Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz), Author at Finovate

Alumni News—February 5, 2015

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 5, 2015
Categories: Coinbase, CoinJar, Feedzai, Insuritas, Lendio, Quisk

Quisk electronic payment system to launch in Jamaica. Come see Quisk at FinovateEurope next week.

AM560 interviews Lendio CEO Brock Blake on alternative lending.

On Finovate.com: “Funding for E.U.-based Finovate Alums Totals $377 Million in 2014″

European Commission’s Promoting Enterprise blog spotlights Nuno Da Cruz Sebastiao of Feedzai.

Argent Credit Union hires Insuritas to open and manage turnkey insurance agency.

Coinbase to support Google Now notifications.

CoinJar launches iOS bitcoin payments app, CoinJar Touch, ahead of its FinovateEurope 2015 debut next week.

SixThirty Accelerator deadline extended to February 6.

FinovateEurope 2015: Come for the Demos, Stay for the Networking.

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.

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FinovateEurope 2015 Sneak Peek: Part 7

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 3, 2015
Categories: Aire, Akamai, FinovateEurope 2015, FinovateEurope 2015 Sneak Peek, LifePay, Moneyhub, mydesq, onlinepay.com, Sedicii, Taulia

FinovateEurope is less than a week away, and we’ve already surpassed last year’s record-breaking attendance. Soon, we’ll be sitting inOld Billingsgate Market Hall in London, enjoying tea while enjoying the first day of live demos at FinovateEurope.

Want to be a part of the largest FinovateEurope crowd ever? Get your ticket soon before it’s sold out.

In this final post of our Sneak Peek series, we’re featuring Aire, Akamai Technologies, LifePay, MoneyHub, mydesq, Onlinepay.com, Sedicii, and Taulia. You can see all the posts here:

Aire is an alternate credit score for people. Our mission is to help thin-file customers who qualify for essential financial products via this new score.

Features

Rescore credit rejections to lend to 15%+ more customers
Improve overall cost of acquisition
Minimal change to existing risk profile

Why it’s great
Aire can help turn a No to a Yes.

Presenters

Aneesh Varma, Co-founder
Varma is a serial entrepreneur with a prior startup in enterprise retail tech, he started off in consumer finance at JPMorgan. He’s an engineer with a background in predictive algorithms quantitative finance.
LinkedIn

Jon Bundy, Co-founder
With 14 years across financial technology, Bundy has been building risk and data products with an additional expertise in fraud detection and AML as well. He was previously at RBS, Searchspace and Symbian.
LinkedIn

Akamai Technologies is a leading provider of cloud security services, helping banks provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere.

Features

Focus on the source of the request
Determine the extent to which that source has sent malicious requests in the past
Make predictions regarding how much that source can be trusted in the future

Why it’s great
The Akamai Client Reputation service provides financial institutions the ability to forecast intent and protect applications against web attacks.

Presenters

Ory Segal, Director of Threat Research
LinkedIn

Nick Coleman (pictured), Web Security Specialist

LifePay is an mPOS EMV chip-and-pin solution, allowing SMEs to accept payments by plastic cards via smartphones, and get LifePay Stand and overall sales analytics.

Features

LifePay-mPOS chip & pin is a start-point of LifePay ecosystem
LifePay offers the LifePay Stand solution with a portable printer and cashbox as a next-gen cash register.
Merchant’s portal

Why it’s great
LifePay – inspiring Asia

MoneyHub puts the user at the center of their financial universe and helps them visualize their future. MoneyHub’s Ecosystem will empower people to connect, share data and collaborate with their financial advisers and institutions like never before.

Why it’s great
Your customers are already using MoneyHub, why not see how you can use it with them?

Presenters

Toby Hughes, CEO MoneyHub
Hughes, Founder and CEO of MoneyHub, is an entrepreneur with more than 10 years of digital marketing and technological innovation experience in financial services.
LinkedIn

Dave Tonge, CTO
Tonge, CTO at MoneyHub, has a strong technical skill-set and entrepreneurial instincts. Dave specializes in innovative business strategy and agile software architecture.
LinkedIn

mydesq is an iPad-based workbench which combines products, clients, accounts and analytics providing wealth managers the information advantage to work smarter.

Features

Work from anywhere, anytime
Simplify work
Increase Sales & Service

Why it’s great
It revolutionizes and simplifies the way wealth managers work.

Presenter

Milan Vora, CEO & Founder
LinkedIn

onlinepay.com is a mobile wallet for students. Share, buy and top up!

Features

Share your money with your friends
Make purchases directly from your mobile phone
Top up your gaming accounts

Why it’s great
onlinepay.com is a mobile wallet, designed for fun and sharing money, convenient mobile shopping and top up of gaming and trading accounts.

Presenters

Vladimir Kovalevskiy, Director
Kovalevskiy has in-depth experience in the payment and e-commerce fields in Russia and abroad, including projects related to mobile payments.
LinkedIn

Anfisa Chernaya, Marketing Manager
Chernaya is working in marketing field for last 5 years.
LinkedIn

Sedicii eliminates the exposure (storage and transmission) of private data required to authenticate.

Features

Sedicii Payments Card Authentication
Sedicii Mobile Authentication
Sedicii Contact Centre Authentication

Why it’s great
It is innovative technology for more secure authentication and identity verification.

Presenters

Rob Leslie, CEO
Leslie’s track record includes part of the original management team to establish/grow Dell Japan to $300M TO in 4 years. Leslie also co-founded PTS Japan, sold in 2000, having achieved $33M valuation in 5 years.
LinkedIn

Richard Coady, Commercial Director
Coady has held senior positions with BT, WBT Systems, Prometric. He will work towards the implementation of the International Sales strategy for the Sedicii portfolio of authentication applications.
LinkedIn

Taulia transforms supply chains, enabling organizations to create a healthy relationship between suppliers and buyers.

Features

Sets up a SaaS network between a buyer and all its suppliers with eInvoicing
Uses network to offer all suppliers an opportunity to get paid early using third-party finance
Preserves buyer capital

Why it’s great
Taulia solves the buyer/supplier payment dilemma.

Presenters

Matthew Stammers, European Marketing Director
Member of the European management team with responsibility for launching Taulia in Europe. Previously worked for Bottomline Technologies and Capita and holds a Henley MBA.
LinkedIn

Christophe Juvanon, European Solutions Consulting Director
Key member of Taulia’s European team responsible for understanding customer’s requirements and solution fit. Previously employed by OpenText and DHL. Holds a post-grad degree from Napier University.
LinkedIn

That concludes our Sneak Peek series. You can catch all 70+ companies as they demo live at FinovateEurope on February 10 and 11. Pick up your ticket here.

Questions? Check out our FAQ.

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Micronotes Receives $910k in Funding

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 3, 2015
Categories: Funding, Micronotes

Cross-selling is an effective tool in financial services, helping banks market everything from mortgages to new savings accounts. Micronotes‘ Cross-Sell helps banks take the sales conversation from the branch to the online channel.

According to an SEC filing, this week, the Massachusetts-based company announced it pulled in $910,000 in funding, bringing its total to $4.8 million. It plans to use the funding to drive the business to profitability.

Micronotes’ Cross-Sell technology enables consumers to lead themselves through the sales process by answering questions about their status and interests. Aside from helping banks generate leads and learn more about customers, it also offers the opportunity to educate customers about products and services.

Micronotes demonstrated its Cross-Sell platform at FinovateSpring 2013.

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Alumni News– February 3, 2015

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on February 3, 2015
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Azimo, Banno, Betterment, Blockchain, blooom, eMoney Advisor, EyeVerify, Financial Guard, FIS, Jumio, Kabbage, Lending Club, Malauzai Software, Micronotes, Nymi, Personal Capital, ProfitStars, Ripple, TransferWise, VISA, Wealthfront

ProfitStars adds Banno Mobile solutions to the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) Preferred Service Provider program.

Lending Club to serve as exclusive POS financing for Alibaba.com’s U.S. business buyers.

Visa CEO selects NBCUniversal’s Vasant M. Prabhu as CFO.

On Finovate.com: “Fidelity Investments Acquires eMoney Advisor for Reported $250 Million”

The Philippine National Bank deploys core banking solution and EFT switching solution from FIS.

ABC2 News in Baltimore talks with Robb Gaynor of Malauzai Software about mobile banking apps.

Thinking Bigger profiles Blooom and its new way to 401(k).

The Costa Rica Star features Azimo, a money-transfer service.

Financial Advisor’s look at assets managed by roboadvisors highlights Wealthfront, Financial Guard, Personal Capital, and Betterment.

Jumio enhances capturing technology for its ID card-scanning service, Netverify.

Discussion of the “positive powers” of fintech in The Guardian features ACI Worldwide, Azimo, TransferWise, Ripple, and Blockchain.

Check out our final Sneak Peek before we launch into a record-breaking FinovateEurope.

Micronotes receives $910k in funding.

CSO Online features Nymi, Myris, and EyeVerify.

Kabbage funding More Than $3 Million per Day.

Remitly announces expansion into India.

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.

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Bolstr Raises $1.7 Million in Seed Funding

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on January 30, 2015
Categories: Bolstr, Funding

Since its launch in 2011 Bolstr has been on a mission to offer a simple way for small businesses to get financing quickly. It began lending in 2013 and since then, the 1,000+ investors on its platform have delivered $1 million to more than 12 companies.

The Chicago-based startup pulled in its first round of funding yesterday. The $1.7 million comes from Montage Ventures, Kapor Capital, DRW Trading Group, Merrick Ventures, and Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati.

Bolstr will use the funding to add to its six-person team and scale the platform. It aims to host 15 to 20 deals per month by the end of this year (it did not disclose its current volume).

On the Bolstr platform, accredited investors contribute to small business’ funding campaigns, which range from $25,000 to $500,000. The businesses have 30 days to reach their target amount, but since launch, every campaign has reached its goal within five days.

Businesses retain full ownership and pay investors back over 12 to 36 months, depending on the agreed-upon revenue share. So far, there have been zero defaults.

Bolstr debuted its platform at FinovateFall 2012 in New York.

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Cachet Financial Solutions Integrates with Apple Pay

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on January 29, 2015
Categories: Cachet Financial Solutions

With Apple’s recent record-breaking earnings report, there’s been no shortage of Apple-talk lately, and today is no different.

Earlier this week, Cachet Financial Solutions announced its Select Mobile Money platform now integrates with Apple Pay.

Cachet’s prepaid card clients can enable customers to make purchases using Apple Pay at the physical point-of-sale (POS).

How it works:

iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users open their white-labeled Select Mobile Money app and click on the Apple Pay icon. Their prepaid card is automatically placed top-of-wallet in Passbook, ready to pay.

After payment, the Select Mobile Money app shows the user’s updated balance and transaction details (see image on right).

President and CEO of Cachet, Jeffrey Mack, likes the improved user experience and, states, “we expect this unique feature to attract new prepaid users to our clients, as well as bring new banks, credit unions and AFS providers to Cachet.”

The Apple Pay update is available now to its clients as an upgrade.

Cachet Financial demonstrated its Select Mobile Money app at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

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FinovateEurope 2015 Sneak Peek: Part 5

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on January 27, 2015
Categories: Asseco, Financial Media Solutions, FinovateEurope 2015, FinovateEurope 2015 Sneak Peek, Fiserv, i3D, Intelligent Environments, mBank, Pirean, Telenor banka

The 70+ presenters that will showcase their new tech on stage at FinovateEurope in two weeks are now unveiled. To take a closer look at the presenting companies, we’re continuing our Sneak Peek series. Today, we’re featuring Financial Media Solutions, Fiserv, Intelligent Environments, mBank & i3D, Pirean, and Telenor banka & Asseco SEE.

Don’t miss our other Sneak Peeks, available here:

Financial Media Solutions’ MAPPS simplifies Videographics, making it possible to create financial content in digestible bite size video formats for broadcast to any device, including smartphones.

Features

Makes Videographics easy
Empowers institutional users to convey financial concepts in concise video formats
Rapidly broadcasts dynamic content to any client device, including smartphones

Why it’s great
Communicating client content by video is the future. MAPPS resolves the challenge of how institutions better engage clients in financial concepts, even via their smartphone.

Presenters

Ian Park, Owner Director & CEO
LinkedIn

Christopher Thomas, Marketing Director
LinkedIn

Fiserv is one of FORTUNE magazine’s World’s Most Admired Companies and will demonstrate next generation digital banking interactions.

Features

Focuses on a truly integrated payments user experience
Allows customers to manage their spending habits and banking products
Visually stimulates consumers using augmented reality technology

Why it’s great
This innovation is geared towards the consumer and will allow greater control and transparency over their spending and banking habits.

Presenters

Jonathan Atkinson, Market Development, Digital Channels and Payments
Atkinson is a Sales Executive in Digital Channels and Payments team at Fiserv, Inc., focused on new clients across EMEA, with previous experience in core banking and CRM.
LinkedIn

David Abbott, Payments Lead, EMEA
Abbot has 25 years’ sales, business development experience in payments & eCommerce joined Fiserv’s payments business to support development activities in the EMEA region.
LinkedIn

Intelligent Environments is an innovative provider of mobile and online solutions for financial service organisations.

Features
Hopes to fight against cybercrime

Why it’s great
No firm is an island – we all have a shared interest in responding to the growing threat against cybercrime.

Presenter

Clayton Locke, CTO
Clayton Locke is a keen sailor. He is hoping for calm waters come Finovate!
LinkedIn

mBank, financial sector innovator & i3D, world-class provider of high-tech virtual reality solutions, developed an ultra-modern interactive digital bank branch.

Features

Digital wall with unlimited touch points and innovative UI/UX
Proximity-motion-sensing and face recognition technologies for dynamic content adjustment
Integration with sales support systems

Why it’s great
mBank & i3D dare to challenge the traditional notion of physical bank branches with ultra-modern multi-touch screens, motion-sensing and face recognition technologies.

Presenters

Jacek Iljin, Managing Director Sales & Processes, mBank
LinkedIn

Marcin Wiśniewski, Sales & Marketing Director, i3D
LinkedIn

Pirean enables organisations to provide secure, people-focused access for employees, customers, and partners across on-premise and cloud-based applications.

Features

Reduces lead-time to value for application access
Provides secure self-service capabilities for users
Introduces a single point of control and audit for all access management

Why it’s great
Pirean’s Access: One is an Identity and Access Management solution designed to provide a first class user experience anytime, anywhere.

Presenters

Rob Macgregor, Pirean’s Principal Consultant and Access: One’s Product Manager

Rob Blowers, Pirean’s Development Team Lead

With Telenor banka & Asseco South Eastern Europe, banking goes mobile – changing customer experience and reshaping banking products & services to fit mobile, brought by Telenor banka in synergy with Telco, powered by Asseco SEE multichannel solutions.

Features

Big data processing enabling relevant offer at relevant moment and place
Superb customer journey supported by straight-through processing and full automation
Utilization of synergy

Why it’s great
IT is a fully automated and personalized online handset loan enabled by Telenor banka and Telenor, powered by Asseco SEE.

Presenters

Martin Navratil, Chairman of the Executive Committee at Telenor banka
Managing Director of Telenor banka responsible for the design and implementation of the bank’s strategy, having great experience in Telco and Finance sector.
LinkedIn

Piotr Jeleński, Group President of the Management Board of Asseco SEE
Executive manager with experience in running and establishing new business in Poland, SEE region and Turkey. Managing international structure with over 1,400 people in 12 countries.

Marko Carevic, Marketing Director at Telenor Banka
Started his career in Telenor, initiated Telenor M&A initiative in financial services, currently responsible for entire customer value chain and go-to-market process.
LinkedIn

We’ll feature six more companies later this week. To see them all demo live, get your ticket to FinovateEurope 2015.

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Themes and Presenters at FinovateEurope 2015

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on January 26, 2015
Categories: FinovateEurope 2015

With January coming to a close this week, European fintech followers have something to look forward to: an onslaught of new financial technology solutions at FinovateEurope.

The event will take place at Old Billingsgate Market Hall in London on February 10 & 11. Get your ticket to be a part of the action.

The themes we’ll see on stage at FinovateEurope next month align with the trends predicted by analysts for this year. Significant topics include mobile, lending, small business tools, and advisor solutions. Additionally, payments and personal finance maintain footholds and there’s a resurgence of interest in rewards and digital currencies.

Click to enlarge:

FinovateEurope allows you to meet the companies behind each theme during numerous networking sessions. Here is the full list of companies that will take the stage:

For more information on these companies, check out our company info page or view our Sneak Peek series below.

We anticipate a full crowd so be sure to guarantee your seat at the show. Once you get a ticket, we’ll see you in London!

Questions? Check out our FAQ page to get some answers.

FinovateEurope 2015 is sponsored by: The Bancorp, Be Group, Financial Technology Partners, KPMG LLP and Life.SREDA.

FinovateEurope 2015 is partners with: Bank Innovators Council, BankersHub, bobsguide, Breaking Banks, Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, Celent, Datamonitor Financial, The Financial Services Club, Future Finance, Harrington Starr, Hotwire, Mapa Research, Mercator Advisory Group, and The Trading Mesh (formerly HFT Review).

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Kreditech Secures $200 Million Line of Credit

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on January 23, 2015
Categories: Funding, Kreditech

Germany-based Kreditech said, “hallo” to a $200 million line of credit yesterday. Victory Park Capital supplied the debt.

The company has served 2 million customers in 9 countries since launching in 2012. It will use this debt to “address the growing demand for loans of longer durations at fair prices.”

Kreditech CFO, Rene Griemens says, “Setting the stage for our upcoming Series C financing round, the credit facility will reaccelerate our growth well beyond the 500 percent per year mark.” According to TechCrunch, the impending Series C round will bring Kreditech to a $750 million pre-money valuation before its anticipated IPO in two to three years.

Kreditech uses its big data credit-scoring technology to better serve the world’s un and underbanked population, which accounts for four billion people. Earlier this month it acquired Kontomierz for its KYC technology and ability to get unique data in real-time.

Check out its live demo from FinovateSpring 2014.

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BlueVine Grabs $18.5 Million to Increase Small-Business Lending

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on January 22, 2015
Categories: BlueVine, Funding

Being a small business short on funds is never a good thing. However, with more startups tackling short-term funding headaches for small businesses, there are now more options available.

For example, BlueVine Capital raised $18.5 million in a series B round today, bringing its total funding to $24 million. The announcement comes a day after its competitor, Taulia, pulled in $15 million.

The funding was co-led by 83North (formerly Greylock Partners) and Lightspeed Ventures. Silicon Valley Bank, Correlation Ventures and private investors also contributed.

The Palo Alto-based company will use the funding to expand into new verticals and add software integration. It also plans to double its employee base this year.

In March of 2014, BlueVine beta-launched its cloud-based platform that helps small businesses smooth out their cash flow by freeing up funds stuck in unpaid invoices. Businesses can receive credit lines from $5,000 to $50,000.

Since launch, BlueVine has processed thousands of invoices and provided several million dollars to small businesses in the U.S.

Check out BlueVine’s debut at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

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Taulia’s Fresh $15 Million to Fuel International Growth

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on January 22, 2015
Categories: Funding, Taulia

Invoice management company, Taulia, raised $40 million over the last six months, and brought in even more cash yesterday. The new, $15 million installment, which has been added to its previously-closed Series D round, comes from Zouk Capital.

Since launching in 2009, the San Francisco-based company acquired BillFLO in 2011 and has raised a total of $91 million. It operates primarily in North America and Europe and the new funds will be used to fuel international expansion.

The growing funding mirrors the company’s rising success. Over the past year, Taulia has doubled the number of employees to 200. Additionally, its network of suppliers has grown by 186%.

At the start of 2015, Tauila brought Rik Thorbecke on board as CFO. In the remainder of the year, the company plans to bolster R&D efforts and expand its enhanced financing options for buyers.

Taulia demonstrated its Early Invoicing Platform at FinovateSpring 2012.

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Finovate Blog

Author: Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz)

Alumni News—February 5, 2015

FinovateEurope 2015 Sneak Peek: Part 7

Micronotes Receives $910k in Funding

Alumni News– February 3, 2015

Bolstr Raises $1.7 Million in Seed Funding

Cachet Financial Solutions Integrates with Apple Pay

FinovateEurope 2015 Sneak Peek: Part 5

Themes and Presenters at FinovateEurope 2015

Kreditech Secures $200 Million Line of Credit

BlueVine Grabs $18.5 Million to Increase Small-Business Lending

Taulia’s Fresh $15 Million to Fuel International Growth