App Annie Acquires Distimo; Raises $17 Million from Current Investors

App Annie Acquires Distimo; Raises $17 Million from Current Investors

Thumbnail image for AppAnnieLogo.jpg

An acquisition and $17 million in new funding mark a busy morning of big announcements for mobile-app analytics specialist App Annie.

Let’s start with the money. Existing investors Greycroft Partners, IDG Capital Partners, and Sequoia Capital are responsible for the latest round of funding for App Annie, which now has $39 million in total capital. According to the company, the additional investment will help spur new product development, and support entry into new markets.

AppAnnie_homepage_new
And speaking of new markets, App Annie’s acquisition of its European-based rival, Distimo is likely to help the company reach potential clients where Distimo has been dominant. Unsurprisingly, a share of the new investment will go toward helping finance the purchase.
The acquisition will more than double App Annie’s workforce (from just over 100 to more than 240), and Distimo’s Netherlands headquarters will be repurposed as a research and development center for the company. The combined entity will have almost 600,000 apps relying on their platform and nearly 270,000 registered enterprise users. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, although the deal is reported to have been a combination of cash and stock.
Read some interesting backstory on how the deal came together in this blog report from Lizette Chapman of the Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital dispatch. 
Between its Store Stats, Analytics, and Intelligence, App Annie’s technology is widely used by app publishers and developers, including more than 90% of the top 100 grossing iOS publishers. The company’s solutions provide valuable data and analytics on metrics like downloads, revenues, and rankings, and also track reviews.
Based in Beijing, China, with offices in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, San Francisco, and London, App Annie was founded in March 2010. Bertrand Schmitt is CEO. The company demoed at FinovateAsia 2013 in Singapore. See a video of the presentation here.

China Loves Mambu: Microfinance Network Picks Cloud Banking Platform for SME Lending

China Loves Mambu: Microfinance Network Picks Cloud Banking Platform for SME Lending

Thumbnail image for MambuLogo.jpg

Global microfinance network Opportunity International (OI) has selected Mambu as its core banking platform for small business lending in China.

According to OI CIO Robert Westcott, the fact that Mambu would help them launch more products and services to more clients faster and more efficiently was a key selling point. OI China is particularly interested in reaching markets in rural areas of the country and, as both cloud-native and mobile-friendly, Mambu’s technology was viewed as the “perfect solution.”

Mambu_homepage_new
Mambu, in the words of company CEO Eugene Danilkis, is a “cloud, SaaS, core banking application” that enables a variety of types of financial organizations to launch and service loan and deposit products. With an emphasis on speed, scalability, and simplicity, Mambu is designed to respond to what Eugene says is the “nearly two-thirds” of SMEs – and micro businesses – that are not well-served by “inflexible” legacy banking systems.
Opportunity International provides SME loans ranging from $20,000 to $1 million USD. The non-profit organization employs more than 17,000, and provides financial services and training to more than 5 million clients in 22 countries.
Mambu currently works with more than 100 institutions in 30 countries around the world, representing more than one million accounts. The company was recently in the headlines with news that the micro finance program at Yale University had adopted its platform. Mambu demoed its technology at FinovateAsia 2013 in Singapore.

Finovate Alumni News– May 28, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgTSYS announces processing, customer service support for KBC Bank Ireland’s credit card launch.
  • Euromonitor International’s consumer finance analyst takes a look at Rippleshot.
  • Check’s New Mate: Intuit acquires billpay innovator for $360 million.
  • Authentify to add fingerprint and NFC security to mobile transactions.
  • Maybank Singapore and Tagit win Best Single Country Mobile Banking Project Award in 8th Asian Banker Tech Awards.
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.

Check’s New Mate: Intuit Acquires Billpay Innovator for $360 Million

Check’s New Mate: Intuit Acquires Billpay Innovator for $360 Million

Thumbnail image for Check_Logo_new_large.jpg

It’s a little early for a June wedding. But as the saying goes, what fintech synergies bring together, let no man put asunder.

Intuit, a global fintech leader with a demonstrated affection for Finovate alums, has announced its acquisition of billpay innovator, Check. The Palo Alto-based startup formerly known as Pageonce has grown from its humble origins as a way for consumers to track their expenses to what is now a fully-grown digital wallet combining billpay, PFM, and mobile.

And a potentially critical component of Intuit’s consumer-facing personal finance initiative, as well. Intuit purchased fellow Finovate alum, Mint, in 2009, and it is believed that bringing Check’s technology into the mix will enhance the company’s ability to provide a more comprehensive PFM/billpay solution.

Check_homepage_new
The acquisition is expected to close this summer. Check CEO Guy Goldstein will stay on as vice president for Intuit’s consumer ecosystem group.
Investors seem content with the news. Shares of Intuit were inline with the performance of the broader market on Tuesday. And the reported purchase price of $360 million is not likely to put much of a financial strain on Intuit and its $23 billion market capitalization.
In a statement, Guy said: 
“We look forward to merging our talent, mobile mindset and spirit of innovation with Intuit to build products that delight consumers and become a part of their everyday financial lives.”
Check was founded in June 2007 as Pageonce. The company demoed as Pageonce at FinovateFall 2010 in New York, and changed its name to Check in May 2013.
For some interesting insights on Check’s business model, take a look at Jim Bruene’s April 2014 NetBanker column, “Billpay: After 20 Years as a Loss Leader, Check/Pageonce Shows Path to Profitability.”

Holvi Announces New Million Euro Investment

Holvi Announces New Million Euro Investment

Thumbnail image for HolviLogo.jpg

Would you like a side order of regulatory relief along with your next “million-scale capital investment”?

A combination of a “million euro investment” from European angel fund SpeedInvest, and a regulatory decision that will permit EU-wide operations is great news for Finnish online banking service innovator, Holvi.

SpeedInvest, an investment firm out of Austria, led the new investment in Holvi. The million euros ($1.36 million USD) doubles the company’s total funding, and Holvi anticipates using the additional capital to help expand beyond its native Finland, where its online banking services have fared well in testing.

And it is likely no coincidence that the initial target market for Holvi outside of Finland is Austria, home of SpeedInvest.
Holvi_homepage_new
Calling itself the “long tail of retail banking,” Holvi is a micro-enterprise online banking specialist with services geared toward freelancers and small business entrepreneurs. The company’s technology does actual book-keeping rather than just simple PFM (personal finance management), and provides an easy way for independent and micro-entrepreneurs to sell their products and services, invoice clients, and track finances.
The company earns its revenues through a small transaction fee of 0.90 euros for incoming and outgoing payments. There is a 3% surcharge for credit card payments, but no cost to opening a Holvi account and no monthly fee. 
Holvi has appeared on the Finovate stage twice, at FinovateEurope 2012 and FinovateEurope 2013. The company was founded in 2011, and is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland.

Finovate Alumni News– May 27, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgThomson Reuters adds material modification flags to its FATCA Grandfathered Obligations solution.
  • Top Image Systems teams up with Taulia to provide joint cloud invoice processing and supply chain optimization.
  • Kalixa acquires PXP Solutions for undisclosed sum.
  • Insuritas announces partnership with OSU FCU to create virtual “Insurance Aisle” inside the credit union.
  • SafetyPay releases SafetyPay Direct solution to allow merchants to request payments to customers by email or phone.
  • Holvi announces new million euro investment.
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.

BankersLab Takes the Gold at 2014 LearnX Impact Awards

BankersLab Takes the Gold at 2014 LearnX Impact Awards
BankersLab_logo_new

Who’s got game? According to the judges of this year’s LearnX Impact Awards, that would be BankersLab.

An innovator in developing learning solutions for banks, BankersLab won the gold award for best game or simulation at the annual competition sponsored by the LearnX Foundation. The prize-winning solution was CreditLab, a training resource that helps players in a corporate classroom setting test their credit risk management and lending skills.

Michelle Katics, BankersLab CEO and founder said, “Our goal was to create a 21st century teaching tool for retail bankers that want to improve their skills in a profound way.”
BankersLab_homepage_new
BankersLab specializes in leveraging simulation technology and gamification to make it easier  for financial professionals to learn and perfect their craft. The company’s solutions, ScoringLab, CollectionLab, and CreditLab, feature simulation gaming software, training curricula, case studies and more. Risk managers and analysts, as well as collections, finance, portfolio, and operations managers in 25 countries have taken advantage of BankersLab’s training technology.
The non-profit LearnX Foundation was established to promote innovation in workplace learning and education. Regionally focused in the Asia Pacific, the organization will present BankersLab with its award at LearnX’s upcoming event in October in Melbourne, Australia.
Based in Castle Rock, Colorado, BankersLab is an international company with offices in Singapore, London, Dubai, Seoul and Cape Town, South Africa. The company demoed ScoringLab at FinovateAsia 2012. See the presentation here.

FutureAdvisor Raises More than $15 Million; Seeks to Grow Team

FutureAdvisor Raises More than $15 Million; Seeks to Grow Team

futureadvisorlogo.jpg

Add another $15.5 million to the amount of capital raised by alternative investment management service, FutureAdvisor.

The Series B investment takes the company’s total capital to more than $20 million. According to reporting at TechCrunch, the funding will help FutureAdvisor reach its goal of doubling its workforce to 40 by year’s end.

The round was led by Canvas Venture Fund’s Rebecca Lynn, and included participation by Sequoia Capital. Finovate Fun Fact: Rebecca is on the board of another Finovate alum, Lending Club.
FutureAdvisor_homepage
FutureAdvisor sets itself apart from its peers with its promise to bring “premium investment management” to the masses. The company’s key differentiator, in addition to targeting a more upper middle class rather than “affluent” clientele, is that its technology is designed to help people best set up and manage their current IRA and/or 401(k) accounts. 
What this approach may lack in scope – competitors focus more on creating new accounts rather than managing existing ones – it gains in practicality. With 401(k) plans alone representing 18% of the more than $19 trillion U.S. retirement market, there is plenty of opportunity for an investment management service with that kind of focus.
FutureAdvisor provides investment advice as well as rebalancing services. Without charge, investors can have their portfolios optimized using FutureAdvisors investing algorithms. For actual money management services, from monitoring and rebalancing to tax-loss harvesting, FutureAdvisor charges an annual management fee of 0.5%.
Founded in Seattle in May 2010 and now headquartered in San Francisco, FutureAdvisor has more than $110 million in assets under management. Bo Lu is CEO. The company demoed its Premium Service at FinovateFall 2013. See the demo here.

Wallaby Financial Teams Up with CreditCards.com to Launch WalletUp

Wallaby Financial Teams Up with CreditCards.com to Launch WalletUp

Thumbnail image for Wallaby_logo.jpg

Do you know which combination of credit cards is best for you? Wallaby wants to help.

Wallaby Financial has announced that it has partnered with CreditCards.com to provide a new service called WalletUp. WalletUp leverages Wallaby’s technology to identify what the company calls the “ideal mix of credit cards” to help consumers get better rewards and save money. 

Using the app is pretty straightforward. Add your cards into the app, pick your preferences (airline miles, cashback, other rewards), and WalletUp does the rest: comparing your credit card “portfolio” to another mix that might better suit your needs.
Wallaby_WalletUp_homepage
A short FAQ accompanying the announcement anticipates the question of how WalletUp differs from Wallaby’s Wallet Boost. And, in short, the answer is CreditCards.com. As Wallaby notes, CreditCards.com has significant access to credit card offers and rewards made available, for example, as part of sign-up bonuses – which can then be part of the “ideal credit card mix” calculation. This gives WalletUp functionality that Wallet Boost does not have.
WalletUp is free and available from CreditCards.com. Check out the app for yourself here.
CreditCards.com is owned by the Bankrate Online Network, an online credit card market that boasts of more than one million unique web visitors each month.
Wallaby Financial was founded in August 2011, and is located in Pasadena, California. Co-founders Matthew Goldman and Todd Zino are CEO and CTO, respectively. The company demoed its Wallet Boost technology at FinovateSpring 2013. See the technology in action here.

FinovateSpring: Behind the Scenes with Tactile Finance, Visible Equity, and Vorstack

FinovateSpring: Behind the Scenes with Tactile Finance, Visible Equity, and Vorstack

In our third FinovateSpring Behind the Scenes feature, we’re taking a look at three companies that demonstrated for the first time on the Finovate stage. We sat down with Tactile Finance, Visible Equity, and Vorstack to capture more information about their solutions.

If you missed our first and second Behind the Scenes features, you can check them out here:


TactileFinanceLogo
What they do
Tactile Finance’s Tacfi makes the mortgage process easy to understand and more transparent for borrowers. It helps the borrower navigate mortgage options and connect with lenders.
Stats
      • Launched in April 2014 at FinovateSpring
      • Tacfi’s target user is any home buyer, whose average age is 35 to 40 years old 
The experience
To sign up for Tacfi, users only need to provide their name, email address, and create a password.
TacfiSignup
They start by entering details of the home they’re interested in, such as the home price, property taxes, and other monthly expenses such as condo fees.
TacfiHomeBuilder
The calculator shows users what their mortgage payments will look like over time. 
TacfiBuilder2

From here, users can save the information about their loan, have the option to determine the amount of the home loan for which they are eligible, or can proceed to get a real quote from a lender, based on the information they entered into the mortgage calculator.



VisibleEquitySmall

Visible Equity

What they do
Visible Equity helps financial institutions determine their compliance with fair lending laws, which apply to all parts of the lending process including pre-application, underwriting, loan pricing, post closing activities, and modifications.

With the click of a button, its software can detect unfair and biased lending practices, which can often times lead to fines, degraded ratings, lawsuits, and negative impact on the brand. Visible Equity gives institutions a way to mathematically prove that their lending practices are in compliance.

Stats

    • Serves 300+ clients 
    • Analyzes over $120B in loans daily
The experience
Occasionally, financial institutions have lending policies in place that result in unintentional bias against certain groups such as age, race, gender, geographical location, etc.
The screenshot below shows a loan pricing discrimination analysis that has been generated to determine discrimination against race. The table shows loan count by race and breaks down the interest rate to show the difference between the actual rate and the expected interest rate. 
VisibleEquityPricingDiscrimination
Lenders can view all outstanding loans and are able to sort by loan attributes.
VisibleEquityLoans
Visible Equity’s responsive design web platform can be optimized for viewing on a tablet or mobile device, so lenders have a portable way to view and share metrics, data, and charts.
VisibleEquityipad

VorstackLogoNew

What they do
Vorstack is a cyber defense platform that helps online security professionals more efficiently target fraud. Its system helps them deal with the massive volume of emails they receive by automating reports based on the fraud in question.

Additionally, the open-source nature of Vorstack’s platform enables sharing of details under certain parameters with a trusted circle of other security professionals. Using this collective intelligence, Vorstack helps target fraud more quickly and efficiently.

Stats

  • Raised $5.2 million in Series A funding
  • 15 employees
  • Launched for financial services at FinovateSpring 2014
The experience
Security breaches, such as the recent ones reported by popular retailers, not only impact end consumers, they also take a toll on security professionals. Shortly after such breaches, security reps at banks can be inundated with emails asking if the institution should be concerned, and what areas are impacted.
The Vorstack platform functions as the graphic depicts below. Information is gathered, organized, analyzed, then is returned to the user, outlining potential areas of fraud concerns.
VorstackCOARGraphic
The screenshot below shows the dashboard where the security professional can view a break down of the number of fraudulent events they should be concerned with. It combines data from multiple organizations in order to give visibility of potential fraudulent activity before it happens.
VorstackDashboard
The Events section of the platform enables the security professional to take a closer look at both global and local events on an individual basis.
VorstackEvents

We’ll continue featuring more companies behind the scenes in the coming weeks so stay tuned.

Finovate Alumni News– May 16, 2014

  • Intuit buys Invitco to help bookkeepers put bill processing in the cloud.
  • SocietyOne, an Australian peer-to-peer lender, mulls entering NZ market, is talking with ‘multiple parties’.
  • miiCard graduates from SixThirty accelerator.
  • Swipely tops $2 billion in annual sales managed; launches Summer ’14 release.
  • Bermuda Commercial Bank picks the T24 core banking system, Model Bank, from Temenos.
  • FinSMEs talks about BodeTree with CEO and co-founder Chris Myers.
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.

Finovate Alumni News– May 15, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgArxan Technologies to offer all FS-ISAC & BITS members a complimentary, new iOS Mobile App Vulnerability Assessment.
  • Fiserv awarded patent for predictive modeling technology.
  • BillGuard launches on Android; unveils new data breach alert feature.
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.