BehavioSec Lands $6 Million Led by Northzone and Octopus Investments

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In the past few years, we’ve witnessed the evolution of security beyond usernames and passwords. Founded in 2009, BehavioSec is one of the forerunners of this trend; making security invisible to the end user.

Today, the Swedish company announced $6.2 million (€5 million) round led by Northzone and Octopus Investments. Existing investors, Conor Venture Partners and Partner Invest Norr, also contributed.

A 2011 installment of $500k and a 2008 round of $1.2 million bring BehavioSec’s total funding to almost $8 million.

BehavioSec plans to use the funds to:

    • Accelerate international growth
    • Expand presence in the U.K. and U.S.
    • Support existing clients
    • Invest further in existing products
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The uptick in recent security hacks has brought about increased approval for the use of biometrics. From Apple’s TouchID to Nymi’s Nymi Band, companies and customers are growing accustomed to using physical assets for authentication. BehavioSec takes a slightly different approach. Instead of authenticating using a person’s physical attributes, it verifies an identity by passively observing how they interact with their device.

This week, BehavioSec welcomes three new board members: Simon Andrews of Octopus, Bjorn Stray of Northzone and Chris Barchak of Conor Venture Partners.

BehavioSec has won awards most recently at FinovateEurope 2014 and FinDEVr. It has won Best of Show at FinovateAsia 2013 and FinovateSpring 2012.

Finovate Debuts: SAS Games Helps Kids Save for College by Playing Games

The Finovate Debuts series introduces new Finovate alums. Today’s feature is SAS Games, which demonstrated its TiViTz College $avings Game-a-thon at FinovateFall 2014.

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SAS Games’ TiViTz College $avings Game-a-thon offers a way for kids to save for college tuition by playing fun, math-based games.

The game-a-thon works similar to a walk-a-thon. Kids ages 6 to 18 solicit pledges from friends and family, whose total contribution is based on the child’s performance. To redeem the pledges and add the money to their college savings account, the child is challenged with TiVitz math games online.

Aside from bolstering funds in existing accounts, the games encourage families without a college savings fund to open one.

Stats:

    • $5+ million in funding raised
    • 10 employees
    • 10,000 teachers use TiVitz
    • 400,000 children use TiVitz
    • TiVitz game has won awards from:
      • Parent’s Choice
      • Dr. Toy
      • National Parenting
      • Creative Child

How it works:

1) Kids set up their TiViTz account online
The registration process requires student and parent information, along with a $10 annual registration fee.

2) Link an existing college savings account or establish a new one
Through SAS Games’ partnership with TrustEgg, parents of children without a savings account can open one in minutes (watch TrustEgg’s debut at FinovateSpring 2013).

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3) Request pledges from friends and family
Kids set up their own personalized pledge page and send the link to friends and family. They may also send donation requests via email, text, social media, and printed flyers.

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4) Play the game
In the TiVitz game, kids challenge each other or a computer. The difficulty of the game scales for grade levels 1 to 12.

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Players customize their avatar and choose among 7 themes, such as Safari or Baseball. Once the game has ended, they tally their score by computing the equations on the board.

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5) Collect pledges
When the child finishes the required number of games, TiVitz automatically invoices the friends and family members who pledged. Occasionally, companies and financial institutions match donations to help kids reach their goals faster.

6) Track college savings
The dashboard displays the total amount raised from friends and family, along with matched charity contributions. From the home screen, kids can personalize their pledge page, view the number of pledges requested and received, and more.

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The TiVitz online Game-a-thon is held once a year, around the holidays. Kids play 5 to 16 games each, depending on the amount of their pledges. Other activities around the TiVitz game include:

  • TiVitz Tournaments
    Boeing, Lockheed, NASA, National Hockey League, SeaWorld, and Major League Baseball sponsor tournaments where kids win college scholarships
  • TiVitz Tuesdays
    SAS Games is partnered with McDonald’s in Florida which hosts kids every Tuesday to practice for TiVitz tournaments

Benefits

For families and children:

    • Encourages them to open a new savings account
    • Helps them save more money for college
    • Augments math and critical thinking skills

For banks:

    • Provides access to new clients
    • Has potential to add new savings accounts for existing customers
    • Adds more funds to existing savings accounts
    • Enhances Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) efforts in local communities

SAS Games demonstrated its TiVitz College $avings Game-a-thon at FinovateFall 2014.

SocietyOne Closes $20 Million Series B Funding Round

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Australian P2P lending company, SocietyOne, closed a Series B funding round this week. The amount is officially undisclosed, but according to the Australian Financial Review, the round totals $20 million ($25 million AUD). This new installment comes just 10 months after it closed an $8.5 million round.

Contributors to the new round include Consolidated Press Holdings (CPH), News Corp Australia and Australian Capital Equity. Reinventure, the Westpac-funded venture capital manager that took a $5 million equity stake in SocietyOne in February, also helped furnish the round. Reinventure contributed another $5 million to this week’s Series B round.

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The funding comes amid the buzz surrounding Lending Club’s IPO. The California-based company is expected to start trading on the NYSE next week at $10 to $12 per share valuing it at more than $4 billion (see our previous coverage here).

Lending Club’s success bodes well for SocietyOne. James Packer, a representative from SocietyOne’s new investors states, “We have seen first-hand the power of technology in reshaping the media industry and I am excited about the potential of technology, led by the team at SocietyOne, to help reshape the financial services industry in Australia.”

SocietyOne’s ClearMatch technology uses risk-based pricing to offer borrowers a rate that is up to 5% lower than bank loans. It debuted ClearMatch at FinovateAsia 2012 where it won Best of Show.

Finovate Debuts: Loyal3’s Stock Investments Democratizes Access to Stocks and IPOs

The Finovate Debuts series introduces new Finovate alums. Today’s feature is Loyal3, which demonstrated its mobile IPO investment platform at FinovateFall 2014.

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Loyal3’s stock marketplace makes it easy to invest in stocks and IPOs. The simple user interface and lack of fees appeal to novice investors. It can also serve as a great tool for those looking to invest in IPOs at the same time and price as institutional investors.

Stats:

    • Founded October 2008
    • 130 employees
    • $75+ million in funding

Stock investing
Users start by browsing the 64 company stocks available on the platform.

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Stocks can be purchased in $10 increments. This fractional ownership allows for more diversification at a lower buy-in. If investors are feeling bullish, they have the option to purchase as much as $2,500 of a single stock.

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The portfolio below shows a total of $188 divided among eight different stocks, including Apple and Amazon, which have notoriously high share prices.

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Aside from the fractional share feature, Loyal3 also has:

    • Zero fees to buy and sell stock
    • No minimum account balances
    • Easy-to-open brokerage account
    • Automatic monthly investments that prompt recurring stock purchases

One of the ways Loyal3 is able to provide fee-free stock trades is by submitting orders in a batch at the end of the day. Because of the delay, the price quoted at the time the order is placed is not always the final purchase price.

IPO investing
Loyal3 offers access to IPOs at the same price and time as large investors and institutions.

Here’s how it works:

1) Reserve an IPO stock
Users choose the amount of stock they would like to purchase. However, since shares are limited, investors may not receive the full amount.

2) Confirm order
After the price of the IPO is determined, Loyal3 sends SMS and email notifications to investors and gives them two hours to confirm or cancel their order. They can invest as little as $10 and as much as $10,000 per IPO.

Mobile
Loyal3 launched its mobile interface at FinovateFall 2014. It provides on-the-go access to stock trading and instant IPO notifications.

Finovate Debuts: iBillionaire’s Index ETF Exceeds Performance of S&P 500

The Finovate Debuts series introduces new Finovate alums. Today’s feature is iBillionaire, which demonstrated its iBillionaire Index at FinovateFall 2014.

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iBillionaire’s free mobile app gives investors insight into how the world’s top-performing billionaires, such as Warren Buffet, Carl Icahn, and George Soros, invest.

The clean user interface makes it easy to gather information on the billionaires’ trades and investments. Additionally, the iBillionaire Index, an exchange-traded fund (ETF), is an option for those looking for an alternative to the S&P 500.

Stats

    • Index ETF has $35+ million in AUM
    • Founded April 2013
    • 150,000 mobile users

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How it works
iBillionaire identifies the top 10 performing billionaire investors and translates their public SEC trade filings onto a clean user interface, identifying their top performing stocks.

The Index is a compilation of 30 company stocks where billionaire investors have allocated the most assets. When back-tested 5 years, the iBillionaire Index returns were almost double those of the S&P 500 (see right).

Methodology
iBillionaire selects the billionaires to follow based on their:

    • Net Worth: must be at least $1 billion
    • Source of Wealth: must be rooted in financial markets or investments industries
    • Portfolio Size: must be worth at least $1 billion
    • Portfolio Concentration: must contain at least 10 different positions
    • Turnover: must have a turnover ratio of less than 50%
    • Track Record: must have at least a 3-year track record
Mobile features
The user base, which consists of 80% retail investors and 20% financial advisors, accesses the information online and through the mobile app. While the web interface and mobile app have many of the same tools, the app provides on-the-go updates and alerts, such as:

1) News
Browse the billionaires’ assets under management, performance, and trading activity, as well as timely news related to their investments.

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1) Portfolio comparison
Users upload their own portfolio, and see how it performs against the high profile investors’ portfolios

2) Price alerts
Optional push notifications inform users of trading activity from their preferred investors

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What’s next

iBillionaire has partnered with Direxion Investments, a top ETF sponsor in the U.S., and is looking to partner with financial institutions and brokers to grow internationally.

Additionally, it is redesigning the mobile app and is working on tools to help users build their own investment strategies, as well.

The New York-based company showcased at FinovateFall 2014. Check out the live demo video here.

Finovate Debuts: PayItSimple’s Financing Tool Gives Customers Extra Time to Pay for Goods, Interest-Free

The Finovate Debuts series introduces new Finovate alums. Today’s feature is PayItSimple, which demonstrated its point of sale financing solution at FinovateFall 2014.

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With PayItSimple, customers use their existing credit card to divide an expensive purchase into multiple, smaller payments over time.

PayItSimple automatically bills the charges to the customer’s credit card each month. Unlike most financing products, PayItSimple is interest-free and the customer does not need to wait to receive the product, as with layaway.

The PayItSimple option at checkout shows consumers the maximum number of installments allowed. In the case below, the customer pays $120 per month for 10 months instead of $1,200 up front.

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Stats

    • 12 employees
    • $4.3 million in funding
    • Founded August 2013
Secret sauce

Merchants do not take on any risk associated with allowing customers to pay over time. The initial authorization from the customer’s credit card company guarantees the full amount.

PayItSimple’s technology automatically processes the customer’s payments over time. It also handles the authorization.

Consumer use
PayItSimple is fast, with no need to apply or fill out paperwork. Users simply choose their payment schedule and then purchase just like a regular credit card transaction (see below).

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Benefits for end customers:

    • Provides the ability to buy expensive items when they may not have cash up front
    • Makes purchases interest free
    • Does not come with layaway delays
    • Can pay by credit card to collect card rewards
    • Does not require a credit check, making the process as fast as a regular transaction

Merchant use

By listing products with a more digestible price (see below), goods are more appealing and the small installments are affordable for more customers.

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Merchant benefits:
    • Higher conversion rates
    • No additional risk
    • Average ticket price increases
    • Higher customer satisfaction
    • Full payment received at time of purchase
    • No need to change payment gateway

Merchants can either embed PayItSimple’s code into their website or use its API for a seamless checkout experience.

The fine print
While the customer pays no fees or interest, there is a small fee to merchants.

Also, not all credit card holders are eligible to use PayItSimple, but the approval rate is over 95%.

PayItSimple is also available for mobile interfaces and for brick-and-mortar stores. Its official U.S. launch was at FinovateFall 2014.

Finovate Debuts: BlueVine

The Finovate Debuts series introduces new Finovate alums. Today’s feature is BlueVine, which demonstrated its credit line for small businesses at FinovateFall 2014.

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BlueVine provides small businesses (SMBs), who often have uneven cashflow, with financing to manage operations. By automatically connecting with the SMB’s accounting software, BlueVine furnishes cash for business’ unpaid invoices in as quickly as a day.

Stats

    • 17 employees
    • $5.5 million in funding
    • Founded July 2013

Top 3 benefits

1) Fast funding
To minimize manual input, BlueVine connects to the small business’ accounting software to access unpaid invoices.

The screenshot below shows the user dashboard, which lists all invoices available for instant financing, indicated by the Get paid now button on the right.

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The first time the SMB requests funds, they indicate where to send the money, which can arrive as quickly as 24 hours. Subsequent funding requests take only minutes.

2) Simple and transparent
BlueVine’s payment calculator is an example of its simplicity. It requires only two inputs, the amount of the invoice and the due date.

It also shows the advance payment, which equals 85% of the invoice, and is the maximum amount they can receive upfront, alongside the rebate, the amount the SMB receives once the invoice is paid.

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BlueVine has no set up or subscription dues, and is transparent about its fees. The Funded section of the dashboard details the cash advance, repayment history, and total fees.

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3) 100% online; no paperwork
The BlueVine application process requires two forms, one for business details (see below) and another with personal information.

BlueVineBusinessform.jpgSMBs upload additional information, such as bank statements, online.

BlueVine demonstrated at FinovateFall 2014, check out the video here.

Alumni News– November 21, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgUmbrella.co.uk migrates client base of 1,000+ freelancers and contractors to the FreeAgent platform.
  • Uber helping drivers manage and pay back their student loans by partnering with Tuition.io.
  • Actiance recognized in Gartner 2014 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Information Archiving.
  • Bloomberg: CAN Capital to weigh IPO with up to $2 billion value.
  • Intuit’s Quickbooks and Xero coming to Square App Marketplace.
  • PayStand sets flat fees for e-check payment option.
  • Virtual Piggy, provider of Oink, launches the Oink Discover prepaid card for teens.
  • Fiserv links its Popmoney P2P payment solution to charitable giving.
  • Yodlee wins top honors at Citi Mobile Challenge Latam 2014.
  • Bazaarvoice announces plans to relocated to new corporate HQ in North Austin.
  • Kashoo announces enhancements to its web app, including more P&L options and increased security.
  • VoiceTrust launches strategic partnership with German biometric cloud security company, BioID AG.
  • The Washington Post features Bionym’s Nymiband.
  • Accenture mentions Thinknum as an innovation that is helping to change the banking industry.
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.

Advanced Merchant Payments Brings in $5 Million in First Funding Round

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Yesterday, as we began looking forward to FinovateEurope, we heard news from a 2014 alum, Advanced Merchant Payments (AMP).

AMP, a company that provides banks with alternative lending options for small-and-medium (SMB) businesses, pulled in a fresh $5 million this week. The funding, a first for the Hong Kong-based company, comes from SBT Venture Capital.

AMP operates in Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Philippines, and has recently expanded into the UK, participating in London’s Level39 fintech accelerator. It plans to use the funding to further internationalize and scale the business.

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Founded in 2009, AMP helps financial institutions offer financing to small business customers by managing some or all stages of the loan process, including:

    • Qualification
    • Verification
    • Credit scoring
    • Approval
    • Disbursement
    • Daily repayment
    • Risk monitoring

AMP debuted its small business lending solution for banks at FinovateEurope 2014.

FinovateEurope 2015 Presenting Companies Revealed. Get Your Ticket this Week for Very Early Bird Pricing!

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In eleven weeks, more than 70 companies will step onto the FinovateEurope stage at Old Billingsgate Market Hall in London to demo the freshest solutions in fintech.

Come join us on February 10 and 11. Right now, you can save £200 on a ticket with Very Early Bird pricing.

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This has been our most competitive show outside the U.S. so far. The tall stacks of quality demo applications made it difficult to decide who should showcase their newest technology at FinovateEurope.

Without further ado, here are the presenting companies for FinovateEurope 2015:


AdviceGames develops gamified tooling based on data models, specialized in motivational risk games.
Aire is an alternative credit score to help people without any past credit history.
Akamai provides cloud services for delivering, optimising and securing online content and business applications.
AlphaPoint powers the top global digital currency exchanges with its white-label technology platform.
Avoka delivers SaaS-based customer experience management, enhancing multi-channel digital transactions around financial products and services.
Backbase is launching Backbase Journey Manager, giving banks insight and power to optimize omni-channel customer journeys.
Barzahlen – Cash Payment Solutions replaces traditional banking branches through offering consumers to cash-in / cash-out at 3,400 POS or 15,000 cashiers nationwide.
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is Australia’s most customer-connected bank.
BizEquity is the ultimate lead generator for banks and 
financial advisors serving small business owners.
C24 is a “smart” digital money platform for managing your bills, transfers and wishes.
CashSentinel enables secure, large payments with mobile phones, all in real time.
CoinJar makes digital currency accessible and simple, for the everyday, and the extraordinary.
CPB SOFTWARE’s expertise, creativity and flexibility are the bases to solutions for its partner banks.
CREALOGIX offers digital banking with added value for the customer and the bank.
Delta Bank is a fast developing Ukrainian bank with a focus on universal payment services.
ebankIT is a software banking company, specialized in multichannel innovation – mobile banking, internet banking on wearable tech, among others.
Encap Security is the only internet scale, device-based, banking-grade authentication platform provider in the world.
eRipple redefines mentorship. We change the fabric of corporates by helping talent and experts connect.
EVRY’s Spendific is the personal trainer for your finances. Know your money. Spend Freely.
Financial Media Solutions brings financial content and analysis to life, in a mobile world.
Fiserv continues to lead the way in digital banking and electronic payment innovations.
Five Degrees invigorates banks with Matrix; banking out-of-the-box and in the Cloud.
FOBISS develops Artificial Intelligence-powered technologies that drive smarter business decisions within the retail banking industry.
IDmission offers the modern enterprise an identity-initiated means of engaging with their customers and partners.
Intelligent Environments provides secure mobile and online solutions for financial service providers.
investUP is the future of crowdfunding, ensuring that investors never miss out on debt and equity deals.
InvoiceSharing enables improved invoice processing and cash flow by sharing free electronic invoices.
iSignthis keeps your identity secured, your payments made safe.
Ixaris Systems provides the components and tools needed to build complex payment solutions rapidly and cost-effectively.
Jumio is a next-generation payments and ID software-as-a-service company utilising proprietary computer vision technology.
Luminous solves problems for banks, its aim is to drive transformation and innovation in banking.
mBank & i3D mBank is the third Polish retail banking group with over 4.5M customers – consistently deemed as a financial sector innovator.
Meniga is the European market leader of white-label PFM and next-generation online banking solutions.
Mobino enables mobile payments for 5 billion people, from any phone, no credit card required.
MoneyHub empowers users to make better financial decisions and plan more effectively for their future.
mydesq provides solutions for wealth managers. It powers your success.
NICE Systems gets you closer to your customers, analyzing every interaction and transaction to build a detailed picture of the customer journey.
Nostrum Group’s technology makes lending cheaper, faster and safer.
Novabase strives to make people’s lives simpler and happier through technology and a co-creative design approach.
onlinepay.com enables users to securely and quickly transfer or share money with their friends on social networks, such as Facebook.
PhotoPay is the easiest way to pay bills and enter payment data on mobile devices.
Pirean is a leading software and services provider for people-focused Identity and Access Management solutions.
Quantitative Credit Research delivers next generation technology for smarter credit risk management.
Quisk enables banks to offer cash-less transactions for anyone with a mobile phone number.
Revolut is your personal money cloud.
SAS Games develops TiViTz College $avings Game-a-thon – a fully-automated, activity-based, fundraising tool for financial savings vehicles.
Sedicii delivers strong authentication for mobile and web enabled services without ever exposing your password.
Smart e-Money’s LockByMobile is the world’s first mobile-based anti-fraud security solution for prepaid, debit, ATM and credit card accounts.
SOFORT Banking is the leading non-bank Online Banking ePayment system in Europe and works instantly.
Strands is a global provider of personalization and recommendation solutions that empower banks to offer a superior customer experience.
StreetShares.com is a social-lending marketplace where retail and institutional investors compete to fund loans to U.S. small businesses.
Taulia transforms supply chains, enabling organisations to create a healthy relationship between suppliers and buyers.
Telenor Banka powered by Asseco will present an innovative financial product offering, driven by telco-bank synergy, powered by Asseco SEE digital banking technology.
Temenos is the market leading provider of banking software systems to financial institutions across the globe.
Topicus provides premier innovative, cloud-based banking software, under the guiding principle: we challenge, you win.
TradeRiver Finance is a secure, non-bank, online solution which finances and executes global trade transactions. 
TransferTo enables value remittance across borders.
Trunomi’s innovative B2ME technology transforms the Know Your Customer market using secure online identity management.
VIPERA is a market leading enabler of mobile financial solutions and customer engagement.
Wipro is leading IT, Consulting and Business Process Services company that delivers solutions to enable its clients do business better.
WS Integration solves complex data processing issues in the post-trade execution.
Xignite provides real-time and reference financial market data to fuel FinTech innovation.
Xsolla is re-inventing e-commerce.

Yoyo is the first app that seamlessly blends payments, loyalty, and discovery – done right.

We’ll announce several stealth companies as we get closer to the event. And be sure to stay tuned for our Sneak Peek series to get to know each company in advance of the show.

Join us in London! Get your ticket to FinovateEurope before November 21 for Very Early Bird savings.


FinovateEurope 2015 is sponsored by: Life.SREDA and more to be announced.

FinovateEurope 2015 is partners with: Bank Innovators Council, BankersHub, bobsguide, Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, Datamonitor Financial, The Trading Mesh (formerly HFT Review) and more to be announced. 

Finovate Debuts: Minetta Brook’s Knewsapp

The Finovate Debuts series introduces new Finovate alums. Today’s feature is Minetta Brook, which demonstrated Knewsapp at FinovateFall 2014.

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Minetta Brook aims for Knewsapp to change the way investors stay informed of news relating to stocks in their portfolio. The web-based news discovery application surfaces topics before they become trending news, giving researchers a tool superior to Google.

The stats

    • $2.4 million in funding
    • 10 employees
    • 100+ firms in beta
    • 100,000+ news sources searched
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Knewsapp

Traditionally, when seeking information that may effect a stock in their portfolio, investors search Google, Yahoo or other investment info sources. But typical search engines measure the importance of an article based on popularity.This method elevates content that could be days old, and buries stories investors actually need to read.

For traders, risk management professionals, and research analysts that need real-time news, search engines are not the best tools for content discovery. Knewsapp’s content-based model finds the information investors need to make important trading decisions.

Aside from simply serving up news, Knewsapp also helps investors know what news may effect their investments. It uses a proprietary scoring method to suggest content they should read to be informed, based on their portfolio.

Knewsapp launched on Bloomberg in May. Here’s what the full integration looks like:

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Features
>>Top tickers

Knewsapp continuously scans Twitter and more than 100,000 sources of news and blogs for unusual activity. The result is a list of stocks with the most relevant and fastest developing news, based on their score and velocity.

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Ticker and/or topic combination search
With this function, users search a ticker symbol by itself or in combination with key word(s). The result shows headlines of relevant news stories, sources, scores and similar topics.

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Additionally, a filter capability enables users to see news in specific markets or sectors.

Portfolio monitoring
With hundreds of stocks in a portfolio, it can be difficult to know which terms to search. Knewsapp simplifies this by displaying the score, along with the rate the news is developing, for each stock in a portfolio.

When users filter by the score or velocity, they see which stocks are receiving above average coverage in the news or on Twitter. The right-hand panel displays news stories corresponding to stocks in their portfolio.

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Story DNA
The Story DNA section word cloud displays a quick view of topics and themes within a selected news story.

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Minetta Brook debuted the public web version of Knewsapp at FinovateFall 2014.

Financeit Brings in Fresh Funding After U.S. Launch

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What do wonders of the world, deadly sins, the Harry Potter series, and Financeit’s funding have in common? They all come in sets of seven (at least for now).

Financeit’s seventh round of funding comes from BEST Funds, which is adding an undisclosed amount to the $21.4 million Financeit has raised since its 2007 launch.

Previous rounds include $13 million in November 2013, along with $8.4 million in angel funding received in five rounds from 2007 to 2012.

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The new installment comes a few months after the Toronto-based company launched its point of sale financing solution in the United States. This is no small feat, given the hurdles of complying with U.S. regulations. Financeit plans to use the funds to expand growth in the new market.

Check out the live demo of Financeit’s U.S. launch, along with its partnership with FIS, at FinovateFall 2014.