VASCO Rebrands as OneSpan to Focus on Secure Onboarding

VASCO Rebrands as OneSpan to Focus on Secure Onboarding
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Mergers & Acquisitions, OneSpan, VASCO

Business solutions company VASCO is making a major pivot today, along with a fully-fledged rebrand, as well as an acquisition to support the company’s new objectives.

VASCO, now known as OneSpan, has narrowed its focus to become an anti-fraud platform. OneSpan will trade on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “OSPN.” It is expected to begin trading on Monday, June 4.

OneSpan offers a Trusted Identity platform (TID), an API-based solution that aims to reduce fraud associated with onboarding and transactions while offering an enhanced experience for the end user. TID’s new Intelligent Adaptive Authentication reviews and scores data pulled from user behavior, devices, and transactions to offer a real-time view of user security without interfering with the user experience.

“The launch of our Trusted Identity platform provides a single foundation that spans the needs of our customers today and into the future while our name change underscores a generational evolution in our strategy,” said OneSpan CEO Scott Clements. “We listened closely to the challenges our customers are facing and identified a significant gap between customer needs and solutions available in the market. OneSpan is addressing this gap by delivering a much needed and innovative approach to reducing the billions of dollars banks are losing annually to fraud.”

Bolstering today’s transition is OneSpan’s acquisition of Dealflo for $54.5 million (£41 million). Founded in 2009 and headquartered in the U.K., Dealflo offers configurable onboarding solutions to financial services clients. The company has partnerships with Equifax, TransUnion’s iovation, Mitek, and VASCO’s eSignLive (now OneSpan Sign).

“This acquisition will enable us to grow our subscription revenue and Dealflo’s technology will be a major differentiator for our eSignLive solution,” said Clements. “In addition, Dealflo’s identity verification capabilities will allow us to accelerate the launch of our TID platform based onboarding, identity and anti-fraud solutions.”

Dealflo has operations across North America and EMEA, and is headquartered in London. The Dealflo team will join OpenSpan, working to bring Dealflo’s solutions into new geographic markets.

OneSpan presented as VASCO at FinovateFall 2017 in New York. The company debuted the OneSpan Sign (then eSignLive) Digital Lending Solution. The solution leverages the blockchain and e-signature capabilities to offer a compliant, digital lending solution. Last month, the company teamed up with Finovate alum nCino to offer nCino clients access to an electronic signature solution.

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Tradeshift Raises $250 Million in Round Led by Goldman Sachs

Tradeshift Raises $250 Million in Round Led by Goldman Sachs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Tradeshift

Fintech has a brand new unicorn.

Supply chain financing innovator Tradeshift has locked in $250 million in new capital courtesy of a just-completed Series E round. The investment was led by Goldman Sachs and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, and featured participation from HSBC, H14, Bullhound, and a new venture firm founded by Tradeshift founders called Gray Swan.

“We are very happy with this validation of our vision,” Christian Lanng, Tradeshift founder and CEO said. “We have always believed that the future of supply chains is 100% digital and that connecting trade is the first step to a digitally connected economy. This investment will enable us to continue our rapid growth and consolidate our leadership position. We welcome Goldman Sachs and PSP Investments as our newest investors and look forward to their valuable contributions as we enter our next growth phase.”

The latest round of funding takes Tradeshift’s total capital to more than $400 million and gives the San Francisco-based firm a valuation of $1.1 billion.

Working with more than 1.5 billion businesses in 190 countries around the world, Tradeshift enables supply chain payments and marketplaces, supporting trade finance alternatives, spend and receivables management, lending and payments, as well as private marketplaces. Tradeshift has helped free the $9 trillion in capital locked in online payments and was referred to in the November 2017 Forrester report on the Vendor Landscape: B2B Business Networks as the company whose technology “cause(s) other PO/invoice network vendors to change strategy.”

Tradeshift demonstrated the Instant Payments feature of its platform at FinovateEurope 2012. Instant Payments enables SMEs to receive instant payment for invoices approved through the platform, giving businesses access to lower interest rates compared to other funding opportunities. The solution also helps relieve pressure on cash flow due to late payments and extended payment terms.

Recently recognized with Best B2B Payments Platform honors from the FinTech Breakthrough Awards, Tradeshift launched Tradeshift Pay in May which combines supply chain payments and financing and blockchain-based early payments into a single solution. In March, the company partnered with Canon Business Process Services in a deal that enabled Canon customers to leverage Tradeshift’s platform to improve their supply chain, including source-to-pay processes.

The company began the year with the launch of Tradeshift Frontiers, an innovation lab and incubator geared toward helping bring the benefits of new technologies like AI and distributed ledgers to the world of supply chain management and global trade. Tradeshift was founded in 2010.

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Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Diebold, Finovate Global, Lidya

As Finovate goes increasingly global, so does our coverage of financial technology. Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World is our weekly look at fintech innovation in developing economies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.

Africa

  • Lidya Scores $6.9 Million in Series A Investment.
  • Kenya finance ministry publishes draft of initial regulations its digital lending industry.
  • Fintech Futures profiles Cameroon-based crypto wallet and exchange app, Interstellar.

LATAM

  • Argentine lending platform Moni raises $3 million in funding.
  • Brazil’s central bank launches new fintech sandbox, Laboratório de Inovações Financeiras e Technológicas (LIFT).
  • MarkitSERV extends network of derivatives clearinghouses to include Mexico’s Asigna.

CEE

  • Czech Republic’s Worldcore announces completion of its cryptocurrency exchange.
  • Is fintech an “opportunity or threat” to emerging Europe?
  • Czech utility conmpany, Pražská Plynárenská, to accept payments in bitcoin.

Asia

  • Ant Financial inks deal with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, its third deal with an established Chinese bank in a week.
  • Malaysian fintech Jirnexu raises $11 million in Series B led by Japan’s SBI Group.
  • Philippine government points to northern Philippines as a future blockchain, cryptocurrency, and fintech hub.

MENA

  • Emirates NBD teams up with Diebold Nixdorf to introduce digital kiosk, Emirates NBD EasyHub.
  • ADGM and KPMG Lower Gulf announce FinTech Abu Dhabi Innovation Challenge.
  • Emirates NBD introduces its NBD Accelerator Auto Loans program.

Top image designed by Freepik

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Compass Plus, FICO, Fidor Bank, OneSpan, Signifyd, Tradeshift, VASCO

On Finovate.com

  • Tradeshift Raises $250 Million in Round Led By Goldman Sachs.
  • VASCO Rebrands as OneSpan to Focus on Secure Onboarding.
  • Signifyd Takes in $100 Million in Series D Funding.

Around the web

  • Compass Plus announces new partnership with Payhuddle Solutions in Asia Pacific.
  • FICO to help Raiffeisen Bank accelerate digital transformation.
  • Fidor appoints Adam Woolford as Chief Information Officer.

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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WorkFusion Closes Add-On Funding Round

WorkFusion Closes Add-On Funding Round
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, WorkFusion

WorkFusion promises what many banks are seeking: to help clients outpace change. And fortunately, the New York-based company has funds to back up that idea. Robotic process automation (RPA) specialist WorkFusion quietly added to the $50 million funding round it received last month. Last week, the company closed on an undisclosed amount of funds from strategic investors including Guardian, New York-Presbyterian, PNC Bank, and Alpha Intelligence Capital.

Pete Cumello, WorkFusion CFO, tells us that the company’s aggregate funding stands at $120 million– and the undisclosed investment boosts the total up over that amount. Cumello also noted that the add-on round added “somewhat” to the company’s value.

WorkFusion’s goal with the new capital is to fuel growth and boost acquisitions. The company was founded in 2010 and offers products for financial services, insurance, and healthcare sectors. Broadly, WorkFusion’s mission is to help firms deal with the rapid rise of AI by reducing the complexity of AI and helping customers exploit the AI opportunity by leveraging products that pair people with the power of robotic software. Specifically, use cases for WorkFusion’s AI-powered RPA include creating a more efficient account opening process, increasing loan booking accuracy, and automating rule-based processes in trade finance.

The company began with a simple question, “What if software could learn to identify high-quality work and manage the people who perform it?” By 2014, WorkFusion had expanded on that idea and at FinovateFall 2014 it demoed Active Learning Automation in New York. The company’s goals for 2018 and beyond are to make software-as-a-service automation products that offer elastic, on-demand capability with the Automation Cloud.

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Azimo Raises $20 Million in New Funding

Azimo Raises $20 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Azimo, Funding

International money transfer innovator Azimo has locked in $20 million (£15 million) in new funding. The Series C investment was led by Rakuten Capital, and featured participation from a host of investors including e.ventures, Frog Capital, GR Capital Partners, Greycroft Partners, MCI, Quona Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank. The new funding takes Azimo’s total capital to $66 million.

Founder and CEO Michael Kent said the funding would help the company improve its platform and continue to grow its customer base. He added that Azimo would continue to focus on the European market, which he referred to as “the largest, most diverse and chronically underserved money transfer market in the world.”

Rakuten Capital managing partner Oskar Mielczarek de la Miel credited Azimo’s ability to keep customer acquisition costs low as one of the benefits of its partnership with the London-based fintech. “Customer acquisition costs have dropped by two-third since we first got involved with Azimo,” he said. “This latest funding will comfortably bring the business to sustained profitability within 12 months.”

Japan-based Rakuten Capital has been a consistent investor in fintech companies, including funding for other Finovate alums like CurrencyCloud, BlueVine, and Kreditech. Mielczarek de la Miel told The Financial Times that growth in the international digital money transfer industry has not only attracted investors, but also made firms like Azimo “very coveted assets,” that could be the target of acquirers.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in London, U.K., Azimo demonstrated its international digital money transfer service at FinovateEurope 2013. The company offers safe and secure money transfers, verified by MasterCard and Visa, to more than 195 countries and in more than 60 different currencies. Azimo provides instant cash delivery to more than 50 countries, and most money transfers are processed in less than 24 hours. Azimo’s mobile app, available at Google Play and the Apple App Store, gives users instant updates and real-time currency alerts, as well.

With more than 1.5 million registered customers and more than $1 billion in annualized sending volume, Azimo has made significant additions and enhancements to its coverage in recent months. The company announced new, improved service to China in March and last December, Azimo revamped its service in Nigeria to bring faster transfers and broader cash delivery options. Also that month, Azimo launched its cash pick-up service in the Philippines.

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Lidya Scores $6.9 Million in Series A Investment

Lidya Scores $6.9 Million in Series A Investment
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Lidya

Nigeria-based digital bank Lidya landed a fresh round of funding this week. The bank pulled in a Series A round totaling $6.9 million, an amount that marks the round as one of Nigeria’s largest tech investments. Combined with the $1.25 million Lidya received last March, today’s round brings the bank’s total funding to $8.2 million.

Omidyar Network led the round and was joined by new investors, Alitheia Capital, Bamboo Capital Partners, and Tekton Ventures; as well as existing investors Accion Venture Lab and Newid Capital. Ameya Upadhyay, Principal at Omidyar Network, is slated to join Lidya’s board of directors.

“We are excited by the overwhelming support from the investor community, which signals a great confidence in our business model and team,” said Ercin Eksin, Lidya co-founder. Lidya will use the funds to expand its loan book, scale in Nigeria, enter new markets in Africa, and onboard more employees, specifically data scientists and engineers.

“Access to flexible, affordable credit is at the crux of unlocking growth in the MSME sector. Lidya is addressing that by using smart algorithms to analyze transaction data from small businesses to assess their creditworthiness,” said Upadhyay. “This data-driven approach allows the company to offer loans without the need of hard collateral– a requirement that has scuttled MSME financing in Africa. In the process, Lidya gathers insights that help expand its product portfolio to become a holistic partner to small businesses.”

Eksin demonstrated Lidya’s credit scoring algorithm at FinovateFall 2016. The demo showcased how the bank helps small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) share or upload their bank data to manage cash flow, customer data, and create and send digital invoices. To help businesses smooth lumpy cashflow held up in invoices, Lidya lends from $500 to $50,000 without requiring the business to visit a physical branch.

Since it was founded in 2016, Lidya has extended 1,500 loans to help SMEs in industries ranging from farming to technology. The bank was recently accepted into MasterCard’s Start Path Program, an accelerator program that supports the next generation of commerce solutions.

Interested in learning more about the state of fintech in Africa? Check out FinovateAfrica, held in Cape Town, South Africa on November 27 and 28, 2018.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Azimo, Baker Hill, CREALOGIX, EdgeLab, Lidya, payworks, Persado, Revolut, Ripple, ThetaRay, WorkFusion

On Finovate.com

  • Lidya Scores $6.9 Million in Series A Investment.
  • Azimo Raises $20 Million in New Funding.
  • WorkFusion Closes Add-On Funding Round.

Around the web

  • Baker Hill to provide loan origination technology for Old Point National Bank, a Virginia-based FI with $988 million in assets.
  • Multiple-time Best of Show winner CREALOGIX adds cryptocurrency and blockchain market data to its Digital Banking Hub.
  • EdgeLab honored as MarketPlace Provider of the Year at the Temenos Partner and Customer Awards.
  • MarTechSeries features Persado’s AI platform.
  • CryptoGlobe: Currencies Direct Completes Successful European Pilot of Ripple’s xRapid and Calls XRP ‘A Game Changer.’
  • Payworks teams with Visa to enable omnichannel payments for CyberSource’s merchants.
  • ThetaRay wins Asian Banker Risk Management Award for “Regulatory Technology Implementation of the Year.”
  • Revolut unveils its “App Store for Business Banking” solution, Revolut Connect.

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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nCino Partners with Tech Qualled to Help Veterans Get into Fintech

nCino Partners with Tech Qualled to Help Veterans Get into Fintech
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: nCino

While many Americans are firing up the grill to prepare for Memorial Day weekend, nCino is celebrating the holiday with a new partnership. The company is teaming up with U.S. military veteran training organization, Tech Qualled, to help qualified veterans land jobs at the Wilmington, North Carolina-based fintech.

“At nCino, we are committed to hiring people who embody our culture and core values, and who bring a unique set of knowledge, skills, and experience to the table,” nCino EVP Josh Glover said. A former Marine and combat veteran himself, Glover added, “We are extremely proud to work with Tech Qualled to ensure we continue to hire the right people, and are honored to expand opportunities and access for those who give so much to our country.”

With 80% of its graduates meeting employer expectations in their first year after being hired, Tech Qualled credits its industry-relevant curriculum for helping veterans succeed. This includes focus on topics ranging from data center solutions and basic networking to cloud computing and software applications. Co-founder and president Justin Ossola noted that the company’s selection process was also instrumental in guiding veterans to opportunities that were ideal fits. “We have selective and specific criteria for making sure we pick candidates with the right blend of soft skills and personality traits,” Ossola said. Since its founding in 2015, the company has helped more than 120 veterans secure jobs in the technology industry.

Founded in 2012, nCino demonstrated its Bank Operating System at FinovateEurope 2017. With more than 275 employees and more than 130 clients, nCino provides a solution that combines CRM, loan originations workflow, ECM, business intelligence and reporting in a single, secure, cloud-based environment. nCino’s client institutions have experienced a 19% increase in loan value, a 34% shortening in loan closing time, and a 54% reduction in policy exceptions thanks to nCino’s platform.

In a busy 2018, nCino has added a Retail Sales and Service solution to its Bank Operating System, and won deployments of its technology with Banesco USA, TD Bank, and Yorkshire Building Society. In March, nCino worked with Enforce to help FIs transition to cloud-based solutions, and in April the company partnered with fellow Finovate alum VASCO to integrate its eSignLive-developed e-signature technology into its platform for banks.

nCino has raised more than $133 million in funding and includes Salesforce Ventures and Insight Venture Partners among its investors. Pierre Naudé is CEO.

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Mortgagetech Magnates Ellie Mae and Blend Team Up

Mortgagetech Magnates Ellie Mae and Blend Team Up
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Blend, Ellie Mae

Mortgagetech company Blend and mortgage finance platform provider Ellie Mae have joined forces this week, as reported by American Banker. Through the partnership, Blend is leveraging Ellie Mae’s electronic disclosure delivery, a part of the company’s Encompass mortgage solution.

The integration will augment Blend’s self-service mortgage platform by offering a more seamless user experience. Lenders who use Ellie Mae’s Encompass loan origination solution can create and deliver electronic disclosures through Ellie Mae’s document preparation software. The electronic delivery will not only facilitate the e-signature process, it will also enhance compliance by leaving an audit trail.

Ellie Mae’s Encompass mortgage solution helps lenders originate more loans with lower origination costs and a faster time to close. Using the full Encompass solution, Ellie Mae helps lenders save an average of $967 per loan in operational improvements, such as saving time and postage from having to deliver disclosures via snail mail. Blend estimates its integration of Ellie Mae’s electronic disclosure delivery will save an average of $15 per loan.

Earlier this spring, Pacific Union Financial partnered with Ellie Mae to leverage the full Encompass mortgage management solution, enabling customers of both Pacific Union and Ellie Mae to deliver loan data and documents from Encompass to Pacific Union more efficiently and in real time.

Founded in 1997, Ellie Mae demonstrated Encompass Consumer Connect at FinovateSpring 2017. The online lead generation tool turns consumer interest into a mortgage application by letting the borrower complete an application, provide and receive information, and order services from a single platform. During the demo, presenter Jonas Moe, SVP of Market Strategy, demonstrated the company’s API by showing off an Alexa integration with Encompass Plus– asking questions such as, “What loans have rate lock expirations this week?” and “Search for a better rate.” Ellie Mae is headquartered in California. Jonathan Corr is president and CEO.

Blend demoed its data-driven mortgage at FinovateSpring 2016. The company was recently recognized for its achievements in the mortgage industry at the MBA Insights Tech All-Star Awards and was also featured on the Forbes Fintech 50 list. Last summer, Blend pulled in a $100 Series D investment from Greylock, Emergence Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, Nyca Partners, and 8VC, bringing its total capital to more than $160 million.

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BondIT Raises $4 Million in New Funding, Adding to Series B

BondIT Raises $4 Million in New Funding, Adding to Series B
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BondIT, Funding

With $4 million in new funding, BondIT has added to the Series B investment it announced last fall and taken the round’s total to $18.2 million. St. Louis Business Journal reported this week that the fixed income portfolio management platform provider plans to use the capital for product development among other initiatives.

The company’s Series B round has been led by major investor Fosun Group, a division of Fosun International Limited, a Hong Kong-based investment holding company. When the investment in BondIT was initially announced last fall, Fosun Chairman Guo Guangchang said that BondIT’s technology “compliments (its) own financial ecosystem” and will enable wealth managers to upgrade their solutions with disruptive technology. The Group also said the investment reflected a commitment to the Israeli market.

BondIT uses machine learning algorithms and data science to enable fixed income advisors to make superior recommendations, improve client engagement, manage risk better, speed trade execution and meet compliance regulations easier. The platform improves productivity by automating portfolio construction, optimizing returns tailored to the individual customer, and enhancing analytics, and risk monitoring.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, BondIT demonstrated its fixed income portfolio management platform at FinovateFall 2016. The company began the year leveraging its strategic partnership with Fosun Group and relationship with Chinese financial data provider Wind to expand its coverage of China’s $7+ trillion interbank bond market.

In January, BondIT partnered with IBM, choosing the company’s ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio to enhance its fixed income portfolio services. “By harnessing the ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio tool within our framework, our platform can find the optimal solution within the constraints,” BondIT Chief Scientist Dr. Hillel Raz said. “If a perfect solution is not feasible due to the combination of constraints and market conditions, it can relax constraints to provide the closest fit for any set of portfolio requirements.”

The fact that the technology is cloud-based is also a major plus enabling the company, in the words of BondIT CTO Amit Godel, to scale as required to meet customer needs, as well as to “provide platform enhancements immediately.”

“The main advantage of the IBM technology for us as a startup was fast time-to-market, as well as its ability to handle many different types of variables and objectives, control numerous parameters, and handle infeasible problems,” Godel said.

Etai Ravid is BondIT founder and CEO. Check out our profile of the company featuring a Q&A with Ravid.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Blend, BondIT, Currency Cloud, Ellie Mae, Fiserv, Google, Lending Club, OurCrowd, PayPal, Prosper, Revolut

On Finovate.com

  • BondIT Raises $4 Million in New Funding, Adding to Series B.
  • Mortgagetech Magnates Ellie Mae and Blend Team Up.

Around the web

  • Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka & Finance to deploy core account processing platform and front-end teller systems from Fiserv.
  • PayPal expands its relationship with Google Pay, enabling PayPal as a payment option across the Google ecosystem.
  • Revolut announces plans to open office in Edinburgh, Scotland later this year.
  • Prosper increases borrower lending cap to $40,000, matching Lending Club’s cap.
  • OurCrowd signs MOU with Intesa Sanpaolo to promote access to capital.
  • IDG Connect interviews CurrencyCloud CTO Ed Addario.

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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