FinDEVr APIntelligence

FinDEVr2016-NY-(Stacked)V2Are you building new financial technology? Be sure to check out coverage from our recent developer conference in San Francisco. We’re taking the fintech developer tool showcase to New York on 29/30 March 2016. Stay tuned for details.

Developer news

  • Harvard Business Review: The Changing Economics of App Development.

The latest from FinDEVr San Francisco 2015 presenters

  • Aberdeen Asset Management selects Markit to value hard-to-price assets for positions with limited market data.
  • Developer reviews Authy’s two-factor authentication.
  • PayPal among the companies highlighted in Inc.’s look back at Money20/20.
  • Thomson Reuters unveils its new desktop platform, grouping all of its FX transaction venues into one single point of access.
  • Business Insider lists BehavioSec and Fidor as “companies we wish were big the U.S.”
  • Silicon Slopes Podcast hosts Ryan Caldwell, MX CEO, as he discusses how to improve online banking.
  • Thomson Reuters unveils latest version of its tax-technology platform, Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE.
  • Yodlee’s Ynext unveils new incubator class.
  • Business Insider names BehavioSec among the 12 hottest Nordic fintech startups.

Alumni updates

  • “Trulioo Selected as Runner-up for Startup Canada Award for Innovation”
  • Xero reaches 600,000 subscribers in 180 countries.
  • VentureBurn features Entersekt CEO Schalk Nolte.

Stay up to date on daily developments by following FinDEVr on Twitter.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Finovate Debuts: Sliced Investing Provides Advisers with Access to Alternative Investments”
  • “Narrative Science Introduces Anti-money Laundering Solution, Quill for AML
  • “Yodlee’s Ynext Unveils New Incubator Class”

Around the web

  • Thomson Reuters unveils latest version of its tax technology platform, Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE.
  • Re/code looks at ShopKeep POS’s growth and newly hired COO, Michael DeSimone.
  • Currency Cloud partners with API-driven Fidor Bank to provide new SEPA Direct Debit functionality.
  • Hedgeable to take part in Yodlee’s Ynext Launchpad.
  • Business Insider lists eToro, BehavioSec, Klarna, and Fidor, as “companies we wish were big the U.S.”
  • Silicon Slopes Podcast hosts Ryan Caldwell, MX CEO, as he discusses how to improve online banking.
  • RTN Federal Credit Union re-ups with Fiserv’s XP2 account-processing platform.
  • Meniga to power Santander’s PFM.

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

Finovate Debuts: Sliced Investing Provides Advisers with Access to Alternative Investments

Finovate Debuts: Sliced Investing Provides Advisers with Access to Alternative Investments

SlicedInvestingHomepageIn the past few years there has been much disruption in the wealth management space especially with the influx of robo-advisers. Sliced Investing takes a different approach, offering registered investment advisors access to alternative investments.

Company facts:

  • Launched 2014
  • $20+ million invested through the platform
  • Headquartered in San Francisco
  • 8 employees

At FinovateFall 2015, Sliced debuted its offering for institutional investors. Sliced not only enables investors to deploy strategies in minutes, but also offers access to hedge funds and private equity funds with $10,000 minimums. These capabilities enable advisers to diversify clients’ portfolios by adding alternative investments.

How it works

Browse

Browse and filter alternative investments to find those that suit client preferences.

Slicedfundgridscreenshot

View performance

Review and compare fund performances. Sliced offers institutional-quality analytics and risk management tools.

Slicedcomparefundsscreenshot

Deploy

Once an adviser finds a suitable strategy, they deploy it in minutes by sending their client an agreement and digital paperwork directly from within the Sliced platform.

Sliceddeployscreenshot

Client overview

Advisers see an overview of all investment activity and have access to client documents.

Slicedadvisordocumentscreenshot

 

The Sliced platform can be white-labeled for family offices, brokers, pension funds and endowments.

What’s next?
Sliced is working on a robo-adviser for alternative investments and a set of algorithms to help advisers compete against robo-advisers. The company is also building tools to offer a single sign-on to eliminate password confusion.

Co-founders of Sliced Investing, CTO Akhil Lodha and CEO Mike Furlong, debuted Sliced Institutional at FinovateFall 2015:

http://finovate.wistia.com/medias/lkvw07jlkl?embedType=api&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=800

Roostify Garners $500,000 in Funding from Wells Fargo Accelerator

Roostify Garners $500,000 in Funding from Wells Fargo Accelerator

RoostifyFunding

Mortgage loan technology startup, Roostify, landed $500,000 in funding last week.

The San Francisco-based company received the funds as a part of its participation in Wells Fargo’s startup accelerator program, a semiannual bootcamp for fintech companies. The year-old accelerator has hosted Finovate alums EyeVerify and Zumigo, which graduated in the spring of 2014.

The $500,000 installment adds to Roostify’s series A round received mid-month October from USAA, Colchis Capital Management, and two tier 1 banks. Since the amount of the series A was undisclosed, Roostify’s total funding is unknown.

Roostify debuted at FinovateSpring 2014 in San Jose.

 

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Finovate, FinDEVr Alum News at Money20/20″
  • “Figo Announces New “Seven-Figure” Financing Round”

Around the web

  • Payoneer Selected by Amazon to Expand Cross-Border Payment Options in Select Countries.
  • Business Insider names Holvi, BehavioSec, Trustly, Meniga, and Klarna among the 12 hottest Nordic fintech startups.
  • Xero reaches 600,000 subscribers in 180 countries.
  • Tradeshift launches Tradeshift Risk, a solution to monitor and mitigate supplier risk.
  • ayondo launches first product in Singapore.
  • Crowdfund Insider interviews Krista Morgan, CEO and co-founder of P2Binvestor.
  • ACI Worldwide acquires payment gateway, PAY.ON.
  • Let’s Talk Payments interviews Tom Villante, CEO and co-founder of YapStone.
  • MainStreet features “simplified 401(k) robo-adviser” Blooom.
  • SavingAdvice.com reviews Motif Investing.

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

 

Finovate, FinDEVr Alum News at Money20/20

Finovate, FinDEVr Alum News at Money20/20

Money2020StripeVinod

I spent the majority of last week at Money20/20 catching up with Finovate and FinDEVr alums.

With 5 tracks of panel discussions and product announcements, plus an exhibit hall floor, it was impossible to parcel out all of the themes buzzing around. However, from the slice of the mega-conference that I attended, the overarching theme was payments, specifically, removing friction from the payments experience. This became evident in the product announcements and discussions throughout the keynote sessions from Stripe, Poynt, Chase, Verifone, Google’s AndroidPay, Samsung Pay, PayPal, MCX, and First Data.

In addition to these larger players, there were many smaller companies in attendance. I sat down with five Finovate and FinDEVr alums to find out what’s new.

Arxan-LogoArxan
Arxan, which protects applications, has experienced 50% year-over-year growth for the past 5 years.

Last week the company announced the extension of its application protection to the Apple TV. Arxan safeguards the TV operating system and already protects multiple pre-installed applications on the Apple TV. The apps are shielded using multi-layered guards to fortify the application from being reverse-engineered and compromised and are inserted within the binary code of the applications.

See Arxan’s FinDEVr 2015 presentation.

endeavour logoEndeavour
This was the first time I’ve chatted with Endeavour since they debuted their mobile account opening solution at FinovateSpring 2014. The Austin-based company revealed some crucial news— it was acquired by Genpact, an operational efficiency specialist for enterprise organizations.

The structure of Endeavour’s organization will remain more or less unaffected by the acquisition which Genpact hopes will bolster its Lean Digital offering by adding Endeavour’s mobile expertise.

Kabbage-logoKabbage
Kabbage recently partnered with ING, Santander, and Kikka Capital, and the company is growing fast. These partnerships will help the Atlanta-based company expand operations outside of the U.S. Kabbage is especially targeting the growing ecommerce market in India through its Bangalore office.

Kabbage anticipates originating $1 billion in small business loans in 2015, and is planning a major push into consumer loans next year.

Watch Kabbage’s presentation from FinDEVr 2015 and its demo from FinovateSpring 2015.

SocureSocure
Socure uses a person’s existing online “fingerprint” (Facebook photos, email address, and phone number) to validate their identity. Because Socure sources the data from pre-existing information users to simply take a selfie to validate who they are.

In my discussion with Socure the company disclosed plans to extend its services to verify information for small and medium-sized businesses. Today, this process consists of manually scouring websites for data. Socure’s technology could speed up and streamline that process.

Check out Socure’s demo video from FinovateFall 2015

splititSplitIt (formerly PayItSimple)
SplitIt offers point of sale financing with no interest by placing a hold on the customer’s existing line of credit. The solution launched at FinovateFall 2014 under the name PayItSimple. Alon Feit, the company’s CEO, states that the new name is a better reflection of what the company does.

Since launching last year SplitIt has signed 100 merchant partners and is in negotiations for $14 million in funding. After the round closes the company plans to use the funding to further grow its merchant base, as well as its 15-person team.

FinDEVr APIntelligence

FinDEVr2016-NY-(Stacked)V2Are you building new financial technology? Be sure to check out coverage from our recent developers conference in San Francisco. We’re taking the fintech developer tool showcase to New York on 29/30 March 2016. Stay tuned for details.

Developer news

  • “The Next Web: How to Design with Developers”

The latest from FinDEVr San Francisco 2015 presenters

  • Think Big Data mentions Praesidio as a startup using machine learning in its cyber-security solution.
  • “Xignite Surpasses 50 Billion API Calls in a Single Month”
  • VentureBeat: Twilio rolls out new feature set designed to help developers build messaging apps using its platform.
  • Arxan Technologies extends its app-security protection to Apple TV.
  • “Digital Asset Holdings Acquires Blockchain-as-a-Service Innovator, Blockstack.io
  • Security solutions from Arxan Technologies now running on more than 500 million devices.

Alumni updates

  • Tradier teams up with Equities Lab to bring real-world trading experience to college students.
  • Google appoints Entersekt CTO Christiaan Brand as product manager for security and identity teams.
  • Pymnts looks at how SimplyTapp is addressing host card emulation.
  • Visa Inc. to Acquire Visa Europe.
  • Fierce Finance IT features BehavioSec.
  • Avoka partners with Trulioo to provide digital identification authentication to international banks.

Stay up-to-date on daily developments by following FinDEVr on Twitter.

Money20/20 Hackathon: A H-API Ending

Money20/20 Hackathon: A H-API Ending

M22Hackathon

Hackers returned to the Money20/20 conference in Las Vegas this week, bringing an army of 625 developers, designers, and entrepreneurs with it. All were competing for top prizes, and one team won the grand prize, a “h-API” ending.

First, a bit about the hackathon. Teams were given 24 hours to create a fintech solution that uses at least one API from their choice of 10 companies, 7 of which are Finovate or FinDEVr alums:

At the end of the 24 hours—after working all night on the challenge—165 teams had three minutes to pitch their projects to a group of judges from the 10 sponsors. The sponsors selected winning teams with solutions varying from a donation platform for homeless people, to PFM for children, to a virtual reality shopping platform.

The winning team—Replay*—used MasterCard’s API to enable purchases of items seen on screen while watching a program on Apple TV.

Here’s how it works. While watching Star Wars, for example, a button appears, indicating an item on screen, such as a light saber, is available for purchase. Clicking the button pauses the Star Wars program, and redirects the user to a marketplace screen to make their purchase.

Money2020Hackathon

As part of their prize, Replay won $20,000 and a demo-slot in front of the larger Money20/20 audience.

I tracked down the winners after their demo for a quick chat. Because it offered a quick payments experience, the Replay team chose to use the MasterCard API. The team said they found the MasterCard team helpful in building their technology, and they are eager to build out the product while looking for funding, and merchant partners, to further enhance it.

If you’re interested in seeing fintech APIs, check out our FinDEVr New York conference where developers, CTOs, and VPs of engineering will gather to view the next evolution of APIs in fintech.

———

*Replay does not yet have a website, but here is a link to the LinkedIn page of one of the founders, Messiah Jacobs.

Financeit Closes Undisclosed Amount of Funding from Goldman Sachs

Financeit Closes Undisclosed Amount of Funding from Goldman Sachs

FinancitHomepage1015

Canada-based Financeit, a company that offers cloud-based POS financing, closed an undisclosed amount of funding today.

Goldman Sachs led the round, and the amount furnished is undisclosed.

The company’s last round of funding, an installment of $13 million, was received in November 2013. This brought the company’s total amount raised to $21.5 million. Today’s undisclosed amount brings the company’s total funding somewhere north of that amount.

According to the press release, Financeit plans to use the funds to add to its merchant partner base of 4,000. Co-founder and CEO Michael Garrity states, “The minority investment made by Goldman Sachs gives us growth capital to put our leading-edge financing platform into the hands of more merchants.”

Last year, in partnership with FIS, Financeit launched in the United States. Check out the launch video here. In its four years of operation across the two countries, Financeit has received more than $1 billion in loan applications.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Financeit closes undisclosed amount of funding from Goldman Sachs.

Around the web

  • CEO CFO interviews feature DAVO Technologies’ CEO Owen Brown, co-founder.
  • FirstRound.com: Expensify’s CEO David Barrett talks about the tactics that doubled Expensify’s customer base in just six months.

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.

FinDEVr New York Launch, March 2016

FinDEVr New York Launch, March 2016

FinDEVrNYHomepage

The biggest takeaway from our just-completed FinDEVr event was just how fast the fintech world is moving towards platforms, APIs and other sophisticated integrations. And it’s too hard to keep pace with just a single annual developer’s event.

So we are excited to announce a second show, FinDEVr New York, 29/30 March 2016.

Tickets are on sale. Special ticket pricing for developers lowers pricing <$500. Register now before pricing increases.

ChainPreso

Based on feedback from previous FinDEVr events, including the record 600 who attended last week, we’ve landed on a format that resonates with the technical crowd. Four or five dozen leading fintech providers will show off their newest tools and APIs in fast-paced, 15-minute presentations focusing on the TECH in fintech.

The dual-track program—along with ample time to work one-on-one with the presenters—will be held in the New World Stages in mid-town Manhattan.

NewWorldStagesIMG

Curious about the content? Next week, the full-length videos of the 63 presentations at FinDEVr San Francisco will be available at Finovate.com.

If you’re interested in presenting at FinDEVr New York, please email newyork@findevr.com for more details.

Finovate Debuts: LiquidLandscape’s Visualization Solves Scattered Data

Finovate Debuts: LiquidLandscape’s Visualization Solves Scattered Data

LiquidLandscapeHomepage

LiquidLandscape offers banks a risk-visualization workspace. The startup’s LiquidLandscape Notebook is a collaborative space where banking executives view and interact with data on a map and communicate with each other about the correlations.

Company facts:

  • Barclays tech-accelerator alum
  • 3 employees
  • Headquartered in San Francisco
  • Founded 2013

All financial services firms must communicate about data, but it is not always easy to understand how the data-points relate, or what potential issues the correlations may indicate. LiquidLandscape helps solve this issue of scattered data.

CEO Margit Zwemer describes the product as instant replay for financial services’ data that creates a “tube map” to show data-bottlenecks. The LiquidLandscape dashboard can map the data in an intelligible way, making it easy for employees to zoom in, at any level, to help answer the questions:

  1. What is the problem?
  2. What data indicate the issue?
  3. What decision was made?

In the screenshots below, the user is examining capital flow among major countries.

LiquidLandscapeDataOverview

After the user selects their desired specifications, type, and ranges, LiquidLandscape maps the data. In the screenshot below, the user has drilled down to examine Hong Kong’s trades with China, Japan, and the United States.

LiquidLandscapeWorldTrade

The platform also facilitates communication. Rather than require employees to email data back and forth, LiquidLandscape creates efficiency by enabling users to comment within the platform on specific data-points.

The screenshot below shows the discussion log on the right panel that creates a history of the chat-log around data. All comments are tied to the data, and users can respond to comments, making it easy to keep communication threads organized.

LiquidLandscapeDiscussion

It is easiest to understand the power of LiquidLandscape’s platform through examples. Using various types of big data, the dashboard helps analyze:

  • Fund flows between ETFs
  • Risk-limit breaches between individual traders and the risk department’s requirements
  • Connections between different parts of an organization
  • Mortgage applications completed online vs. in-app
  • Audit trails for compliance
  • Consumer credit qualification

LiquidLandscape is secure and fully compliant. And while there are essentially no limits on what its engine can help visualize, the startup is currently focused on helping financial services companies understand and mitigate risk. LiquidLandscape does, however, have future plans to broaden its focus in the upcoming years.

What’s next?
This fall, LiquidLandscape launched in beta. The company is in the middle of fundraising and plans to grow its three-person team.

Here is the LiquidLandscape team debuting at FinovateFall 2015:

http://finovate.wistia.com/medias/2lffbvq11o?embedType=api&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=800