Meet the International Alums of FinovateSpring 2026!

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Ripple

With FinovateSpring 2026 right around the corner—May 5-7—we wanted to take a moment here at Finovate Global to highlight the international companies that will be demoing their latest fintech innovations live on stage next week.

While both our European conference FinovateEurope and our flagship event FinovateFall tend to showcase the lion's share of our international alums, we are thrilled to host these eight fintech innovators from Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Singapore, and Switzerland this year at FinovateSpring!

Join us next week—May 5-7—at the Sheraton San Diego Resort for FinovateSpring 2026. 1200+ senior-level fintech attendees. 600+ attendees from banks and financial institutions. 50+ live fintech demos. Save your spot. Book your room. And we'll see you in sunny San Diego!

BankUniverse—Greece

BankUniverse delivers a privacy-first 'intent engine' that identifies high-value prospects and automates conversion, increasing digital sales by 20%+ without sharing sensitive customer PII. Headquartered in Greece, the company was…

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Eleos Life Raises $3 Million in Media-for-Equity Investment

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Eleos, Funding

Eleos Life, an insurtech based in the UK that expanded to the US last year, has secured a $3 million media-for-equity investment.

The investment came courtesy of Mercurius Media Capital (MMC), a US-based, media-for-equity venture fund, and will help accelerate brand awareness for Eleos in the United States via national television, digital, and cinema advertising.

Eleos Life was founded in 2023. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2024 in London. Kiruba Shankar Eswaran is Co-founder and CEO.

UK-based insurtech Eleos Life has raised $3 million from Mercurius Media Capital (MMC), a US-based media-for-equity venture fund. The investment, a media-for-equity transaction, will help boost Eleos's brand awareness in the United States through MMC's network of national television, digital, and cinema advertising.

"Our investment in Eleos Life represents a perfect alignment of innovative technology and strategic storytelling," MMC Founding Partner Piyush Puri said. "By bridging the gap between Eleos's seamless…

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Versana Raises $43 Million to Build Infrastructure for Syndicated Loan and Private Credit Markets

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding

Versana has raised $43 million, bringing its total raised to $125 million, with backing from major banks and private credit players.

The company is building a shared, standardized data layer for the $9 trillion syndicated loan and private credit markets that replaces manual, inconsistent workflows with a single source of truth.

The new round brings on strategic investors like Fitch Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Motive Partners, and Apollo.

New York-based Versana announced today that it raised $43 million to support its infrastructure that brings transparency to syndicated loans and private credit.

BNP Paribas led the round, with participation from new strategic investors Fitch Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Motive Partners, and Apollo. Existing shareholders—including Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, U.S. Bancorp, and Wells Fargo—also made follow-on investments.

Today's investment, which Versana will use to expand and grow globally, brings the company's total funding to over $125…

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nCino Brings its Lending Platform to Austrian Banking Cooperative

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, nCino

Agentic banking innovator nCino has teamed up with Austrian banking cooperative Raiffeisenbankengruppe Oesterreich.

The financial institution will use nCino as its unified lending platform, supporting the complete financing lifecycle from initial application to final disbursement.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in North Carolina, nCino made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2017 in London. Sean Desmond is President and CEO.

Agentic banking platform provider nCino announced a new partnership with Austrian financial institution Raiffeisenbankengruppe Oesterreich. The company, one of the largest cooperative banking institutions in Europe, will use nCino as its unified corporate lending platform to support the entire financing lifecycle, including origination, underwriting, pricing, compliance, and portfolio monitoring.

"Raiffeisenbankengruppe Oesterreich is aware of its responsibility towards society and provides strong momentum for the promotion of the regional economy," Chairman of the Raiffeisen Kooperationsgenossenschaft, Reinhard Schwendtbauer, said. "Raiffeisen focuses on long-term customer relationships, which are always built on trust—trust between our…

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Impact+ Heads to FinovateSpring to Spotlight Early-Stage Fintech Innovation

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2026

New for FinovateSpring 2026, Finovate is bringing its Impact+ session to offer early-stage fintech founders a dedicated platform to pitch their ideas directly to an audience of investors, banks, and industry leaders.

The session, which debuted at FinovateEurope earlier this year, is designed to create a structured environment for founders and investors to connect, exchange insights, and explore partnerships at a stage when ideas are still forming and companies are actively shaping their trajectory.

Taking place on Monday, May 4, Impact+ will feature a keynote from Stripe’s Asya Bradley, followed by an investor panel and a series of four-minute startup pitches. The evening concludes with networking, giving attendees the opportunity to continue conversations sparked on stage.

Why Impact+ Matters

Early-stage fintech is often where the most interesting ideas emerge, but it’s also the hardest to get visibility into. Impact+ aims to close that gap by bringing founders and investors…

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A Look Back at the 2025 Finovate Awards

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Awards

Now that the nominations for the 2026 Finovate Awards are open and the judging teams are being assembled, we thought we'd take a look back at some of the winners of last year's competition.

The 2025 Finovate Awards featured a wide variety of companies from around the world, all competing for top industry honors in more than 25 different categories. Here, we present a seven-member sampling of that year's category-winning companies, from Best Anti-Fraud Platform to Best Wealth Management Solution.

The 2026 Finovate Awards will be announced September 10 during FinovateFall 2026 in New York. The nominations window remains open until May 22. To learn more and to nominate your favorite fintech company, bank, solution, or financial services professional, visit our Finovate Awards hub today!

Best Anti-Fraud/AML Solution - Oscilar

For its technology that powers real-time risk decisioning across fraud, credit, and compliance with a single unified solution. The…

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Blockrise Looks to bunq for Financial Infrastructure

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news

bunq is launching a live BaaS use case, partnering with Blockrise to offer Bitcoin-friendly bank accounts with embedded banking services.

Blockrise users will gain regulated banking benefits, including fiat deposit protection up to €100,000 under the Dutch Deposit Guarantee Scheme via bunq’s license.

BaaS enables crypto–bank convergence in which banks provide compliant infrastructure while crypto platforms own the customer relationship.

European neobank bunq is going live with its BaaS offering, partnering with Bitcoin platform Blockrise to offer users Bitcoin-friendly bank accounts. 

Netherlands-based Blockrise users will gain access to Bitcoin services alongside embedded bank accounts. By leveraging bunq’s European banking license, fiat deposits will be protected up to €100,000 under the Dutch Deposit Guarantee Scheme.

"Up to now, Dutch Bitcoin users had to choose between security and convenience. With bunq's infrastructure, they get both—a bank account that works seamlessly with Bitcoin, protected by the Dutch Deposit Guarantee Scheme," said Blockrise Founder and CEO…

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SumUp Expands its Small Business Product Suite

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, SumUp

SumUp is expanding its platform in the US with an all-in-one small business offering, combining POS Lite, a handheld terminal, card readers, and invoicing into a single ecosystem.

Today's expansion of services comes 10 years after the company initially launched in the US.

The strategy reflects fintech's rebundling, moving beyond payments to unify operations, sales, and business management tools in one platform.

Payment acceptance company SumUp is expanding its core product ecosystem in the US to give small business owners an integrated suite of tools to run their operations.

The new ecosystem breaks down into two categories: the first aims to help users run their business while the second helps them with payment acceptance. Combined, the tools offer business owners a complete set of business management tools in a single platform.

The first category offers businesses access to POS Lite, a point-of-sale solution built for merchants who need a…

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KeyBank Deepens Ties with Qolo to Launch New Virtual Card Program

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Qolo

KeyBank is launching a new commercial card program this week. The Ohio-based bank is deepening its partnership with card issuing company Qolo to launch its Key Virtual Card (KeyVC), a virtual commercial card program that helps businesses manage and track payments. 

"KeyVC is designed to reduce that complexity by allowing clients to use virtual cards alongside other treasury tools, with consistent reporting and simplified reconciliation across payment types. Businesses want payment tools that fit naturally into how they already operate," said Qolo Chief Operating Officer Rouzbeh Rotabi. "Working with KeyBank, we’ve built a virtual card solution that feels like a seamless part of the treasury environment–giving finance teams more flexibility, stronger controls, and clearer insight into their spending."

KeyVC will enable KeyBank’s commercial clients to create and manage virtual cards within the bank's Virtual Account Management platform (KeyVAM). Adding virtual cards to their existing treasury management tools will offer KeyBank's…

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Vernon Building Society Partners with FintechOS to Power New Mortgage Platform

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, FintechOS

Vernon Building Society has partnered with FintechOS to power its new mortgage platform.

The new platform spans the entire mortgage origination workflow and will run above the building society's core infrastructure, making a system replacement unnecessary.

Headquartered in London, FintechOS most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2021 in New York.

Vernon Building Society has teamed up with FintechOS to power its new unified mortgage platform that spans the complete origination workflow. From initial inquiry and decision-in-principle to application, underwriting, offer, and completion, the platform will run above Vernon's current core infrastructure, alleviating the need for a system replacement.

Powered by FintechOS 8, the new unified system will feature decision workflows, as well as built-in compliance rules. Vernon's financing teams will be able to use no-code configuration and AI-enabled capabilities to design and launch new mortgage products, and to respond more quickly to evolving customer preferences and shifting market conditions.…

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AU10TIX Partners with Camunda for KYC/KYB Workflow Orchestration

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news

Identity verification and fraud prevention company AU10TIX has partnered with enterprise platform for agentic orchestration Camunda.

AU10TIX will leverage Camunda's platform to support Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) workflows at scale.

Camunda Financial Services Transformation Lead Jawwad Rasheed will speak about the benefits of agentic orchestration at FinovateSpring 2026, Wednesday, May 6.

Identity verification and fraud prevention specialist AU10TIX has selected Camunda to support Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) workflows at scale. Camunda's enterprise platform for agentic orchestration enables users to manage complex identity processes without embedding decision logic inside the application code. Externalizing decision logic, as Camunda's platform does, enables businesses to manage complex workflows efficiently and to adapt to changing circumstances without disrupting applications.

"Camunda gives us robust orchestration for some of the most critical processes in our business," AU10TIX VP of Research and Development David Voschina said. "By leveraging…

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Meet the Keynotes: FinovateSpring Spotlights Innovations in AI

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2026

Are you interested in how AI can help banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions boost engagement, offer new products and services, and grow revenues? This year, FinovateSpring 2026, taking place in sunny San Diego, California, May 5-7, is set to deliver the latest insights into innovations in AI that enable financial services providers to compete more effectively in the 21st century.

In special addresses and keynotes over three days, FinovateSpring will showcase how AI can enhance customer experiences through greater personalization, improve contact center efficiency using agentic AI, and more. Featuring a range of AI experts and innovators, the conference will highlight how banks and financial institutions can maximize AI and successfully deploy what many believe is the most revolutionary technological innovation of our time.

FinovateSpring 2026 will be held at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina, May 5-7. Buy your ticket. Book your room.…

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