Kreditech Lands $11 Million to Close Series C Round of $103 Million

Kreditech Lands $11 Million to Close Series C Round of $103 Million

KreditechHomepage2016

Underbanked financial services provider Kreditech has closed a Series C funding round of $103 million this week after receiving an $11 million investment from the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), an organization that specializes in the economic development of emerging countries.

The Germany-based company received the first installment of the Series C round, totalling $92 million, in September 2015. That round was led by J.C. Flowers & Co. Other notable investors include HPE Growth Capital, Blumberg Capital, and Peter Thiel. The closing of this Series C round brings Kreditech’s total funding to $151 million.

According to TechCrunch, Kreditech is valued between $279 million to $335 million and the company is in the process of raising “another very large debt round,” which should close in Q3 2016.

Monedo

Kreditech will use the funds to bolster its Monedo platform that offers credit services and digital banking products to the underbanked population. The company’s CEO & co-founder Alexander Graubner-Müller states, “Most of our customers are not able to obtain credit at traditional banks … . Through Kreditech’s technology we can perform a more precise credit rating to offer credit at fair and risk-weighted conditions. With the new funding, we will continue advancing our scoring technology to continuously improve and expand our product offering.”

Kreditech uses 20,000 data points, updated every minute, to offer 24/7 access to credit decisioning for anyone in 35 seconds.

KreditechStageIMG

Kreditech’s founder and former CEO, Sebastian Diemer, and current CEO, Alexander Graubner-Müller, debuted Zaimo, Kredito24 and K24 at FinovateSpring 2014.

Emailage Receives Strategic Investment from Wipro

Emailage Receives Strategic Investment from Wipro

EmailageHomepage2016

Arizona-based Emailage announced this week it has received an investment from Wipro Ventures, Wipro’s investment arm. The $4.8 million round is an extension of its Series A round originally made in November 2014. Wipro, the India-based information technology giant, becomes the eighth investor in Emailage.

In addition to the funding, the two companies have formed a partnership through which Wipro will offer Emailage’s email-address risk-evaluation solution to its customer network. Emailage debuted the browser extension for its risk-evaluation tool at FinovateSpring 2015. In October of 2015 the company partnered with Feedzai to bolster its fraud-prevention solution.

Founded in 1945, Wipro last demoed at FinovateEurope 2015, where it debuted Wipro ngGenie™ myAdvisor.

FinDEVr APIntelligence

FinDEVrNY16-V2(wdate)Our FinDEVr New York developer showcase is next week on March 29 & 30. Register today and we’ll see you in New York!

Developer news

  • TechCrunch reports: Almost everyone is doing the API economy wrong.

On FinDEVr.com

  • “Financial Information Services Provider Markit Merges with IHS”
  • “Symbiont and Ipreo Team Up to Accelerate the Loan Settlement Process”

The latest from upcoming FinDEVr New York 2015 presenters:

  • Xignite to provide free market data for FinTech Sandbox demo participants. Join Xignite in New York for FinDEVr next week.
  • Markit to supply FinTech Sandbox with fixed income pricing and reference data.
  • PayPal to enable money transfers to Cuba via its Xoom acquisition.
  • 3dcart merchants gain access to end-to-end payment processing courtesy of Braintree.
  • OnDeck partners with Innovate Finance to debut Transatlantic Policy Working Group.
  • Markit unveils new tax utility service.
  • Intuit Developer Group Drops Financial Data APIs; Partners with Finicity to Ease Transition.

Alumni updates:

  • Let’s Talk Payments lists SnoopWall and Entrust in its roundup of the hottest mobile security companies.
  • Avalara teams up with WooCommerce to help online merchants manage sales taxes.

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

CEO Interview: Aire.io’s Aneesh Varma

CEO Interview: Aire.io’s Aneesh Varma

AireHomepage2016

Aneesh

We recently caught up with Aneesh Varma, founder and CEO of Aire.io, for an interview. Varma launched the London-based company in 2014 to help thin-file customers qualify for essential financial products.

He graduated from Lehigh University as an engineer with a secondary degree in quantitative finance, and in 2014 was nominated as the European Commission’s Entrepreneur of the Year.


Finovate: What is Aire doing that its competitors are not?

Varma: At Aire, we don’t focus on competitors. We instead are focused on building the best product based on our core principles of what we would like to see in the world.

One such core principle at Aire is to go beyond just the data, and understand the story of the applicant. Many companies these days get carried away by big data—throwing 20,000 data points at the problem. But in reality it can lead to situations such as Ben Bernanke not being able to re-mortgage when he changed jobs. The ‘data’ was changing jobs; the ‘story,’ however, was still that he had a strong income.

At Aire, our research has been focussed on leveraging artificial intelligence and the cognitive sciences to evaluate more meaningful and deeper data. Understanding the individuality of each applicant and not relying on population-based statistics.

All of our personal data comes directly from the user—via our virtual interview, done in an adaptive interface. It’s like having a human underwriter to interview every applicant, but automated, so we can run it at scale with real-time scoring.

This is really powerful, as the Aire process can score anyone without any dependency on external data. This is especially important as we expand into new geographies.

AireMultichannelAire’s multichannel application form

Finovate: What is the biggest challenge Aire faces in achieving its goal of offering fair access to finance?

Varma: The work we are doing at Aire is really personal to us. In many ways, we have ourselves been victims of the cracks in the current system of credit scores. We know what it means to be financially excluded. It’s really tough.

Our work is to onboard more lenders who share the same ethos as Aire about ensuring people aren’t getting marginalized just because they don’t fit into the standard boxes.

We know the Aire product works. Over the last few months, we have been able to observe empirical evidence data of our performance, and it is really phenomenal how we can boost acceptance up to 14% while still ensuring over 90% of candidates get through our process.

It’s a changing world. More and more of us are going to be self-employed, become freelancers and or migrate to other countries. We shouldn’t be left out.

Finovate: How do you engage with developers?

Varma: Ours is a startup with a purpose. We are solving a real problem—and, in fact, a really hard problem. There is no hype to our work. It is pure performance which is why we have to carefully leverage technology, research and human emotions to build a great product.

This attracts a very particular type of people who genuinely care about making an impact with their work. This really has become part of the DNA of our company.

For most of us in the team, this is our second or even third startup. And we constantly trying to optimize on everything we have done in the past. Most importantly, we focus on culture and hiring the right people.

We have a very rigorous hiring process over six stages. But once someone gets through that, we provide one of the most exciting work environments in London. You are surrounded by leading experts in each field and get to learn from them. And even teach them a few tricks! Perhaps a reason why we are attracting some great minds to join us on this journey (and a place on the European breakout list via Scott Sage).

Finovate: What’s on the horizon for Aire in 2016?

Varma: The biggest push now is to take our product to more people, in more markets. North America is next on the horizon, and we are launching there shortly. The emerging markets are also relevant, and we are starting to prepare the groundwork there.

Naturally, ongoing research is very important to improve our product. We continue to invest in research across the various fields that will enhance our offering for new markets, including fellowships with our partner universities. Ultimately, there are going to be multiple versions of how we end up delivering our scoring product to consumers.

And other than that, it’s about focussing on hiring great people. This problem we set out to solve requires not just engineers and scientists, but people across various disciplines. We have baked that into our culture as a company. So a major part of my role ends up looking at how to bring together various people to collaborate as we invent new dimensions to our product.

At FinovateEurope 2015, he debuted the Aire Credit API which enables lenders to use Aire to check credit for a thin-file client.

Qumram Raises $2.5 Million to Bring Website Recording to North America & U.K.

Qumram Raises $2.5 Million to Bring Website Recording to North America & U.K.

QumramHomepage

Digital recording and archiving software provider Qumram raised $2.5 million (CHF 2.4 million) in funding this week. The funds come from Ariel Lüdi (former CEO of hybris software); Peter Stalder (former CTO of finnova AG); and investment group Zirkonia.

A group of investors from investiere.ch also contributed, furnishing almost 30% of the funds. In a press release, investiere.ch says it invested because the demand for Qumram’s services is growing, the company holds a good reputation, and it has a strong management team.

Qumram CEO Patrick Barnert notes that the company will leverage the funding “to extend the great success in central Europe to the two core financial services markets in the U.K. and U.S., and to further drive innovation within our product suite like Qumram Employee Governance Solution, which was first presented at FinovateEurope in London.”

Barnert added that the upcoming regulations, like MiFID 2 and FFSA, are driving an especially significant need for Qumram in the financial services industry.

The Switzerland-based company enables financial institutions to record their client’s online sessions to gather information for compliance, and to collect usage data to enhance the user experience. At FinovateEurope 2016, the company unveiled Qumram for Employee Governance, a solution that allows banks to carry out compliant, omnichannel communications and transactions with their customers over social media.

QumramSessionRecordAbove, Qumram for Employee Governance used for LinkedIn messaging

Founded in 2011, Qumram has 30+ customers across Switzerland, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The company was included in the FINTECH 100 list published by H2 Ventures and KPMG. Additionally, Qumram received accolades from Accenture’s Swiss Fintech Award, having been placed in the final top three.

Finovate Debuts: InvestGlass Built a Robo-advisor for Advisers

Finovate Debuts: InvestGlass Built a Robo-advisor for Advisers

InvestGlassHomepage

In his demo at FinovateEurope 2016, InvestGlass founder and CEO Alexandre Gaillard stated, “We believe that, if bankers don’t go digital, they won’t be bankers tomorrow.” He diplomatically followed with, “This is an invitation to keep you in business.” InvestGlass works like a robo-advisor for financial professionals by providing technology to help them find suitable investments for clients.

Gaillard began working on the idea for InvestGlass after the collapse of Bear Stearns when he noticed the power the media has on people’s financial decisions. By focusing on the client rather than the product, the platform generates the right financial information to engage the right clients to help optimize their portfolio.

Company facts:

  • Privately owned
  • 5 employees
  • Founded in 2014
  • Headquartered in Switzerland
InvestGlassDemoIMGCEO Alexandre Gaillard Presenting with CTO Sébastien Thevenaz at FinovateEurope 2016 in London.

At FinovateEurope 2016, InvestGlass launched Leads, an artificial intelligence engine to help financial professionals save time by identifying which client to contact first, why they should call, and exactly what advice to provide based on trending financial products in their geographical area.

InvestGlass simplifies the process of balancing a client’s portfolio and provides templates to help create, tailor, and publish a PDF report to send to clients.

—-

GaillardProfileIn an interview with the company’s CEO, Alexandre Gaillard, we discussed the value that InvestGlass brings advisers. Gaillard is a French citizen and speaks English, French, and Mandarin. He is passionate about behavioral finance and has worked as a banker, adviser, and was once head of equity sales.

Finovate: What problem does InvestGlass solve?
Gaillard:

  • Account profitability
  • Client disintermediation
  • Real-time digital interactions
  • Appropriateness and suitability

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?
Gaillard: IFA, bankers, brokers, family offices, VC PE Sales

Finovate: How does InvestGlass solve the problem better?
Gaillard: Our subscription process is smooth as we are accessible from the internet SAAS and we onboard clients without paper. Once you’re onboard, we generate proactive lead and investment opportunities, and we publish tailored and white-labeled investment proposals. To subscribe from InvestGlass.com, you simply enter your credit card information to get a 14-day free trial. If you make money, then InvestGlass is a great deal.

InvestGlassPlatform

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of your solution.
Gaillard: Independent financial advisers flourishing in London and Zurich were looking for an out-of-the-box solution with CRM and market feeds. Integration took one week to connect with their custodian data. We have a simple promise: If they make more money in one week, then it’s a deal! InvestGlass offers a 14-day free trial for InvestGlass Professional starting at one license £550 per seat per month.

Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?
Gaillard: As an ex-head of equity sales, I knew that delivering the right financial information at the right time was the best way to increase return on asset. It was not about performance but relevancy. My objective is to empower financial professionals with an automated selling tool to make sure that they will increase the return on relevancy!

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from InvestGlass that we can look forward to over the next few months?
Gaillard: In the coming months, InvestGlass will focus on retail banks and on more alliances with SAAS solution and feeds providers. Since Finovate, at least three feed providers or SAAS companies are calling us per week. Our objective is simple: partner and onboard on InvestGlass—bridge!

Finovate: Where do you see InvestGlass a year or two from now?
Gaillard: Everywhere, mostly banks. FinovateEurope in London has been a fantastic steppingstone to attract prospects.

Ledger Launches Blockchain Open Ledger Operating System

LedgerHomepage

A blockchain security company wouldn’t be as secure without its own operating system, which may explain why Ledger launched the Blockchain Open Ledger Operating System (BOLOS) last week.

The new operating system enables developers to build source code for native applications to protect the core against application attacks and to separate the applications from each other. This increased security mechanism means that each application can access only its own memory.

Ledger organized BOLOS into a set of different building blocks. Modules include:

  • Input/Output block to communicate with the outside world and third parties
  • Cryptographic block implementing low-level cryptographic primitives
  • Storage block for on-device storage
  • Wrapping block for external device storage, allowing you to securely bind data to the running BOLOS app
  • Endorsement block providing BOLOS application proof of execution
  • UI block for user presence and confirmation

Access is currently available for the BOLOS implementation on Ledger Trustlet (TEE) on Android. The Ledger Blue smart card hosts the first native implementation of BOLOS, although developer access isn’t available until later this month.

Ledger debuted Ledger Blue at FinovateEurope 2016 in London. Check out our in-depth coverage of the France-based company and interview with CEO Eric Larchevêque.

Finovate Debuts: VoicePIN Offers an Easy Biometric Login Solution

Finovate Debuts: VoicePIN Offers an Easy Biometric Login Solution

voicePINHomepage2

While voice biometrics usage is small, it is gaining popularity as a second authentication factor and password replacement. VoicePIN’s easy-to-use voice-authentication system hopes to become the industry standard. CEO Łukasz Dyląg explains it, “Your voice is the most natural and convenient way of communication.”

Company facts:

  • Headquartered in Poland
  • Founded in 2011
  • Offers on-premise solution for enterprise customers
  • Offers a cloud-based API for smaller customers
VoicePINDemoIMGCEO Łukasz Dyląg and Jakub Gałka, R&D director, demoed VoicePIN at FinovateEurope 2016.

At FinovateEurope 2016, the company launched VoicePIN, its multichannel, voice-biometrics solution for IVR, mobile app or website login, and for use during call-center service. VoicePIN offers three main advantages:

  • A better customer experience
  • Enhanced security
  • Multichannel access

LukaszProfileWe chatted with the company’s CEO Łukasz Dyląg (photo circle right) after the demo to discuss the company and future initiatives.

Finovate: What problem does VoicePIN solve?
VoicePIN solves one of today’s issues which is having too many passwords, logins and PIN numbers to remember. Customer experience is currently one of the biggest challenges for every company caring about its customers. We have designed VoicePIN for convenient multichannel user-authentication. Once the user registers his voiceprint, he is able to log in by voice into all available customer channels like a help line, IVR, website or mobile application.

VoicePINChart

Finovate: How does VoicePIN solve the problem better?
VoicePIN enhances the multichannel customer experience by giving the user a chance to use his voice to log in or authorize payments in every interaction field. Our simple API can even be integrated with IoT devices. Moreover, the enrollment process can be passive, so the voiceprint is generated from the previously collected recordings and the user doesn’t have to engage in this step. We have designed our system as really easy to integrate and install. No matter which deployment model the client chooses, he can integrate it on his own.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?
VoicePIN is available as an on-premise or SaaS model. On-premise is designed for banks, telcoms, insurance companies and state or self-government institutions, while our SaaS solution is an opportunity for web platforms, e-commerce, mobile applications or IoT devices to use the advantages of cloud-based voice biometrics.

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of your solution.
We had the pleasure to deliver voice biometrics technology in the first such deployment in mobile banking in Europe. Our system operates in Smart Bank’s mobile application, available for both individual and business customers. Since the implementation, they can simply log into their accounts just by saying the set phrase.
The other impressive implementation covered 10,000,000 voiceprints in the Polish Ministry of Finance. This deployment was really challenging. Voice authentication was deployed to improve taxpayer service.

MinistryofFinance

Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?
We were ready for it as we knew our system works fine and meets the high-level security requirements. It is also scalable, so implementing the 10,000,000 voiceprints was not a problem at all.

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from VoicePIN that we can look forward to over the next few months?
In the coming weeks we will launch VoicePIN as-a-service web platform. It will be the first off-the-shelf voice biometrics service available for smaller B2B enterprises. By this move we want voice biometrics to be no longer associated as severe, complicated, and difficult-to-use technology. Our easy-to-install API is designed to work fine in every customer interaction channel.

Finovate: Where do you see VoicePIN a year or two from now?
We would like to see a broad usability of voice biometrics as a simple, natural and convenient way of authentication and more. We believe that soon our system will work in the different areas such as Internet of Things, intelligent vehicles, houses and other fields where hands-free voice operation is very useful.

FinDEVr APIntelligence

FinDEVrNY16-V2(wdate)We’re taking our FinDEVr developer showcase to New York on March 29 & 30, 2016. Register today.

The latest from upcoming FinDEVr New York 2015 presenters:

  • In the U.K., PayPal Here SDK reveals first eight business partners.
  • Quartz asks, “Should Venmo Buy a Bank?”

Alumni updates

  • MX inks multi-year data-aggregation deal with USAA.
  • NAB Asset Servicing selects Thomson Reuters as its preferred data partner.
  • HuffPost Business features SimplyTapp and Kontomatik in its list of the five most useful APIs in the financial world.
  • Mitek elects CEO James B. DeBello as Chairman of the Board.

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

Dashlane Brings on Former Fab.com CFO

Dashlane Brings on Former Fab.com CFO

DashlaneHomepage2016

LapterPassword management platform Dashlane hired a new CFO, David Lapter (pictured). Lapter began his career at a strategy firm, then worked as an associate at Upfront Ventures. He has served the role of CFO for multiple companies, including Fab.com and Makerspace.

Last month, Dashlane partnered with Yubico to become the first password manager to support the FIDO Alliance’s Universal Second Factor for two-factor authentication.

Earlier this year, the New York-based company completely revamped its platform to offer a more organized and consistent look-and-feel across multiple channels. In addition to those updates, Dashlane added international support, making it available in seven languages.

Dashlane made its international debut at FinovateEurope 2013. Emmanuel Schalit is CEO.

CBANC Launches New Features to Further Engage Network of Professionals

CBANC Launches New Features to Further Engage Network of Professionals

CbancHomepage2016

CBANC, a network for community bank and credit union professionals, added a group of new features to its platform this week. New elements include:

  • Leaderboard
    Recognizes members, based on others’ ratings, for their contributions.
  • Wire
    Works like a social media feed by allowing users to post information and photos, and to interact with other users by following their feeds.

cbancsocialfeed

  • Daily news
    Emails members relevant articles and industry news.

Newsfeed

The platform, which launched in 2009, enables users to collaborate with other industry professionals and share information on policies and procedures, vendor management and vendor product ratings. The Austin-based company’s CEO Bryan Koontz explains the platform:

We’ve taken the public, general-purpose model of LinkedIn and created a state-of-the-art, private and secure place for our members to connect with each other, share information, stay up-to-date on industry news and build their careers and professional reputations.

CBANC incents banks to share best practices and intellectual property and its member engagement has increased almost 4x year-over-year; additionally, the company has experienced a 30x year-over-year increase in document contributions since January 2015.

Later this year, the company plans to revamp its UX, add vendor solutions and member polling, enhance the Wire feature, and launch topics pages.

CBANC’s former President Myers Dupuy demonstrated the network at FinovateFall 2011 in New York.

CashSentinel Launches in France with SFPMEI Partnership

CashSentinel Launches in France with SFPMEI Partnership

CashSentinelHomepage2016

Starting today, mobile payments escrow service CashSentinel is available in France. The new launch is made possible by a partnership with SFPMEI, a French electronic money-issuer. This is CashSentinel’s first expansion outside of Switzerland, where it has been operating since 2012 in partnership with pre-owned vehicle-ad platform AutoScout24 and Swissquote bank.

CashSentinel’s mobile escrow service offers a safe place for two parties to buy and sell new and used vehicles (check out our in-depth review of the platform). Since launching in Switzerland, CashSentinel has protected payments for hundreds of parties.

In June of last year, the Switzerland-based company closed a seed funding round of an undisclosed amount. Prior to this round, CashSentinel had raised a total of $650,000 in seed funding and grants. The company was recognized as a Regional Finalist in the 2015 UBS Future of Finance competition.

CashSentinel’s CEO Sylvain Bertolus and Board Director Michael Chaille debuted the Large Amount Payment Service at FinovateEurope 2015 in London.