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Payments News: PayPal grows revenues 19%, adds 5 million registered users.New Xero Touch for iOS launches today.PayPal partners with Revel systems for its physical POS device.
Xero, a New Zealand-based company that creates cloud-based accounting software, has experienced a large growth spurt lately. Earlier this month, it officially launched in the U.S. and today it announced the largest installment of equity funding we’ve seen for a Finovate alum thus far.
The $150 million (NZ $180 million) in funding comes from a range of investors and existing shareholders. When combined with last year’s $49 million from Peter Thiel and Matrix Partners, and other previous rounds, the company’s total funding amounts to $230 million.
In the video below, CEO Rod Drury explains the funding and how it plans to use the cash.
Xero demoed at FinovateSpring 2011 where it debuted its Business Identification product.
Backbase on Track to Expand into UK Market. 
Last week, in a deal projected to benefit customers, partners, and employees, TaxAct acquired Balance Financial.
According to Devin Miller, Balance Financial CEO, TaxAct’s extensive resources will assist the Bellevue-based startup in further expanding its brand. The deal will help both TaxAct and Balance Financial enhance solutions for each of their customer bases.
Balance Financial will continue to operate under the same name, in the same location, and with the same staff.
To learn more about Balance Financial, watch its demo from FinovateSpring 2013.
After the flood of funding announcements last week,* ERN Global, creator of Looop targeted offers solution, just reported that it raised an additional $1 million in seed funding.
This latest installment, which comes from unnamed private investors, brings the company’s total funding to $5.6 million. The London-based company plans to use the funding to bolster its expansion efforts into the Asia market.
It also announced that it has added Brian Thom, ex-American Express Head of Global Marketing, as president of its Asia division.
To learn more about ERN, check out its demo video from FinovateEurope 2013.
*Last week on the Finovate blog, we covered 5 funding announcements: 1) Azimo 2) Leaf 3) Quantopian 4) CardFlight 5) Jemstep.
HydrantID selects Authentify’s Services to Strengthen Online SSL Certificate Delivery.Del-One Federal Credit Union to offer PFM powered by Geezeo.Earlier this week, a new fintech accelerator emerged out of the Silicon Prairie. St. Louis-based SixThirty announced its inaugural class of four fintech startups, selected from a pool of 100 applicants, that will take part in the 16-week incubator program that starts next Monday.
This fall, SixThirty will invest a total of $400k in four participating startups:
Hedgeable, Matthew Kane and Michael Kane
XYverify enables consumers, merchants and financial institutions to reduce costs and prevent fraud via a mobile authentication platform.
Along with each receiving $100k, the companies will have access to mentorship and connections to top financial services firms. Four more companies will be selected for the Spring program. The application window for that program will open in mid-December.
ValidSoft releases latest addition to the VALid suite of telecommunication based security products, Zero Latency Correlation.
Two Finovate alums are joining forces to better provide online small businesses with working capital.
Atlanta-based Kabbage announced yesterday that it has partnered with New Zealand-based Xero to use small business’ accounting data to underwrite loans.
Through this partnership, Xero’s customers will be able to receive an answer on an underwriting decision in fewer than 10 minutes.
This is Kabbage’s fourth major underwriting and distribution partnership in the past six months. Integrations with Authorize.net, Quickbooks, Stripe have also provided enhanced ways to underwrite small business loans.
Kabbage debuted its Quickbooks financing platform at FinovateSpring earlier this year.
Xero showcased its Business Identification method at FinovateSpring 2011.