Temenos Acquires Avoka in $245 Million Deal

Temenos Acquires Avoka in $245 Million Deal
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Avoka, Mergers & Acquisitions, Temenos

In a $245 million deal, banking software company Temenos will acquire fellow Finovate alum Avoka. The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to close in the first quarter of next year.

A public company, Temenos will finance the purchase with cash and debt. The deal marks the company’s 14th acquisition since it was founded in 1993 and its second purchase this year, following the buy of its British competitor, Fidessa Group for $1.96 billion in February.

Temenos will integrate Avoka’s customer acquisition and onboarding technology into its Digital Front Office product, which serves 300 banking clients. “This is a highly strategic acquisition for Temenos as it not only reinforces our leadership position within the Digital Front Office space but it also strengthens our capabilities in the U.S. market where we are seeing significant traction as banks accelerate their digital transformation plans,” said Max Chuard, chief financial officer and chief operating officer of Temenos. “The combination of Avoka’s capabilities along with the extensive Temenos Digital Front Office product offers banks the most complete set of services which through APIs can be easily integrated either with the market-leading Temenos T24 Core Banking product or as a standalone on a third party banking system.”

Since it was founded in 2002, Avoka has grown to offer customer acquisition and onboarding technology to the financial services sector as well as government entities. In fact, the company’s first major client was the Australia Capital Territory government. Avoka also provides form filling technology to Australia’s Federal Department of Industry, Innovation, and Science’s business.gov.au portal. And according to ITNews, the company has provided services to Australia’s Defense, Centrelink, Attorney General’s Department, Customs and Border Protection, AUSTRAC, Education, Home Affairs, Human Services, as well as state and local clients. Temenos has not disclosed its plans for the government side of Avoka’s business.

Avoka CEO Philip Copeland said, “By combining our strengths with Temenos’ expertise and reach, we will expand our scope and scale to deliver winning omni-channel, digital experience solutions to banks globally. The combination of Temenos and Avoka is an excellent fit for our customers and employees and will catapult our growth to the next stage. Together, with the leadership on both sides, we are committed to the group’s future success.”

Founded in 1993, Temenos debuted its Connect Mobile Banking application at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. Last month marked the company’s 25th birthday. With clients in 145+ countries, Temenos employs more than 4,600 people in 63 offices. The company has a market capitalization of $9.14 billion.

Avoka most recently demoed Transaction Insights at FinovateEurope 2017. Transaction Insights is a digital account opening tool that helps financial services companies measure where customers are spending time, making errors, requesting help, or abandoning their session. Headquartered in Colorado, Avoka has offices in London, England and Sydney, Australia. The company has digitized more than 100 million transactions for 150+ global clients. Prior to today’s acquisition, Avoka had raised $28 million.

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ShopKeep Closes $65 Million to Boost Small Business Financing Tool

ShopKeep Closes $65 Million to Boost Small Business Financing Tool
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, ShopKeep POS

In its largest round of funding yet, point of sale (POS) technology company ShopKeep POS closed on $65 million in combined debt and equity funding, bringing its total funding to just over $72 million.

The investment was led by Tribeca Venture Partners and included all of the New York-based company’s major existing investors. New contributors include First Data Corporation and Salesforce Ventures. The debt portion of the round comes from ORIX Growth Capital and Square 1 Bank.

“We are extremely fortunate to be backed by some of the top investors in both fintech and SaaS. With the latest investments from Salesforce Ventures and First Data, ShopKeep has firmly established its position as a leader in SaaS based point-of-sale and payment platforms,” said ShopKeep CEO Michael DeSimone.

Founded in 2008, ShopKeep offers iPad-based POS software for retail, restaurants, and franchises. Not only does the technology process transactions and payments, it also offers inventory tracking, staff management, marketing capabilities, and provides reporting and analytics tools. The company will use the funds to boost its Android-based platform, which it launched in May of this year; expand ShopKeep Capital, an initiative that provides working capital to ShopKeep customers; and explore international markets.

“With our recurring revenue almost tripling in the past 3 years, the small business community continues to show incredibly promising – and accelerating – growth potential. ShopKeep will continue working tirelessly to deliver small business owners with technology and digital tools to fuel their businesses and compete in today’s marketplace at all levels,” DeSimone added.

ShopKeep is headquartered in New York City, with offices in Oregon, Illinois, and Belfast. The company’s founder Jason Richelson demoed the point-of-sale platform at FinovateSpring 2012. ShopKeep processes more than 289 million transactions for 25,000 merchant clients across the U.S.

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More Than $400 Million Raised by 19 Alums in Q3 2018

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Fundings

After racking up more than $1 billion in funding last summer, Finovate alums secured more than $400 million in funding over July, August, and September of 2018. This year marked the second time in the past four years that a billion-dollar third quarter was followed the next year by a significantly less bountiful Q3 in terms of equity financing.

Interestingly, eight of our 19 fundraising alums in the third quarter did not disclose the amounts of their investments. And while this does not provide any specific clues to the exact amounts of equity financing involved, it is noteworthy that undisclosed investments in AdviceRobo and Personetics both represented minority stakes taken by KPMG and United Overseas Bank, respectively.

Previous Quarterly Comparisons

  • Q3 2017: More than $1 billion raised by 31 alums
  • Q3 2016: More than $500 million raised by 30 alums
  • Q3 2015: More than $1 billion raised by 40 alums
  • Q3 2014: More than $194 million raised by 17 alums

If Q3 represented a small step in the funding growth for our alums overall, it was a giant leap for the quarter’s top fundraiser, Gusto. The $140 million in funding picked up by the payroll, benefits, and HR platform in July nearly doubled the firm’s total funding, and boosted the company’s valuation to almost $2 billion.

And you’ve got to hand it to Bambu. The three million raised by the Singapore-based robo advisor pales in comparison to the capital raised by its fellow top ten alums in Q3. But Bambu is the only company in the quarter’s top ten to have won not one, but two Best of Show awards, once at FinovateAsia 2017 and again last month at FinovateAfrica 2018.

Top Ten Equity Investments for Q3 2018

  • Gusto: $140 million
  • Flywire: $100 million
  • Zopa: $57 million
  • ThetaRay: $30 million
  • Deserve: $17 million
  • SynapseFI: $17 million
  • Wonga: $13 million
  • BlueVine: $12 million
  • Cortera: $10 million
  • Bambu: $3 million

Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q3 2018.

July 2018: More than $285 million raised by nine alums

August 2018: More than $87 million raised by six alums

September 2018: More than $28 million raised by four alums

If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the third quarter of 2018, 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.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Avoka, Experian, First Data, InComm, Open Bank Project, PayPal, ShopKeep POS, Tavant, Temenos

On Finovate.com

  • Temenos Acquires Avoka in $245 Million Deal.
  • More Than $400 Million Raised by 19 Alums in Q3 2018.
  • ShopKeep Closes $65 Million to Boost Small Business Financing Tool.

Around the web

  • The Open Bank Project wins Best Technology Provider for Open API Standards at Global Open Banking Awards.
  • InComm partners with Revolut to offer their prepaid cards at U.K. retail chain wilko.
  • U.K.’s Experian to buy Africa’s Compuscan.
  • First Data and China CITIC Bank International to join forces with launch of new merchant acquiring solutions.
  • PayPal launches Xoom International money transfer in Canada.
  • Docutech and Tavant integrate for digitally-focused loan origination process.

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.

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Plaid Raises $250 Million Series C Round Led by Mary Meeker

Plaid Raises $250 Million Series C Round Led by Mary Meeker
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Plaid

Provider of APIs for financial infrastructure, Plaid, closed a $250 million Series C round. The company’s founders, Zach Perret and William Hockey, discussed the funds in a blog post today, along with Plaid’s plans to “reinvest in the fintech ecosystem,” an industry they say is “just getting started.”

The investment, which boosts Plaid’s total funding to $310 million, comes with celebrity endorsement from Mary Meeker. Meeker led the round and will join the company’s board of directors. Additional investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Goldman Sachs, NEA, and Spark Capital.

“Plaid has built an important underpinning for financial services on the web and mobile. Plaid allows businesses to rapidly launch innovative products, drive growth and enhance consumer satisfaction. We are excited about the evolution and potential ahead,” Meeker said.

The San Francisco-based company will use the funds to onboard new employees and expand its operations. “We’re focused on shipping and scaling products that will both serve the growth and scale of these customers, and become the foundation for fintech for decades to come,” the founders said in the blog post. “Every company is becoming a fintech company…. Plaid’s role is to empower these innovators with a platform—and a data network—that delivers access to the financial system.”

TechCrunch, which pinned Plaid as a company to watch in 2019, reported that Plaid is now valued at $2.65 billion. This is up significantly from the company’s last valuation in 2016, which sat at $200 million after Plaid’s $44 million Series B round.

At FinDEVr San Fransisco 2014, Perret gave a presentation about leveraging the Plaid API for financial infrastructure. Since then, the company has grown to 175 employees and offers six products, including Auth, an account authentication tool; Balance, which pulls account balance information in real-time; Identity, which leverages bank data to verify consumer identity; Transactions, which pulls bank statement data across banks; Assets, a verification of assets tool; and Income, a tool that validates a consumer’s income and verifies direct deposit data.

This May, Plaid launched in Canada– its first international market. The startup also partnered with JPMorgan Chase to help the bank make a move toward open banking by enabling account holders to safely share their financial data with third party fintech applications.

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Bill.com Achieves NACHA Certification

Bill.com Achieves NACHA Certification
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Bill.com

Business payments company Bill.com received NACHA certification as an ACH third-party sender today. While the certification is voluntary, it indicates that Bill.com is meeting standards, such as corporate governance and risk and compliance obligations, for ACH payment processing.

NACHA Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel Jane Larimer praised Bill.com’s achievement saying, “NACHA certification is a clear indication of Bill.com’s adherence to sound ACH practices and policies.” René Lacerte, founder and CEO of Bill.com added, “it’s important that our clients and partners know that we are committed to the highest quality ACH processing as demonstrated by achieving NACHA Certification.”

Bill.com was founded in 2006 to help businesses manage accounts payables and receivables with online billpay, custom invoicing, document storage, collaboration tools, and more. At FinovateSpring 2012, 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.

Bill.com is partnered with four of the top 10 largest U.S. banks, 60+ of the top 100 accounting firms, as well as accounting software providers such as Netsuite, Intacct, QuickBooks and Xero. The company has taken in more than $200 million in funding from investors including JP Morgan Chase and Temasek.

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Motive Partners Acquires Majority Stake in Finantix

Motive Partners Acquires Majority Stake in Finantix
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finantix, Mergers & Acquisitions

Private equity firm Motive Partners will become a majority shareholder in Finantix, a provider of digital services for the private banking, insurance and wealthtech sectors, reports Antony Peyton of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

Financial details were not disclosed. Both firms are a bit vague but Motive will support the company and the founders (Ralf Emmerich and Alessandro Tonchia) in “extending the functional footprint of the product and in accelerating geographic expansion”. The latter means Europe, Asia and to enter the U.S. market.

Scott Kauffman, partner at Motive Partners, said Finantix has demonstrated its ability to create a “compelling product, bringing a leading technology platform to an ever-increasing set of blue chip clients”.

Finantix’s founders and the management team will continue to lead the company.

The company has over 250 staff in seven cities and a customer base in more than 45 countries. Some of its clients include Rothschild Bank, Crossbridge Capital, and DBS.

Motive Labs, the operational and technology team of Motive, will also work with Finantix.

Back in March, Finantix acquired Singapore-based Smartfolios, a creator of quant-enabled investment tools. No financial details in that deal as well.

As reported last year, Motive powered up and revealed its plans to invest in fintech firms in the U.K. and U.S.

According to its Form D filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the U.S, Motive was looking to raise $150 million.

“Our mission is to back and build the next generation of financial technology businesses to transform markets, models and society,” the company said on its website.

Based in Venice, Italy, and founded in 1994, Finantix demonstrated its Banking Assistant solution at FinovateEurope 2013.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: AlphaPoint, Bill.com, Finantix, Jack Henry, Narrative Science, Plaid, Ripple

On Finovate.com

  • Plaid Raises $250 Million Series C Round Led by Mary Meeker.
  • Bill.com Achieves NACHA Certification.

Around the web

  • Narrative Science introduces its new language-based augmented analytics product, Lexio, in beta.
  • Currencies Direct taps Ripple’s xCurrent for real-time remittances to India.
  • AlphaPoint to support Stellar Lumens.
  • Motive Partners acquires majority stake in Finantix.
  • Camden National Bank further leverages Jack Henry relationship to support demand for growth, innovation.

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.

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BioCatch Brings Behavioral Biometrics to ACI Worldwide

BioCatch Brings Behavioral Biometrics to ACI Worldwide
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, BioCatch

A new partnership between real-time electronic payment and banking solutions provider, ACI Worldwide, and behavioral biometrics specialist, BioCatch, will deliver better online and mobile fraud prevention to banking customers. Along with the advanced analytic capabilities of ACI Worldwide’s UP Payments Risk Management, BioCatch’s behavior assessment technology will help institutions better defend themselves and their customers from a growing variety of cyberthreats.

“As online and mobile banking proliferates, fraudsters are consistently finding new ways to infiltrate banks’ systems, creating havoc for consumers and businesses alike,” BioCatch CTO and founder Avi Turgeman said. “By using behavioral data to distinguish between a genuine customer and a fraudster – whether human or non-human – we are able to detect fraudulent activity in real-time and protect consumers.”

ACI Worldwide global director for Payments Intelligence & Risk Solutions Cleber Martins pointed to threats like account takeover, social engineering, and bots as the main obstacles for institutions that are attempting to provide “enriched customer experience(s).” He praised the way BioCatch offers “cost-efficient access to behavioral biometrics” solutions to enable banks to “further promote safety and loyalty through the online relationship with their clients.”

BioCatch demonstrated the Passive Biometrics/Invisible Challenges mechanism of its cognitive behavioral biometrics technology at FinovateFall 2014. The mechanism injects a dynamic, cognitive challenge during the user’s interaction with an app. The challenge is so subtle that the user responds to it without being aware that the challenge has occurred. This response helps define the user’s relationship with the app, providing a unique user profile that reduces vulnerability to a variety of cyber threats.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Israel, BioCatch has raised $41.6 million in funding, and includes Blumberg Capital, OurCrowd, and Maverick Ventures Israel among its investors. In October, the company announced that it was partnering with seven, tier-one Latin American banks in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. Earlier this year, BioCatch teamed up with ForgeRock, offering its behavioral biometrics solution as an integrated module to ForgeRock’s platform.

ACI Worldwide powers electronic payments for more than 5,000 institutions globally, including more than 1,000 of the world’s largest financial institutions and service providers. The company participated in our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, presenting Simple, Global, and Secure eCommerce Payments with ACI Worldwide’s Next-Generation API. The discussion focused on the technical challenges of payments integration and the value of using an end-to-end solution with integrated real-time fraud prevention.

Founded in 1975 and based in Naples, Florida, ACI Worldwide trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker ACIW, and has a market capitalization of $3 billion.

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Interactions Partners with Next Caller for Phone-Based Threat Assessment

Interactions Partners with Next Caller for Phone-Based Threat Assessment
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Interactions

Intelligent Virtual Assistance (IVA) company Interactions recently announced a new partnership with Next Caller, a phone fraud detection and authentication firm, with a goal of boosting Interactions’ fraud protection.

“At Interactions, security is a top priority,” said Mary McKenna, director of product management at Interactions. “Customer service interactions generate massive amounts of data that are often sensitive, so being able to provide our clients with state of the art security is a must. With this enhanced security offering, we strengthen our commitment to protect our clients and their customers from security threats.”

Under the agreement, Interactions will expand security services for its IVA enterprise clients by leveraging Next Caller’s VeriCall tool, which will add a layer of security to prevent fraudulent phone calls. VeriCall will help IVA assess the threat level of an incoming call using the caller’s automatic number identification (ANI) and network information. The resulting risk score will route high risk calls to either further screening questions or to a live agent, and will direct low-risk calls via a more frictionless user experience.

“Our partnership with Interactions will provide sophisticated real-time call verification and authentication technology to their customers,” said Ian Roncoroni, co-founder and CEO of Next Caller. “Fraud is a growing problem for businesses today, and can be especially damaging to companies that have to deal with large amounts of customer data. One small mishap can provide a fraudster with enough personal information to steal a customer’s identity.”

Interactions will use Next Caller’s technology alongside its current security offerings, including Voice Biometrics, which creates a personalized voice print for customers; ANI Blacklists, which cross-checks a caller’s ANI against existing databases of blacklisted numbers; and Voiceprint Blacklists, which uses the caller’s voiceprint to search an existing database of fraudster voiceprints.

Massachusetts-based Interactions leverages AI and voice-recognition technology to help big brands offer a more friendly, automated customer experience. The company most recently presented its IVA at FinovateFall 2018. Founded in 2004, Interactions facilitates 1 billion customer interactions per year across six different channels for large brands including Hyatt, Humana, LifeLock, and Mountain America Credit Union.

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Ohpen Migrates More than 400k Accounts in Partnership with Aegon

Ohpen Migrates More than 400k Accounts in Partnership with Aegon
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Ohpen

Ohpen is making tech progress as it has migrated over 400,000 Dutch savings and investment accounts from Aegon to its core banking engine, reports Antony Peyton of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).

As reported in April last year, financial services provider Aegon was partnering with Ohpen to develop a new platform for its Dutch services.

The firms said they are merging their domain knowledge within pensions and technology. Aegon will plug into Ohpen’s singular platform via a 100% API-based interface.

In the latest phase, Ohpen said this migration is in line with their previously communicated ambition to “build the infrastructure and architecture of the future”.

Chris Zadeh, founder and CEO of Ohpen, said it developed its cloud-based core banking engine “from scratch to ensure that the technology and processes actually work, all the time.”

After the completion of this migration, all accounts of clients with investment and (fiscal) savings products of Aegon Bank will be administered by Ohpen.

In other Ohpen news, last month it unveiled its Ohpen API Portal (OAP) in beta mode. In its view, IT and re-platforming projects in financial services have a “reputation of running over time and budget”.

The firm stays true to its name because when asked about wealthtech woes in the U.K. it was very transparent. In that exclusive report in November, it responded quickly and said it had made 19 staff redundant at its U.K. office due to the lack of action in the asset management space.

Ohpen’s Dutch operations appear to be unaffected by these U.K. job losses. As reported in an exclusive in July, LeasePlan Bank, the online savings bank based in the Netherlands, chose it to upgrade its whole core cloud banking engine.

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Ohpen demonstrated its core banking platform at FinovateFall 2012. The firm has raised €40 million in funding and includes Amerborgh among its investors.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Bankjoy, Bill.com, BioCatch, Interactions, iSignthis, Klarna, Launchfire, Passport, PayNearMe, Payoneer, Token, TransferWise, TrueAccord

On Finovate.com

  • Interactions Partners with Next Caller for Phone-Based Threat Assessment.
  • BioCatch Brings Behavioral Biometrics to ACI Worldwide.

Around the web

  • Token to support PSD2 compliance and open banking capabilities for U.K.’s thinkmoney.
  • SafeAmericaCU’s switch to AI-powered technology from Bankjoy helps the $433 million asset FI to earn “Best Practices” honors from CU Journal.
  • TransferWise secures £65 million syndicated debt facility with NatWest, JP Morgan, and LHV Bank.
  • iSignthis plans for Australian neobanking license in 2019.
  • PayNearMe’s electronic payment volume grew by more than 25% month-over-month in the past year.
  • Klarna joins Shopify Plus Partner program to power merchants.
  • TrueAccord wins a Healthy Mothers Workplace Award.
  • Passport recognized as one of Charlotte’s fastest growing companies.
  • Launchfire wins gold Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Technology Award.
  • Bill.com selects Comdata as Virtual Credit Card Provider for B2B Payments.
  • TopTracker partners with Payoneer to allows free payments between companies and freelancers.

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.

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