Blog - Page 189 of 1289

Federal Reserve Selects AutoRek to Feature in FedNow Service Provider Showcase

By David Penn Posted on April 5, 2023
Categories: Alumni News, AutoRek, Daily news

The U.S. Federal Reserve has selected AutoRek to feature its technology in its FedNow Service Provider Showcase.

The showcase will give the Scotland-based company the ability to offer its payments technology, including automated reconciliation software, to financial services providers in the U.S.

AutoRek made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope 2023.

AutoRek, an end-to-end financial data control platform, has been selected by the U.S. Federal Reserve to feature in its FedNow Service Provider Showcase. The Showcase connects financial institutions with providers that offer real-time payment solutions. As a featured provider, AutoRek will have the opportunity to "offer a number of its instant payment services to U.S. financial services organizations preparing for the new real-time payments system."

The FedNow Service is an instant payments infrastructure developed by the Federal Reserve. Going live in July, the technology will enable consumers and businesses alike to send and receive payments…

SoFi Shifts Focus to MortgageTech with New Acquisition

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on April 4, 2023
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Mergers & Acquisitions, SoFi

SoFi is saying, "Welcome home!" to Wyndham Capital Mortgage this week. The California-based fintech acquired the mortgage lender yesterday in an all-cash transaction for an undisclosed amount.

Headquartered in North Carolina and founded in 2001, Wyndham Capital has worked with more than 100,000 borrowers.

SoFi, which is acquiring Wyndham Capital's technology and its employees, expects the purchase will broaden its mortgage-related offerings and minimize its reliance on third-party partners and processes.

“At SoFi, we’re on a mission to help people get their money right and purchasing a home is often one of, if not the, biggest financial decision individuals make in their lives,” said SoFi CEO Anthony Noto. "Today’s acquisition of Wyndham Capital will not only allow us to scale and keep pace with accelerated growth, but also allow us to foster that growth in a way that brings value to our members through sales and operational efficiencies and helps…

Amsterdam-based bunq Applies for U.S. Banking License

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on April 4, 2023
Categories: Daily news

Amsterdam-based digital bank bunq announced plans to expand to the U.S.

The bank will be targeting the population of five million European expatriates living in the U.S.

Since launching in 2012, bunq has expanded to more than 30 markets in Europe and now facilitates payments in 16 different currencies.

Amsterdam-based digital bank bunq announced this week it is "bringing the bank of The Free to the land of The Free," meaning it has officially applied for a U.S. banking license.

Founded in 2012, bunq set out to make a bank that customers love to use that is designed to make life easy. When the company received its European banking license in 2014, it was the first organization in 35 years to do so. Since then, bunq has expanded to more than 30 markets in Europe and now facilitates payments in 16 different currencies, provides both personal and business banking accounts,…

EverC Secures New Investment and New Strategic Partnership

By David Penn Posted on April 4, 2023
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Ever Green 3C

EverC announced a new investment and strategic partnership with Kroll via the & Opportunity Fund.

The partnership will combine Kroll's expertise in the risk and advisory space with EverC's "transaction laundering" technology.

Headquartered in New York and Israel, EverC was founded in 2008.

Risk intelligence and insights company EverC announced both a new investment and a new strategic partnership last week. The new investment and partnership come courtesy of Kroll via the & Opportunity Fund.

"Kroll's exceptional reputation for thought leadership in the risk and advisory space is well-known over the world," EverC CEO Ariel Tiger said. "Working so closely together offers a significant competitive advantage." Tiger added that having Kroll as both an investor and as a partner would help EverC build its "global brand with innovative technology to help make ecommerce more safe, secure, and profitable for payment providers, platforms, and marketplaces."

The amount of the investment was…

Stratyfy Secures $10 Million to Deliver AI-Enabled Data-Driven Decision-Making via API

By David Penn Posted on April 3, 2023
Categories: Alumni News, Funding, Stratyfy

Stratyfy raised $10 million in funding last week in a round co-led by Truist Ventures and Zeal Capital Partners.

The capital takes the company's total equity funding to $11.8 million, according to Crunchbase. Stratyfy will use the investment to fuel innovation on its technology that leverages AI and ML to help financial institutions make better, data-driven decisions.

Stratyfy won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2022 with a demo of its UnBias solution.

Stratyfy, which leverages AI to enable financial institutions to make better decisions at scale and drive greater financial inclusion, has raised $10 million in funding. The round was co-led by Truist Ventures and Zeal Capital Partners. Also participating were Mendon Venture Partners, The 98, FIS, and serial entrepreneur Barry J. Glick.

The New York-based company will use the funding to continue innovating its technology that helps financial institutions use AI-driven decision-making to enhance credit risk…

Acorns Acquires U.K.-Based GoHenry

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on April 3, 2023
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions

Acorns is acquiring U.K.-based kids financial wellness tool GoHenry.

Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.

The deal is expected to facilitate Acorns' international expansion and will build its presence in the youth market.

Automated savings and investing app Acorns announced today it acquired kids money management app GoHenry. Financial terms of the deal, which also includes GoHenry's European arm Pixpay, were not disclosed.

The benefits of today's acquisition are multi-faceted. GoHenry; which operates across the U.K., Italy, France, and Spain; will help California-based Acorns initiate its international expansion. The deal will also broaden Acorns' offerings to include financial wellness and education and will boost the two companies' combined subscriber number to almost six million.

What's more, GoHenry's customer base-- which consists of six-to-eighteen-year-olds-- brings a younger set of users to the Acorn brand. This is expected to bring more users to Acorns Early, a product that Acorns…

More Than $453 Million Raised by Thirteen Alums in Q1 2023

By David Penn Posted on April 3, 2023
Categories: Alumni News, Funding, Fundings, Quarterly Funding

Thirteen Finovate alums raised more than $453 million in funding in the first quarter of 2023. Q1 of this year topped last year's first quarter total but fell short of the massive amount of capital raised by a sizable number of Finovate alums in the first quarter of 2021.

Previous quarterly comparisons

Q1 2022: $365 million raised by 11 alums

Q1 2021: $3.3 billion raised by 26 alums

Q1 2020: $1.3 billion raised by 14 alums

Q1 2019: $468 million raised by 20 alums

The biggest fundraising of the first three months of the year was the $250 million raised by long-time Finovate alum eToro. Also noteworthy was the $92 million secured by Zopa in February.

Top Equity Investments from Q1 2023

eToro: $250 million

Zopa: $92 million

SESAMm: $37 million

LeapXpert: $22 million

Hawk AI: $17 million

Stratyfy: $10…

Finovate Global France: Ledger Scores, Burger King Goes Crypto, and French Fintechs Get Funded

By David Penn Posted on March 31, 2023
Categories: Backbase, Finovate Global, Secfense, ThetaRay

This week's edition of Finovate Global takes a look at the wave of funding that fintechs in France have received in recent weeks. The $108 million secured by hardware crypto wallet maker Ledger appropriately leads the pack. But there have been a handful of investments in a variety of French fintechs that are also noteworthy.

First up, though, it's Ledger's massive fundraising. The Paris, France-based crypto wallet designer and manufacturer announced that it raised $108 million in funding this week. The investment is part of the company's Series C round and, as such, does not change Ledger's $1.4 billion valuation. The funding does add to the $385 million the company raised in 2021.

Ledger's latest investors are a lengthy list of new and existing backers. True Global Ventures, Digital Finance Group, and VaynerFund are among the new investors. Existing investors 10T, Cité Gestion Private Bank, Cap Horn, Morgan Creek,…

Maximizing Value for Clients: Maggie O’Toole, VP of Strategic Partnerships at TabaPay

By David Penn Posted on March 30, 2023
Categories: Diversity in Fintech, Interview, Women in Fintech

Today is the final day of Women's History Month. At Finovate, we have spent the past 30+ days highlighting the accomplishments of women in our industry. We began our commemoration with a look at the women who would demo their companies' latest technologies at FinovateEurope. We followed up on International Women's Day, showcasing the women who would deliver mainstage keynote addresses at the conference. And just this week, we featured the winners of the "Female Founded/Owned" category of our Finovate Demo Scholarship program for fintech startups.

Today we share insights from Maggie O'Toole, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at TabaPay. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, and founded in 2017, TabaPay is a specialist in real-time money movement. The company facilitates one million transactions every day, has more than 2,000 clients, and is the number seven ranked CNP (card-not-present) acquirer in the U.S.

We caught up with Ms. O'Toole…

Business Communications Innovator LeapXpert Locks in $22 Million in Series A+ Funding

By David Penn Posted on March 30, 2023
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, LeapXpert

LeapXpert, a specialist in compliant business communications, has locked in $22 million in Series A+ funding.

The round was led by Rockefeller Asset Management via its Technology Ventures Group.

LeapXpert most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2022 in New York.

Business communications company LeapXpert has secured $22 million in Series A+ funding. The round was led by Rockefeller Asset Management via its Technology Ventures Group. Also participating in the round were Uncorrelated Ventures, and the Partnership Fund for New York City. Existing investors and a new strategic investor were also involved in the funding.

"Today marks a significant milestone for LeapXpert's growth journey," LeapXpert Dima Gutzeit founder and CEO said. "Our goal is to set the global standard for responsible and flexible employee-customer communication, and with this funding, we are one step closer to achieving our vision."

This week's investment takes LeapXpert's total capital to $36 million, according…

Credolab and Provenir Partner to Boost Financial Inclusion with Behavioral Data

By David Penn Posted on March 29, 2023
Categories: Alumni News, CredoLab, Daily news

Credolab and Provenir announced a partnership this week that will make credolab's SDK available in the Provenir Data Marketplace.

Credolab's SDK won the "AI Platform" category in Juniper Research's Future Digital Awards last fall.

Based in Singapore, credolab made its Finovate debut in 2018 at FinovateAsia in Hong Kong.

A new partnership between credolab and Provenir will enable financial institutions to leverage behavioral data to handle the challenges of credit risk management, fraud detection, and more. The companies announced this week that credolab's mobile SDK will be made available in the Provenir Data Marketplace, a data hub for Open Banking, KYC/KYB, verifications, and other resources.

In a statement, credolab co-founder and CEO Peter Barcak added financial inclusion to the list of challenges that the partnership responds to. "Credolab believes that traditional lending processes exclude many people because they target applicants with pre-existing credit history, typically in the middle- and high-income…

Scholars and Innovators: Showcasing Female Founded Fintech Achievement

By David Penn Posted on March 28, 2023
Categories: Alumni News, Debbie, Diversity in Fintech, Pave, Quoroom, Women in Fintech

In 2022, Finovate launched its Demo Scholarship Program. The goal of the program is to highlight fintech founders from underrepresented communities, as well as fintech startups that are tackling issues of climate change, diversity, and financial inclusion. At each event, starting with FinovateFall in 2022, Finovate grants five scholarships in the categories of Environment, Social, Governance, Person of Color Founded/Owned, and Female Founded/Owned.

With Women's History Month drawing to a close this week, we wanted to take a moment to highlight the scholarship winners in our Female Founded/Owned category since our scholarship program was launched last year.

Pave

FinovateSpring 2023 Scholarship Winner - Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Pave enables credit risk teams to identify healthy borrowers, optimize credit limits, and improve collections outcomes. Pave's technology provides access to a unified view of end customers' cash flow and financial profile to help power a range of use cases including…