Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

Ciright One Purchases Stratos Card

Ciright One Purchases Stratos Card
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Acquisition, Stratos

StratosHomepage

While we were reading yesterday’s news that Bluetooth-connected payment card startup Stratos had been forced to shut down because a recent round of funding fell through, another plan for the company’s future was in the works.

This morning we learned Stratos signed an agreement to sell to Ciright One; terms of the deal were not disclosed.

OneCard

Stratos co-founder Thiago Olson told TechCrunch that Stratos will continue to function as normal and plans to reinstate customer support in the next few weeks.

The Stratos card consolidates payment and membership cards into a single card with a rewrite-able magstripe. Users select one of three buttons on the card to transact with their top three cards, and access additional cards by activating a Bluetooth connection between the card and their smartphone. At FinovateSpring 2015, Stratos debuted a Digital Card Issuance platform that digitizes the card-fulfillment system by enabling users to download and use a virtual credit card within minutes of being approved.

Pennsylvania-based Ciright One is an active acquirer of Finovate alums. The company purchased GoNow Technologies (FinovateSpring 2013 demo) in September 2015 and last week launched The One, a smart card similar to the Stratos card.

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U.K.-Based YoYo Rolls Out Mobile Wallet in U.S.

U.K.-Based YoYo Rolls Out Mobile Wallet in U.S.
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Yoyo

Yoyoscreenshot

The mobile payments and loyalty platform Yoyo today announced its U.S. launch plans.

According to the announcement on TechCrunch, the London-based company has been quietly rolling out with a private beta to a handful of U.S. partners.

Yoyo plans a full, public launch in the U.S. in Q1 2016.

The company first piloted its mobile wallet at Imperial College in London, and has since expanded to 15 more British universities, as well as other closed environments, such as airlines and cafeterias. Yoyo processes 200,000 transactions per month, which makes it the U.K.’s second most popular mobile payments app.

In April 2015, Yoyo raised $10 million from Imperial Innovations (an affiliate of Imperial College), and individual investors Taavet Hinrikus, Philip Riese, and Michael Tobin. In all, the company’s funding totals $24 million.

Yoyo debuted at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. Check out its live demo video or Finovate Debuts feature to learn more.

Want to see more European fintech? Tickets to FinovateEurope 2016 are available at a discounted price through 8 January. Register today to save.

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Gusto, Formerly ZenPayroll, Closes on $50 Million Funding

Gusto, Formerly ZenPayroll, Closes on $50 Million Funding
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Gusto, ZenPayroll

GustoZenPayroll

Payroll and benefits provider, Gusto (formerly ZenPayroll), recently closed on $50 million. Specific investors were not disclosed, but the company states that both new and existing investors were involved.

According to Gusto, these funds are part of the Google Capital-led $60 million series B round announced in April. Gusto CEO Joshua Reeves explains, “We decided to take in more capital because we wanted to give investors a chance to increase their position. They’ve been incredibly supportive and helpful.”

Gusto filed with the SEC on 4 December, and closed the round in a week and a half. According to a VentureBeat article, Reeves disclosed that the new installment values Gusto “hundreds of millions of dollars higher” than the company’s $560 million valuation reported in April.

Gusto was founded as ZenPayroll in 2011 with a mission to make payroll delightful. In September, the company changed its name to Gusto and expanded its focus to include health benefits and workers compensation. The move positions Gusto to compete directly with Zenefits, which, having recently expanded into payroll services, describes itself as an “all-in-one HR platform.”

Gusto unveiled its payroll-processing platform at FinovateSpring 2014 in San Jose.

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Moven to Forgo Username & Password for 80% of Mobile Account Interactions

Moven to Forgo Username & Password for 80% of Mobile Account Interactions
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Moven

MovenHomepage

Mobile-first bank Moven is going the way of Citigroup, Bank of the West, and JP Morgan Chase by not requiring a password for low-risk banking interactions. An American Banker post cited that instead of passwords, Moven will authenticate using secure keystores to store a device-authentication token.

The New York-based neobank says that customers will not need to enter their username and password to conduct 80% of their account activities, such as:

  • View balances
  • View transactions
  • Categorize transactions
  • View spending insights

Moven will still require traditional login credentials for higher risk interactions, such as bill pay or transferring money to an external bank account. The change will roll out for Android users in the next few weeks and will be available on iOS in early January.

The company’s hope is that, by making it easier to access their account, consumers will be more willing to log in and use Moven’s PFM tools. Moven CTO Bob Savino says, “Even a fingerprint may be considered too much friction for checking one’s financial health, and we really are looking to inspire behavioral change via engagement.”

Moven debuted its Financial Health platform at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Ledger

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Ledger
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2016, FinovateEurope 2016 Sneak Peek, Ledger

Screen Shot 2015-12-16 at 10.07.48 AM

FEU2016_logo_withdateA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500 fintech professionals. Get your tickets to join us in London!

LedgerLogo

Ledger Blue is a personal handheld device that secures payments and smart contracts for bitcoin and blockchain-based applications.

Features:

  • Secure: based on banking standards with a trusted screen—what you see is what you sign
  • Open: API to build custom applications for industry needs
  • Ubiquitous: BLE/NFC/USB connectivity

Why it’s great
A bank-grade security device built on open standards to secure critical assets and transactional flow for fintechs and financial institutions.

LedgerPresenter

Presenter: Eric Larcheveque, CEO
Serial entrepreneur since 1996, Larcheveque has founded several companies in Europe. Respected member of the bitcoin community, he launched La Maison du Bitcoin, a French Bitcoin center, before founding Ledger.
LinkedIn

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: meetinvest AG

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: meetinvest AG
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2016, FinovateEurope 2016 Sneak Peek, meetinvest AG

meetinvestteaserHeaderIMG

FEU2016_logo_withdateA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500 fintech professionals. Get your tickets to join us in London!

MeetInvestLogo

meetinvest AG will present its expert-based and algorithm-driven, single-stock robo-adviser as a white-label solution that targets the mass affluent and retail investors worldwide.

Features:

  • A role-model approach towards stock investing
  • Successful recipes of 30+ top stock-investment experts (Buffett, Templeton, etc.)
  • Algorithmic-driven portfolio management

Why it’s great
Any investor can now be empowered to invest like a pro by using a toolkit that employs proven expert recipes with state-of-the-art portfolio management techniques.

meetinvestPresenter

Presenter: Michel Jacquemai, CIO and Co-founder
Jacquemai has 22 years of experience in asset management, primarily in equities and hedge funds. He co-founded meetinvest to combine his know-how with the best expert strategies available worldwide.
LinkedIn

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Finovate Debuts: DAVO Automates Sales Tax

Finovate Debuts: DAVO Automates Sales Tax
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: DAVO Technologies, Finovate Debuts

DAVOHomepage

DAVO debuted DAVO Sales Tax at FinovateFall 2015 in New York. The system works on retailers’ behalf by daily impounding sales tax from the merchant’s point-of-sale system. The Maine-based company then automatically files and pays their monthly taxes. This helps retailers whose struggles with cash management often mean trouble in paying sales taxes owed to the state government at the end of the month.

Company facts:

  • Founded 2011
  • Launched with First Data as channel partner in February 2015
  • $2.2 million in funding
  • 6 employees
  • 231 merchants on platform

To get started, merchants download DAVO from their point-of-sale provider’s app store. Here’s DAVO in Clover’s app market:

DAVOinClover

The application process is simple. Since 95% of the fields are prefilled from data sourced from the merchant’s point-of-sale records, the merchant needs only to enter their banking information.

 

 

DAVOApplication

DAVO uses the merchant’s API code to track daily sales and sales tax. The company uses ACH rails to daily impound the sales tax due. This removes the temptation for the merchant to use their sales tax revenue for operating expenses. DAVO also helps merchants who owe back taxes by establishing a back-payment plan.

Using the impounded funds and information from the POS, DAVO files and pays the retailer’s tax return on a monthly basis and supplies the records needed for them to file their annual report.

The merchant portal offers insight into daily sales, sales tax, and item-return data. To complement this dashboard, DAVO sends an email summarizing the total amount of sales tax to be debited from the retailer’s account.

TaxItemization

The company also offers DAVO FranchisePay, a service that automatically collects and remits royalties and advertising fees from franchisees.

What’s next

DAVO’s ultimate goal is to shift its business model, offering the sales-tax solution for free to small merchants, and charging state governments instead to white-label the platform.

DAVO is a graduate of the Six Thirty fintech accelerator. The company’s CEO Owen Brown, COO Terry Sutton, and Chairman David Joseph debuted DAVO Sales Tax at FinovateFall 2015:

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Scalable Capital

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Scalable Capital
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2016, FinovateEurope 2016 Sneak Peek, Scalable Capital

Screenshot_ScalablecapFEU2016_logo_withdateA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500 fintech professionals. Get your tickets to join us in London!

ScalableCapHiResIMG

Scalable Capital is a digital investment manager that creates personalized, globally diversified portfolios. Scalable is dynamically optimized with a primary focus on cutting-edge risk management.

Features:

  • Personalized, globally diversified portfolios
  • A unique, dynamic risk-management technology
  • No hidden fees, and a total cost of 0.75% p.a.

Why it’s great
Scalable Capital is not just using technology to solve a distribution problem. It gives private investors access to investment technology previously reserved for institutional investors.

ScalableCapPresenter1Presenters

Erik Podzuweit, Founder and Co-CEO
Podzuweit combines extensive capital market experience with online expertise. An ex-Goldman Sachs banker, he was also co-CEO at Westwing Germany.
LinkedIn

 

ScalableCapPresenter2Adam French, Founder and U.K. Managing Director
French spent the last eight years working at Goldman Sachs in London as an executive director of commodities trading and in derivatives trading.
LinkedIn

 

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Nexmo

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Nexmo
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2016, FinovateEurope 2016 Sneak Peek, Nexmo

NexmoHomepage

FEU2016_logo_withdateA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500 fintech professionals. Get your tickets to join us in London!

NexmoLogo

Nexmo is a global cloud communications platform with APIs and SDKs for SMS, voice and mobile verification. Nexmo Verify SDK enables phone verification for password replacement, 2FA, and more.

 

Features:

  • Securely verify and authenticate users to prevent SIM swap
  • Send unlimited push verifications with subscription pricing
  • Minimize design and development resources with preintegrated verification workflow

Why it’s great
Mitigate fraud and bypass common security challenges like SIM swapping by using phone number verification and unique device identifiers to increase security, significantly decrease fraud and protect users.

NexmoPresenter

Presenter: Parth Awasthi, Product Lead
Awasthi is a product lead for Nexmo. Prior to Nexmo, Parth spent over a decade leading technology teams building communication and productivity software for the cloud at Microsoft.
LinkedIn

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: PaySend

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: PaySend
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2016, FinovateEurope 2016 Sneak Peek, PaySend

PaySendHomepage

FEU2016_logo_withdateA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500 fintech professionals. Get your tickets to join us in London!

PaySendLogo

PaySend is leveraging Visa and MasterCard networks to help banks and schemes facilitate an efficient remittance network, all important for meeting global financial inclusion goals.

Features:

  • Simplifies remittances by using payment cards
  • Tokenizes card data in demand for social-based transfers
  • Leverages global partnership network for decreased cost of sending money

Why it’s great
PaySend offers fast international money transfers using global Visa and MasterCard networks—all for
 1% + 1 Euro available through a dedicated app or your favorite instant messenger.

36641212_daniel

Presenter: Daniel Gusev, Co-founder, User Experience and Product Engineering
Gusev is an ex-banker in charge of successful innovation programs at leading banks in Russia. He is a reformed international fintech entrepreneur in payments and contextual finance, blogger, tinkerer and amateur father.
LinkedIn

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Passport

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Passport
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateEurope 2016, FinovateEurope 2016 Sneak Peek, Passport

PassportHeader

FEU2016_logo_withdateA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500 fintech professionals. Get your tickets to join us in London!

PassportLogo

Passport is an urban mobility platform helping cities improve their transportation options. The company will be demonstrating its multimodal plan, track, and pay mobile application.

Features:

  • Trip planning to improve navigation
  • Transit tracking to better understand the urban ecosystem
  • Mobile ticketing to make transit riding more convenient

Why it’s great
Passport’s enterprise platform empowers cities to transform mobility through innovative mobile applications, providing secure platforms to better manage their system and easy-to-use apps for riders.

PassportPresenter1Presenters

Khristian Gutierrez, CBDO
Gutierrez is the CBDO at Passport and a former investment banker. He earned his master’s of science in finance from the graduate school of business at the University of Florida, along with his bachelor’s degree in business administration.
LinkedIn

 

PassportPresenter2Bob Youakim, CEO
Youakim is the CEO at Passport and former VP in investment banking. He earned an MBA from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management and his bachelor’s of science from the University of Illinois.
LinkedIn

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FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Capitalise.com

FinovateEurope Sneak Peek: Capitalise.com
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Capitalise, FinovateEurope 2016, FinovateEurope 2016 Sneak Peek

CapitaliseLendingHomepage

FEU2016_logo_withdateA look at the companies demoing live to 1,500 fintech professionals. Get your tickets to join us in London!

CapitaliseLogo

Capitalise.com takes the hassle out of funding searches. Using behavioral analytics, its online platform matches and ranks finance providers, making it easy for businesses to select the right lender.

 

Features of Capitalise:

  • Save time with lenders
  • Enjoy a faster approval and funding process
  • Ease cashflow and achieve growth

Why it’s great
Capitalise believes every SME should have access to finance. It empowers businesses to find, compare and select the right lender. Businesses using Capitalise are twice as likely to get funded.

CapitalisePresenter1Presenters

Paul Surtees, Managing Director and Co-founder
With 15 years’ banking experience, Surtees served as executive director on the Goldman Sachs interest-rate trading floor. He started Capitalise to help SMEs gain easy access to lenders.
LinkedIn

CapitalisePresenter2

 

Ollie Maitland, Product Director and Co-founder
Maitland is a serial tech-startup product lead. He’s worked alongside VCs, technologists, service design experts and business minds to build market-leading digital products in start-ups to multi-nationals.
LinkedIn

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