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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
eToro has launched a portfolio of firms involved in Facebook’s new digital currency Libra.
Jumio to power digital identity for Brazil-based BTG Pactual.
Settlelaunches its mobile payments app in Croatia.
Worldpay and the University of Cincinnati partner to fill business talent shortfall.
Coast Capital Savings teams with OnDeck to offer small business members financing options.
Scooter fleet company Spin joinsPassport’s micro-mobility pilot program.
First Rate and HiddenLeverspartner to provide risk analytics and business intelligence to the wealth management industry.
BeSmarteeannounces direct integration with private mortgage insurance provider Arch MI.
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.
Global payout provider Hyperwallet is helping citizens scoot through the streets– that is, helping the freelancers that keep users scooting through the streets get paid. The PayPal-owned fintech announced today that it has agreed to power outbound payments for Lime, the scooter and bike rental startup that aims to reduce reliance on cars for short-term trips.
Lime, which has scooter rental operations in 100 cities across the globe, is leveraging Hyperwallet to help its network of freelancers (a community Lime calls Juicers) receive payment for keeping Lime’s fleet of scooters charged. Brent Warrington, Hyperwallet’s General Manager, commented on Lime’s “creative business model,” saying that it “provides a new, flexible earning opportunity for individuals.” With Hyperwallet, the Juicers get paid on a daily basis.
“Hyperwallet’s platform gave us the functionality we needed to scale quickly and offer our Juicer community fast and convenient payouts,” explained Ryan Foutty, Global Head of Business Development at Lime. “This partnership has allowed us to launch our business in new markets and deliver a great localized experience for Juicers all over the world. We are excited about expanding our collaboration with Hyperwallet in the coming months.”
Austin-based Hyperwallet fit the bill for Lime’s list of specific requirements, which included sending fast payments, facilitating local disbursements to multiple geographies, and allowing Juicers to receive payouts using their preferred method. “Hyperwallet’s platform has helped add value to our Juicer program by giving us the ability to offer fast, efficient, self-service payment disbursements,” added Foutty.
Founded in 2000, Hyperwallet most recently presented at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016. At the event, Bill Crowley, Chief Product Officer, and Blair Olynyk, Software Architect, gave a presentation titled, Pay the Planet: Implementing Frictionless Global Payout Distribution.
PayPal acquired Hyperwallet last November for $400 million. The company, which was founded in 1998 and has a market capitalization of $138 billion, showcased its Instant Account Creation feature at FinovateFall 2012.
In a post titled “What is the Bitbond STO and Why Should I Care?” published this spring, Bitbond Marketing Manager Mollie Thick criticized the cryptocurrency industry for “too much hyperbole, failed projects, and disappointed investors.” By contrast, Thick said that Bitbond – via its then just-announced security token offering (STO) – offered “a new breed of stable crypto investment with fixed income returns that other asset classes don’t deliver today.”
This week, the Berlin, Germany-based company announced that it had successfully completed its spring STO, raising more than $2.3 million (€2.1 million) in the process. The token offering makes Bitbond the first issuer to have its prospectus approved by BaFin, Germany’s security regulator. Bitbond noted that investors from 87 countries were involved (investors from the U.S. and Canada were not allowed to participate). The company also pointed out that more than $36,000 (€32,000) was earned by affiliates who helped promote the offering.
The new, tradable security BB1 offers a 4% annual rate, but has a targeted return of double that insofar as the security will pay out 60% of Bitbond’s profits to tokenholders for the duration of the term (10 years). The first payments are expected on October 1. Investors were able to participate in the offering via Euros as well as other crypto currencies such as bitcoin, Ethereum, and Stellar – which is the network upon which BB1 was issued.
The STO brings Bitbond’s total funding to $13.1 million. The company includes Hevella Capital and angel investor Sekip Can Gokalp, co-founder of mobile advertisement network, Mobilike, among its financial backers.
Founded in 2013, Bitbond offers a combined technology and data platform designed to provide financing to SMEs around the world. With customers in more than 120 countries, Bitbond helps small business owners access the working capital they need to grow their businesses by connecting them with both individual and institutional investors. With loan amounts up to €25,000 and terms up to 12 months, Bitbond leverages automation to accelerate the decisioning process and relies on the bitcoin blockchain to ensure efficient payments across borders.
As a platform for investors, Bitbond has enabled more than 1,800 individual and institutional investors to fund more than 1,300 loans. Investors can expect returns of approximately 13% per year via Bitbond’s fixed income investments in SME loans, and can invest for terms ranging from six months to five years.
Bitbond returned to the Finovate stage in 2016 to demonstrate its global automated SME scoring solution. Automated scoring enables loan applicants to instantly request a loan upon completion of the borrower application rather than wait up to 24 hours with traditional scoring methods. The solution is universal across countries, and leverages verifiable data from online revenues, payment processors, business software and accounts, as well as other sources.
Financial markets data provider Xignite has inked a deal with data usage, tracking, and business monitoring software firm Xpansion that will give capital markets customers even better visibility into and management of their data use and expense.
“Market data is a complex environment where vendor fees and commercial licensing models continue to change, putting pressure on buy and sell side firms to control access and costs,” Xignite CEO and founder Stephane Dubois explained. He added that helping customers more efficiently use market data flow was a key element in the company’s goal of “simplifying, the acquisition, management, and dissemination of market data.”
The strategic partnership will enable Xignite to integrate Xpansion’s XMon analytics and reporting functionality into its Market Data Cloud Platform. This will give Xignite customers enhanced business intelligence, analytics, and reporting capabilities, as well as dashboards and reporting tools to help users analyze and control market data use, as well as manage costs across multiple data vendors.
“Clients consume increasing amounts of data and coupling powerful analytics with a robust data distribution platform is essential in today’s data landscape,” XPansion director and co-founder Amjad Zoghbi said. Zoghbi referred to bringing greater transparency and spending controls to the use of market data as the company’s “focus from the beginning.”
XPansion specializes in cloud-based solutions that help data operations and management teams control data usage better, improving both cost-effectiveness and data governance. The company’s flagship XMon Static Data solution delivers real-time tracking of data requested from external data vendors, data flowing between internal applications and systems, and data exiting the firm as in reports or customer exports. Based in London, U.K., XPansion was founded in 2013.
Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Xignite demonstrated its Cloud Add-in solution at FinovateAsia 2017. The add-in caters to the 1.2 billion Excel users worldwide, enabling them to easily and quickly introduce data – including real-time streaming data – into their Excel spreadsheets.
Earlier this month, Xignite announced that it was the first market data vendor to join the Snowflake Data Exchange. This spring, the company was named to the WealthTech 100, along with seven of its clients including fellow Finovate alums eToro and Tradeit. Also this spring, Xignite announced a partnership with StockCharts.com.
Xignite has raised $37.6 million in funding. QUICK Corporation and StarVest Partners are among the company’s investors.
Corporate banking startup Neoannounced it has just been authorized to offer multicurrency business accounts. The approval comes from the Bank of Spain and allows Neo to create a PSD2 payment institution.
“Our vision back in 2017 was to create a platform that can replace the old fashioned banking platform. A true ‘one-stop shop’ that offers all the financial products a corporate client needs to operate in a global environment,” said Laurent Descout, CEO. “Operating with Neo does not require any complex installation. It is 100% on demand with the client being in complete control. The platform ensures clients can reduce costs and increase efficiency by reducing manual tasks and improving processes. Our 100% API approach also offers clients great automation possibilities.”
By “one-stop shop” Descout means that Neo offers both investment and payment services and aims to bring all corporate finance functionalities together on a single platform.
Hosted on a core banking platform developed by Neo Fintech Lab in the U.K., Neo’s multicurrency account allows account holders to receive, store and pay in 30 currencies. The bank also enables clients to digitize their treasury department and offers features inspired by treasury management systems.
These banking products will run in tandem with Neo Capital Markets’ FX hedging services, which allow clients to hedge 90+ currencies and receive or make payments in 30+ currencies.
Receiving its banking license places Neo in competition with the likes of Sweden’s Klarna, which received its banking license in 2017, and Transferwise, which offers a borderless account that allows accountholders to receive funds from 30+ countries.
Neo’s multi-currency account will be available in Spain, France, U.K., and Poland in 2020.
At this year’s FinovateEurope conference in London, Descout, along with Neo’s Chief Product Officer Emmanuel Anton, demoed the company’s risk management solution and FX hedging engine. The company has 20 employees and has raised $5.6 million (€5 million).
Business payments company Bill.com is helping small businesses pursue international objectives– now in even more corners of the globe. This week, the California-based company doubled its International Payments offering by building out support for more than 70 countries and 50 currencies.
“Historically, innovation in international payments has been geared towards consumers,” said John Flora, VP of Product at Bill.com. “The sharp rise of cross border business growth and global interactions is driving demand for our International Business Payments platform which enables SMBs to easily and seamlessly do business globally.”
Launched last July, International Payments allows companies to conduct business abroad with visibility and payments control on a single platform. The tool offers the option for businesses to exchange payments by using a wire transfer for increased speed and security. When paying vendors in local currencies, there is no wire transfer fee. For international wires sent in U.S. dollars the fee is $9.99. The company estimates that this, combined with its competitive exchange rates, saves businesses up to 32% of the cost of traditional overseas transactions.
Flora noted that the company is far from finished building out International Payments. “We plan to aggressively expand our international payment capabilities in the coming months,” he said. In fact, Bill.com’s business as a whole seems to be bustling lately. Since the beginning of this year, the company’s payment volume has increased by 124% while monthly transactions have grown by 135%.
Founded in 2006, Bill.com helps businesses manage accounts payables and receivables with online billpay, custom invoicing, document storage, collaboration tools, and more. At FinovateSpring 2012, CEO Renee Lacerte debuted the company’s CashView tools. Since then, Bill.com has grown to process more than $60 billion each year for its network of three million members.
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.
Email security specialist GreatHorn has raised $13 million in a funding round led by RRE Ventures and .406 Ventures. Existing investors Techstars Ventures, V1.VC, and Uncork Capital also participated in the round, which boosts the firm’s total capital to $21.8 million.
GreatHorn said it will use the new capital to continue its innovation in the email security space. The company offers organizations a 100%, cloud-native platform designed specifically to defend email systems before, during, and after an attack. The technology’s proactive approach blends integrated threat detection, in-the-moment user education, and comprehensive incident response to combat threats ranging from credential theft and email compromise to ransomware and phishing.
“As we continue to meet customer demand and drive the market,” GreatHorn CEO Kevin O’Brien said, “we remain fundamentally interested in redefining email as a secure system for all users, and ensuring that organizations who have adopted cloud email platforms are not relying on outdated perimeter controls or simple user education to protect their most critical assets.”
GreatHorn’s funding news comes as the company celebrates its third consecutive year of 3x revenue growth, as well as its “rapid expansion into the enterprise market.” RRE Ventures General Partner Raju Rishi praised GreatHorn as being among the “category-defining businesses” the firm prefers to invest in. He credited the company for providing an overhaul in the way that organizations think about protecting their email systems.
“GreatHorn has delivered a platform that comprehensively protects enterprises against the rising sophistication of today’s threats,” Rishi said. “We’re excited to support GreatHorn as the company that continues to build upon its current innovation and grow in the enterprise space.”
Founded in 2015, GreatHorn demonstrated its inbound email security platform at FinovateFall 2017. More recently, the Waltham, Massachusetts-based company was awarded a patent for a new method for detecting email impersonation. GreatHorn began the year with news that its latest version was now enabled to detect credential theft involving Microsoft Office 365 and Google G Suite.
Prepaid payments innovator InComm is continuing its shopping spree this week. The Atlanta-based company announced it has agreed to buy Meridian Loyalty, a loyalty and incentives company that creates engagement tools for large corporations. The amount of the acquisition was undisclosed.
The move not only offers InComm access to Missouri-based Meridian Loyalty’s global database of Fortune 500 clients, it also will bolster InComm’s incentives product offerings that include B2C, B2B, and employee programs. Specifically, Meridian Loyalty’s technology will help InComm reach beyond its stored value products and offer holistic, brand-focused services such as travel and merchandise redemptions.
Explaining the purchase, InComm CEO Brooks Smith said that it’s moving the company towards “helping [its] customers maximize the performance of their programs.” Sam Toumayan, President and Owner of Meridian Loyalty, added, “… [O]ur point of view has been rewards-agnostic from day one. We’re incredibly excited to be joining the InComm team and finding innovative ways to drive positive client outcomes.”
InComm offers more than 500,000 points of retail distribution with 1,000+ brand partners in more than 30 countries. The company debutedCorFire Mobile Commerce at FinovateFall 2011. More recently, InComm showed off the Cashtie API at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2014. Last month, the company purchased Hallmark Business Connections, a subsidiary of Hallmark Cards that provides employee incentive programs. In March InComm acquired Linq3 Technologies, an Atlanta, Georgia-based digital lottery company.
Temenos to power digital transformation for Rwanda’s Bank of Kigali.
BuiltIn featuresHooYu in its look at how AI is changing the banking industry.
ACI Worldwideteams up with Egyptian Banks Company, which will leverage ACI’s UP Retail Payments solution.
Entrepreneur magazine names Lendio Franchising as a Top 100 Franchise for Less Than $50,000 in 2019 and as the Best Financial Services Franchise Brand for the second year in a row.
Yseoprecognized as a representative vendor in Gartner’s first Market Guide for Natural Language Generation Platforms.
Saga selectsFIS to deploy its Integrity SaaS solution.
iSignthislaunches third European office in Gzira, Malta.
In June Personal Capital surpasses $10 billion in assets under management, an increase of more than $2 billion since Q4 2018.
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.
A new partnership between next generation deposit mobilization platform Aion Digital and RISQ Intelligent Financial Software will bring integrated, AI-enabled digital commercial lending to banks in the MENA region.
“With Aion Digital we found a partner which enables us to fully digitize the commercial lending experience,” RISQ CEO and co-founder Michael Jesse said. “Most banks have already digitized their retail banking and the next step is to do the same for SME and commercial banking,” he explained. “Our combined platform is the right fit for the Middle East and the North Africa (MENA) market.”
An alum of FinovateAsia, FinovateAfrica, and FinovateMiddleEast, RISQ provides a variety of digital solutions for banks and financial services companies. The company offers banks a wholesale banking solution that supports treasury, FI, and corporate lending. Its partnership with fellow Finovate alum CRIF enables it to work with financial services firms to enhance their commercial credit assessment processes – from initial data collection through loan contract generation and reporting.
The new solution from RISQ and Aion Digital will leverage Aion’s portal to onboard SME loan applicants, and then use RISQ’s loan processing technology to conduct a comprehensive credit analysis. The entire process from data collection and scoring to loan approval and automatic contract generation is managed by RISQ, which also takes care of servicing the loan, providing annual reviews, collateral revaluation and, if necessary, loan extensions or termination.
A digital mobile platform for lifestyle banking, Aion Digital helps entrepreneurs in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Countries) region build digital banks. With technology designed to work seamlessly with legacy core banking systems, Aion launched its borderless banking solution in April. Earlier this month, the company announced a partnership with the Open Bank Project to provide Bahrainian banks with an API management solution, API catalogue, and API portal with a sandbox environment to help promote fintech innovation and development. Aion Digital was founded in 2017, and is headquartered in Manama, Bahrain. Ashar Nazim is CEO.
Headquartered in Dubai, UAE, RISQ company won its first client, Emirates NBD, within six months of its founding in 2016. Emirates NBD went live with RISQ | FI, RISQ’s all-in-one solution for financial institutions, four months later, and has since rolled out the technology to all its global branches.
Finovate alums raised more than $1.8 billion in new funding in the second quarter of 2019. The Q2 figure from this year surpasses the previous, record-setting second quarter from 2018 by more than $300 million. This year’s amount also represents an increase of more than 3x over our alum funding total of $468 million for Q1.
Previous Quarterly Comparisons
Q2 2018: More than $1.5 billion raised by 37 alums
Q2 2017: More than $726 million raised by 25 alums
Q2 2015: More than $840 million raised by eight alums
The second quarter of 2019 also marks our fifth billion dollar quarter since 2015.
Previous Billion Dollar Quarters
Q2 2018: More than $1.5 billion raised by 37 alums
Q1 2018: More than $1.3 billion raised by 26 alums
Q3 2017: More than $1 billion raised by 31 alums
Q3 2015: More than $1 billion raised by 40 alums
Our biggest fundraising alum for the quarter was financial management platform Sofi – by a mile. But Sofi aside there were still more than a handful of sizable investments in Finovate alums this spring, including four other nine-figure financings in Marqeta, Blend, Dashlane, and multiple-time Best of Show winner MX.
The top ten equity investments for our alums in Q2 totaled $1.35 billion, representing 75% of the quarter’s total funding.
Top Ten Equity Investments for Q2 2019
Sofi: $500 million
Marqeta: $260 million
Blend: $130 million
Dashlane: $110 million
MX: $100 million
Bill.com: $88 million
Alkami: $55 million
Clinc: $52 million
Synapse: $33 million
Payfone: $24 million
Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q2 2019.
April 2019: More than$205 million raised by seven alums
If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the second quarter of 2019, and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at [email protected]. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.
