Finovate Blog

FinovateSpring 2011 is a wrap. It was an inspiring two days, with 64 demos, all with an interesting twist or two or three on the state-of-the-art.

In the end, seven were chosen by the audience as best of show, but it was a tight race. Most companies received a significant number of audience votes and piles of business cards in the networking sessions.

The FinovateSpring 2011 Best of Show winners (in alphabetic order):

• BancVue for its youth-oriented financial game system, MoneyIsland
• BankOns (company launch) for its mobile merchant-funded rewards system
• Dwolla for its alternative payment service (taking root in Iowa)
• oFlows for mobilizing the application process via iPad2
• Mitek Systems for Mobile Photo Billpay, doing for paper bills what it did for checks
• PayNearMe for enabling online bills and transfers to be paid with cash at a 7-11 store
• Wikinvest for SigFig, a service to help users understand investment costs & alternatives

Congratulations! And thanks to everyone who presented, sponsored, attended and followed the #finovate tweets.

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Notes on methodology:
1. Only audience members NOT associated with demoing companies were eligible to vote. Finovate employees did not vote.   
2. Attendees were encouraged to note their favorites as the day went on and choose 3 favorites from just the demos of that day. Ballots were turned in at the end of the last demo session each day. 
3. The exact written instructions given to attendees: “Please rate (the companies) on the basis of demo quality and potential impact of the innovation demoed. Note: Ballots with more than three companies circled will not be counted.” 
4. The seven companies appearing on the highest percentage of submitted ballots were named Best of Show.

We just finished the dress rehearsals for the latest Finovate conference. We’ve worked out the glitches, seen some amazing new products, and look forward to putting 64 cool fintech innovations through their paces Tuesday and Wednesday.

It will be the biggest Finovate yet, with more than 800 packing San Francisco’s Design Concourse Exhibition Center. You can track the audience reaction in real-time with the Twitter hashtag #finovate. And I’ll be live Tweeting from netbanker during the next two days.

The 64 demoing companies are show below (see here for a list with links).

Looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow!

FinovateSpring 2011 is only one week away! But don’t worry, there is still (a little) time to get one of the remaining tickets to watch 64 new fintech innovations debut in the fast-paced, demo-only, no-slides-allowed format that Finovate audiences love.

Speaking of the audience…we’re expecting the largest turnout ever for a Finovate event with over 800 senior financial executives, venture capitalists, industry analysts, press, bloggers, and fintech entrepreneurs packing the auditorium in San Francisco.

Here’s just a (very) small sample of the institutions that are attending:

Please register as soon as possible to lock in your spot and join this amazing audience. We’ll see you in San Francisco next week!

FinovateSpring 2011 is sponsored by: The Bancorp, Tier One Partners, and the law firm of CB&S.

FinovateSpring 2011 is partners with: BankInnovation.net, BankerStuff, CardWeb, Filene Research Institute, Finance on Windows, PYMNTS.com, Mercator Advisory Group, Mobile-Financial.com and TheStartup.eu