without requiring help from a data scientist. Recently, BRIDGEi2i was featured in Dataquest for helping a Fortune 100 company save $300,000 on reporting costs. Late last year, the company was ranked 115 out of 500 AsiaPac businesses on the Deloitte Technology Fast500 for 2015.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Big Blue Backs Mobile Banking in Rural China”
  • “BRIDGEi2i Closes Series A Funding Round”
  • “NICE Funding! CallVU Raises $3 Million”
  • “Ping Identity Acquired by Vista Equity Partners”

Around the web

  • “Check Point Named Leader for Vision and Execution in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Firewalls”
  • Boku brings mobile carrier billing to U.K. sports and entertainment venues.
  • Thomson Reuters launches FX benchmark service.
  • Monitise no longer plans to sell its marketing content business Markco Media.
  • “Jack Henry & Associates and Inlet Partner to Bring Enhanced eBill Functionality to 4,000 Financial Institutions”
  • Wealthfront introduces its 529 College Savings Plan.
  • Intelligent Environments teams up with Queen’s University Belfast’s Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT).
  • Wall Street Journal features Tuition.io in a look at how employers are providing low-cost loans to employees.
  • Ally Financial announces completion of TradeKing acquisition.

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

Featurespace Falls on a Fresh $9 Million in Funding

FeaturespaceHomepage

Behavioral analytics company Featurespace has raised $9 million in funding in a round led by U.S.-based TTV Capital.

The venture round, which elevates Featurespace’s funding to $16.4 million, was augmented by support from existing investors Imperial Innovations Group; Nesta; Cambridge Angels; and Cambridge Capital Group. The U.K.-based company plans to use the round to further expand into the U.S. market after striking recent deals with TSYS and an unnamed U.S. bank.

TTV Capital’s Managing Partner Gardiner Garrard says the funding round “is the first time we’ve invested in a mainland U.K. company, and reflects our support of Featurespace’s transformative fraud-detection capabilities.”

At FinovateEurope 2016 Featurespace launched its ARIC Engine which monitors user behavior and leverages machine learning to determine suspicious, inconsistent transactions.

PayNearMe Acquires Prism Money to Offer Bill Presentment for Enterprise Clients

PayNearMe Acquires Prism Money to Offer Bill Presentment for Enterprise Clients

PayNearMeHomepage2016

Digital cash payment service PayNearMe today announced it has acquired financial management and billpay app Prism Money. PayNearMe will leverage Prism Money’s billpay and ACH/card payment capabilities to offer enterprise clients a bill presentment API integration.

The California-based company’s founder and CEO Danny Shader says that Prism enables it to offer government agencies, banks, and businesses “a menu of bill presentment and payment capabilities” that can be customized for the end customer.

Prism

As a result of the partnership, Visa (FinDEVr San Francisco 2014 presenter) will offer the new bill-presentment capabilities to its enterprise customers and will add it to the Visa prepaid, consumer-reloadable cards. Tony Chang, VP of prepaid product at Visa, says Visa prepaid card providers “can now easily integrate bill presentment and same-day bill payment into their existing apps, making it easier than ever for Visa prepaid cardholders to pay bills immediately when they receive wages onto their prepaid cards.”

Founded in 2009, PayNearMe enables consumers to pay bills using cash at 17,000+ retail stores across the U.S. by scanning a barcode on their smartphone. Most recently, the company partnered with the Internal Revenue Service to allow underbanked consumers to pay their taxes in cash. It also struck a deal with Dallas Area Rapid Transit to facilitate bus fare purchases on its platform.

PayNearMe presented at FinovateSpring 2013 and at FinDEVr San Francisco 2014. The company will continue to expand its flagship cash-payment service by increasing its retail partnerships.

Actiance Brings on Naresh Bansal as New CFO

Actiance Brings on Naresh Bansal as New CFO

ActianceHomepage

BansalCommunications compliance and analytics company Actiance has appointed Naresh Bansal as its new chief financial officer. Bansal is stepping in for Tim Conley, the company’s former CFO, who left to pursue a career as a consultant.

Bansal’s impressive pedigree includes 20 years of financial management for both public and private firms; 10 years of those leadership positions were within software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. Bansal most recently served as VP of finance for Zscaler, a cloud-based security company.

In a press release, the company notes Bansal’s success in “building teams, creating processes, and taking companies through the IPO process.” Actiance CEO Kailash Ambwani says, “Naresh will play a critical role as we continue to map out strategies for long-term growth and augment our financial structure to support fiscal management, profitability, and success. His experience as an operational CFO for highly successful companies will be invaluable to us. More importantly, he knows SaaS inside and out, and has successfully scaled operations at companies in our exact growth stage.”

Since launching in 1998, the company has raised $43.6 million in three funding rounds. At FinovateFall 2012 Actiance debuted Socialitea tool that helps banks stay compliant while using social media. Earlier this month, the company unveiled a cloud-based platform to help healthcare and pharmaceutical companies comply with security and privacy regulations.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Actiance Brings on Naresh Bansal as New CFO”
  • “Twilio Readies for $100 Million IPO”
  • “PayNearMe Acquires Prism Money to Offer Bill Presentment for Enterprise Clients”
  • “Featurespace Falls on a Fresh $9 Million in Funding”

On FinDEVr

  • “OakNorth, ‘The First Cloud-Based Bank in the U.K.’ is Powered by Mambu”

Around the web

  • Dataconomy interviews Georg Ludviksson, Meniga CEO and co-founder.
  • The WSJ: “Lending Club Talking With Citigroup About Loan Purchases”
  • Cachet Financial Solutions to power Mobile Deposit for LCNB National Bank.
  • American Banker highlights Suresh Ramamurthi, chairman and CTO of CBW Bank.
  • eToro appoints Joe Hall as its new managing director of business in the U.K.
  • Let’s Talk Payments takes a look at the post-acquisition relationship between Envestnet and Yodlee.
  • Ethoca teams up with the Online Payment Exchange (ONPEX) to stop ecommerce fraud using early warning alerts.

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.

TWINO’s First Year: 2,500 Investors Fund $24.6 Million in Loans

TWINO’s First Year: 2,500 Investors Fund $24.6 Million in Loans

TWINOHomepage

European marketplace lending startup TWINO today turns one-year-old and has some impressive metrics to celebrate its first birthday.

Since launch, $24.6 million in loans have been funded through the Latvia-based company’s platform, which boasts a 13.92% average rate of return. TWINO has paid out $363,000 in interest to its community of investors, which currently totals 2,500 active users based in 29 countries.

TWINO debuted its marketplace that offers investors access to unsecured consumer loans from Denmark, Poland, and Georgia at FinovateEurope 2016 in London. The company differentiates its platform by promising to buy back the principal and interest of a loan if it is delinquent for 30 days or more.

TWINO released the following infographic detailing the metrics of its year-one successes:

TWINO_TURNS_1_EN

Trustly Goes Live with P2P Payments at Avanza Bank

Trustly Goes Live with P2P Payments at Avanza Bank

TrustlyHomepage2016

Here in the United States we’re still dreaming about bank settlements that occur a few times each business day; however, in Sweden, this increased frequency is already a reality, and customers want transfers to be even faster.

That’s why Stockholm-based Trustly announced today it has partnered with Avanza Bank. With the Trustly integration, bank-to-bank transfers occur in seconds and, as Avanza CEO Martin Tivéus explains, “even in the evenings and on weekends when the ordinary clearing system is closed.”

The agreement went live in December 2015 to offer the bank’s 500,000+ customers real-time direct-deposits over the web. Since then, Trustly has facilitated 115,000 transfers worth $240 million (2 billion Swedish Krona). Last month the bank added mobile capability and today almost 20% of Avanza’s deposits are made using Trustly. The average time for money transfers has dropped from 14,000 seconds to 10 seconds.

Founded in 2008, Trustly launched an alternative ecommerce payments solution at FinovateEurope 2013. In the demo, COO Carl-Henrik Somp demonstrates how the company facilitates payments over Sweden’s largest marketplace, Blocket.se.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Trustly Goes Live with P2P Payments at Avanza Bank”
  • “TWINO’s First Year: 2,500 Investors Fund $24.6 Million in Loans”
  • “Ormsby Street Partners with Deutsche Bank to Launch CreditHQ in Germany”

On FinDEVr.com

  • “Speed of Lightning, Roar of Thunder: Blockchain Unveils Off-Chain Bitcoin Payments Network”

Around the web

  • Version 6.0 of PayPal app discontinues support for Amazon Fire, Windows, and Blackberry phones.
  • Neyber selects Cloud Lending Solutions for loan automation.
  • Mircea Mihaescu’s blog features Moven.
  • SafetyPay partners with online travel agency ViajaNet.
  • Santander to build international payments app using blockchain technology from Ripple.
  • Technology from Cachet Financial Solutions to power mobile deposit solution for LCNB National Bank.
  • Credit Suisse chooses FIS Derivatives Utility for post-trade futures and cleared OTC derivatives operations and technology.

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.

A Double-Edged Sword: Prosper Increases Rates to Attract Lenders

A Double-Edged Sword: Prosper Increases Rates to Attract Lenders

PropserHomepage2016.2

Peer-to-peer lending platforms serve two masters. Prosper, one of the largest, made an announcement today that favors one over the other.

The San Francisco-based company raised borrower rates in an effort to attract investors amid waning confidence in the industry. Rates have increased by a weighted average of 0.29% and only impact borrowers with a Prosper rating of C or below.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Prosper had to slow its lending volume by 12% earlier this year due to lack of lender funds. Today’s move is an effort to maintain the critical balance. “The rate increase demonstrates our commitment to operating a marketplace that balances the economic incentives for both our borrower and investor communities,” said Brad Pennington, the company’s chief risk officer.

This marks the second time this year Prosper raised rates (after raising them 142 basis points in February) and is stated to be in an effort to keep up with the Fed—anticipated to raise rates next month—and to match the “risk-reward tradeoff of investing in newly originated loans.”

It has been a rough quarter for the marketplace-lending industry and for Prosper in particular. The company lost a securitization deal with Citigroup in April and cut 28% of its staff earlier this month.* But Prosper has had recent successes: In March, the lending platform teamed up with HomeAdvisor to improve access to home improvement financing and bolstered its consumer-facing mobile app to appeal to rejected borrowers.

Prosper presented at FinovateSpring 2009 as well as the inaugural Finovate in 2007.


* The layoff is not as dramatic as it might seem. Prosper doubled its workforce in 2015 after acquiring BillGuard.

Dashlane’s $22.5 Million in New Funding Comes with a Strategic Partner

Dashlane’s $22.5 Million in New Funding Comes with a Strategic Partner

DashlaneHomepage2016.2

Password-management company Dashlane closed on $22.5 million in a round led by TransUnion, which has joined the company as a strategic partner. Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, and Rho Ventures also contributed to today’s round, which brings Dashlane’s total funding to $52.5 million since its 2009 launch.

CEO Emmanuel Schalit says of the milestone: “This new round of funding—combined with the strategic relationship with TransUnion—will strengthen our ability to achieve our vision by giving us the capital to accelerate our roadmap, as well as the ability to further integrate new and powerful services for our users.”

The strategic partnership with TransUnion comes at a time when consumers are at an increasingly high risk for account breaches. Together with TransUnion, Dashlane will create integrated services focused on credit monitoring, identity and fraud protection, credit information, and breaches. Additionally, Dashlane will use TransUnion as a channel partner to expand its distribution across the globe.

President of TransUnion Consumer Interactive, John Danaher, says, “We feel TransUnion, with its vast array of credit- and identity-protection services and its global consumer reach, can help accelerate Dashlane’s growth even further.” Danaher will join Dashlane’s advisory board along with Carl Pascarella, former CEO of Visa.

Dashlane, which presented at FinovateEurope 2013, has focused primarily on the direct-to-consumer market, helping more than 5 million consumers in 150 countries manage their identities. However, the company has recently broadened its focus to partner with banks. The New York-based company is currently working with the largest bank in Mexico, Banamex, and will announce more partnerships with large banks and payment networks this year.

TransUnion took the stage at FinovateSpring 2010 to demo ZenDough, an interactive tool that displays an organization’s finances and credit scores in an easy-to-read visual.