Finovate Alumni News– October 28, 2013

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgSwipely named one of America’s top job creators with 2013 ‘Hire Power’ Award from Inc. Magazine.
  • Wipro launches Mobility Center of Excellence with Kony in Hyderabad.
  • Tyfone trials smart card-based mobile banking security.
  • Locaid CEO Rip Gerber talks location verification services in new interview.
  • TipRanks launches Windows Phone mobile app.
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.

SEC’s Recent Vote May Ease Operating Restrictions for Nine Finovate Alums

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week unanimously voted to approve the proposed rules that will govern online crowdfunding. Under these provisions, companies will be allowed to offer and sell securities through crowdfunding.

Some of these companies have been waiting since early 2012, when Obama signed the JOBS Act, for the SEC to create the regulation, which is intended to protect private, non-accredited investors. 

Investors who earn under $100,000 per year will be limited to $2,000 per year investment, or 5% of their income, and those who make over that amount will be limited to invest 10% of their income annually. However, in order to reduce burdens on the companies raising the funds, and the funding portals, the new regulation does not explicitly require them to verify the income of the individual investors.

According to the SEC’s press release, its proposed rules would require SEC-registered intermediaries (broker-dealers, funding portals) to:

    • Educate investors
    • Manage the risk of fraud
    • Provide information about the issuer and the offering
    • Furnish communication channels
    • Facilitate the offer and sale of crowdfunded investments
The proposed rules would prohibit them from:
    • Offering investment advice or making recommendations
    • Soliciting purchases, sales or offers to buy securities 
    • Restricting compensation for solicitations
    • Holding, possessing, or handling investor funds or securities

Before the rules are passed, they must go through a 90-day comment period, after which, they may be altered to reflect the comments. Once the final rules have been decided, the nine Finovate alums below will be able to solicit to non-accredited investors, subject to the SEC’s final ruling.

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Founded: 2011

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Founded: 2012

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Founded: 2010

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Founded: 2010

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Founded: 2012

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Founded: 2012

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Founded: 2010

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Founded: 2012

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Founded: 2011
FinovateSpring 2012 demo

From an operational standpoint, life for these startups will be a bit easier after the SEC passes the provisions, since it will increase the number of investors on their platforms. They will, however, be faced with increased regulation, which Forbes estimates will cost more than $100,000 annually. This estimate includes procuring and offering disclosure documents, enlisting a funding portal, running background checks, and filing an annual report with the SEC.

The first provision of the JOBS Act, which allows companies to advertise to accredited investors, went into effect September 23.

Finovate Alumni News– October 25, 2013

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgCardFlight wins best startup at New Jersey Tech meetup.
  • Firmology interviews Jason Richelson, CEO of ShopKeep POS.
  • Humanitarian organization Oxfram partners with TransferWise to help British Indians avoid fees.
  • InComm launches Cashtie cloud match service.
  • Flint raises $6 million in Series B funding.
  • Taulia was recently announced as a 2013 Bully Award winner.
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– October 24, 2013

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgFiserv to offer clients Guardian Analytics’ FraudMAP solutions.
  • Lending Club CEO, Renaud Laplanche, named a winner of Ernst & Young’s Venture Capital Award of Excellence.
  • PayPal and Blackhawk Network join forces to bring gift card services to the digital wallet.
  • Manilla User Survey: Consumers Want Bills in One Place and Banks with Bill Management.
  • Payments, Mobile, Security, Social: A Look Ahead to FinovateAsia 2013.
  • Are Utilities Ready for Mobile BillPay? Industry Leaders Weigh-in via Check Survey.
  • Locaid featured in American Express Open Forum column on attracting mobile customers with geofencing.
  • SeedInvest “thrilled” by new rules proposed for equity crowdfunding.
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.

Dwolla to Offer Its Second Credit Product, a Cardless Credit Service Called Dwolla Cash

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Alternative payments company Dwolla took another step into the credit arena this week. Its recently-announced partnership with Alliance Data Systems resulted in the creation of a new credit service called Dwolla Credit.

It previously dabbled in the credit space with the launch of Instant two years ago. Instant is an opt-in feature that, for a monthly subscription of $3, lends users up to $5,000 for one month with no interest.

Through the recent partnership, the Des Moines-based startup will offer consumers and merchants a cardless credit product. Dwolla Credit users can spend advanced funds at any of the 40+ (and growing) ecommerce merchants in Dwolla’s online “Storefront.”

When shopping at participating Storefront merchants, Dwolla Credit users will be able to simply select the “Pay with DWOLLA” button, login, and complete their purchase. Transactions will cost merchants Dwolla’s traditional fee (25 cents per transaction, or free for transactions $10 and under). Merchants will receive funds instantly in their Dwolla account.

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Dwolla Credit is currently in beta, but users can request to be put on the wait list. The product will be available to the general public in early 2014.

To learn more about Dwolla, watch its FinovateSpring 2012 demo where it debuted FiSync.

Finovate Alumni News– October 23, 2013

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgOnline trading community tradimo and ayondo form partnership to offer tradimo users an alternative to active trading.
  • Tradeshift announces Dynamic Discounting as latest early payment offering to suppliers and buyers.
  • Dwolla partners with Alliance Data Systems to launch Dwolla Credit.
  • Wall Street & Technology takes a look at Fenergo’s report on client on boarding.
  • Zopa profiled in Yahoo Finance UK column on peer-to-peer lending.
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.

FinovateAsia 2013 Sneak Peek: Part 2

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Here’s a sneak peek of five more companies who will demo at FinovateAsia next month in Singapore. These companies each gave us a glimpse of what they plan to demo.

If you missed our first sneak peek, check it out here. We’ll post the remaining companies in the next couple of weeks so stay tuned.  

To see all 37 companies demo live at FinovateAsia, get your ticket here.


ArthaYantraLogo.jpgArthaYantra’s Arthos is an online personal finance platform that replaces the traditional human advisor and provides holistic advice instantly.

Features: 
    • Online personal finance platform with instant, actionable advice
    • Replaces the need for a traditional human advisor
    • Create a financial plan, implement recommendations, and monitor performance
Why its great: 
Instant and end-to-end financial planning without visiting a traditional human advisor  

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Nitin B Vyakaranam
Founder and CEO of ArthaYantra with 14 years of BFSI and IT sector experience across countries. Holds multiple patents and is an avid personal finance writer. Earned an MBA from Indian School of Business.
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Sunil Lingareddy
Co-Founder and CFO of ArthaYantra. A serial entrepreneur and mentor with business interests in financial services, pharma, real estate, energy and infrastructure. Earned an MBA from Indian School of Business.

LinkedIn


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Customer XPs is a leading real-time technology solution provider to banks worldwide. It will demonstrate paperless branch banking and intelligent queuing solution.
Features: 
    • Improved teller efficiency and productivity by intelligent queue processing
    • Improved customer experience by reduction in wait time
    • Reduced error rate
Why it’s great: 
It’s solution creates efficient queuing and paperless banking in branches. Quick deployment of the solution can be on mobile devices, tablets and PCs.

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Rivi Varghese
Rivi is the CEO and has around 15 years of experience in the IT product industry. Rivi has international experience across 20+ countries and is credited with delivering at least 12 new-to-the-world products.
LinkedIn 










KofaxLogo.jpgKofax enables customer acquisition directly from the mobile device and, recognizing the importance of consumer engagement, Kofax will demonstrate on-boarding for an impactful customer experience.


Features:
    • Meet and service the customer via the mobile channel
    • Reduce operating costs and minimize drop-off rates
    • Build competitive advantage while increasing growth and profitability
Why it’s great:
Kofax Customer Onboarding improves the agility and profitability of your bank’s customer on-boarding processes by engaging customers via mobile devices.  

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Drew Hyatt
Drew is a domain expert in mobile image capture. He works directly with top-tier FSI companies to develop mobile image capture solutions that integrate with and enhance their mobile strategies.

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Dimitri Seneca Snowden
Dimitri is a visual strategist who leads solution innovation at Kofax. He has more than 13 years of experience in user interface design, user experience design and universal design.







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Mobexo is reshaping the way we think about payment and financial services.
Features:
    • Mobile-specific security technology
    • Merchant portal, low-cost CRM system
    • Payment processing without additional hardware
Why it’s great:
Mobexo connects smartphone users to the physical and digital commodities of their lifestyles, without security and privacy issues and the inconveniences of traditional payment instruments.  

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Sopheap Lao
Founder and CEO of Mobexo, Sopheap has over 16 years as a Senior Accounting and Finance Consultant where he founded Heuristis Business Consulting. Sopheap is also an Open Source Evangelist.





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Jean-Marc Ly 
Jean-Marc is a serial entrepreneur from Silicon Valley and founded several startups that have been incubated in AcceleratorHK and Science Park incu-app. He is a startup advocate and mentor.



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Pixeliris’ CopSonic enables contactless sonic and ultrasonic communication between smart devices for mobile payment and passwordless authentication available on phones and smartphones.
Features:
    • It turns any phone into a mobile payment device
    • It is truly contactless and entirely secure thanks to One Time Password and strong authentication
    • It replaces standard online passwords
Why it’s great:
With Copsonic, pay anywhere with any phone.  

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Brian Roeten (pictured)
Brian joined the team in 1999. Today, his experience and skills enable him to manage the company’s innovating international hightech projects.
Emmanuel Ruiz

Since he founded the company in 1995, Emmanuel Ruiz has initiated all innovations, from our first audio broadcasting systems to the recent sonic and ultrasonic contactless communication technology.


Stay tuned on the Finovate blog where we will publish parts 3 and 4 of our Sneak Peek series in the weeks leading up to November 14.

Finovate Alumni News– October 22, 2013

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgUS Storage Centers and PayNearMe unveil convenient electronic cash payments for self-storage tenants.
  • Actiance expands partnership with ZL Technologies to deliver enterprise and public social data into unified archive.
  • Blackhawk Network to acquire InteliSpend Prepaid Solutions.
  • Cachet Financial Solutions launches CheckRisk Pro, a tool to mitigate RDC risk.
  • Netbanker: Simple to launch bluetooth-based P2P payments.
  • The American Bankers Association endorses Q2’s enterprise solutions for secure virtual banking.
  • Flint Mobile announces launch of swipe-free mobile payment app for Android.
  • Bloomberg Businessweek takes a look at Motif’s “design-it-yourself investing.”
  • TechWorld Australia features P2P currency exchange innovator, CurrencyFair.
  • Fenergo, Aite Group report: Capital market firms prefer centralized client onboarding.
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.

Showing Our Age: A Look at FinovateAsia 2013 Demo Company Launch Timeline

At Finovate, we’ve seen how great innovation comes from companies of all ages. All we have to do is look at the Best of Show winners from FinovateAsia 2012. The founding dates of the winners ranged from 1858 (NAB, the parent company of UBank) to 2012 (SocietyOne).

We don’t know who will win Best of Show at FinovateAsia in Singapore this year, but looking at the launch date of the 37 companies taking the stage November 14, we found a 28-year spread. 

Here they are in reverse chronological order with funding amounts, if disclosed:

2013- 2012
  • BlueKite: 2013
    Total Funding: $1.5 million Seed funding
2011-2008
  • KlickEx: 2011
    Total Funding: $1.3 million
  • Mambu: 2011
    Total Funding: $2 million Series A

2007 or earlier
  • Yodlee: 1999
    Total Funding: $124 million
  • BehavioSec: 1998
    Total Funding: $2 million (€1.5 million)
  • Kofax: 1985
    Public LON: KFX

To learn more about each of these companies, check them out here and come see their live demos in Singapore on November 14.

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All numbers and funding information sourced from Crunchbase.com

SaveUp Launches iPhone App to Take Savings Gamification Mobile

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SaveUp, the system that rewards you for saving money and paying off debt, is making it easier to access its platform. That’s because today, its free iPhone app is available in the Apple app store.

SaveUp’s web-based platform, which is protected by a 4-digit PIN, enables users to:

    • connect their financial accounts
    • track saving and debt repayment progress
    • use their credits to play for prizes on a daily basis
Prizes view
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View of users’ financial accounts
The San Francisco-based startup connects to more than 19,000 financial institutions.

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The majority of users log in to track their finances and play for prizes more than once per week.

To learn more about SaveUp, check out its live demo from FinovateSpring 2012.

Betterment Acquires ImpulseSave to Help Users Manage Their Goals Along with Their Investments

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Online investment management service Betterment helps consumers answer the question, “what should I do with my money?” Its online platform helps consumers manage ImpulseSaveLogo.jpgtheir investments with easy-to-use tools.

Today, in a move to bolster its offering, Betterment has acquired ImpulseSave, a consumer-facing tool that helps consumers visualize and save for their goals in increments. Check out our product review of ImpulseSave here.

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Existing ImpulseSave users will have access to their fully-functioning account until November first. After this point, savings funds can only be accessed through users’ online banking platform.

In order to encourage ImpulseSave users to make the transition, Betterment has offered the platform for free for three months.

Betterment last demoed at FinovateFall 2011 and ImpulseSave demoed at FinovateFall 2012.

Finovate Alumni News– October 18, 2013

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgInComm partners with Utah Transit Authority to launch FAREPAY Card.
  • Xero CEO Rod Drury wins the New Zealand Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
  • TechCrunch reports: E-Loan Specialist Wonga Buys BillPay, The PayPal Of Germany.
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.