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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PaySend Adds KYC and Risk Management Tech from 4Stop

PaySend Adds KYC and Risk Management Tech from 4Stop
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: PaySend

Moving money with international money transfer platform PaySend just got a lot more secure. German KYC and anti-fraud technology solutions provider 4Stop has integrated its KYC, compliance and risk management technology with the company’s platform.

“We have always been focused on solving and removing the complexities for businesses’ KYC, regulatory obligations and fraud prevention obstacles in a manner that truly performed on a global scale,” 4Stop CEO Ingo Ernst said. “We are thrilled to see our technology integrated with PaySend and to further support their KYC, compliance and anti-fraud requirements with a fail-safe accuracy, and in the most streamlined and efficient manner possible.”

4Stop leverages hundreds of global KYC data sources, as well as a multi-faceted rules engine, real-time monitoring, rich database management, and data science to provide maximum, real-time KYC coverage. The company’s platform also enables businesses to future-proof their technology by activating any required KYC for compliance as regulations are updated.

Headquartered in Malta and founded in 2015, PaySend demonstrated its international payments and money remittance platform at FinovateEurope 2016. The company leverages a global banking network – as well as partnerships with Visa, MasterCard, and UnionPay – to enable FIs to participate in a network that simplifies remittances, tokenizes card data in demand for social-based transfers, and decreases the cost of sending money.

Earlier this month, PaySend was shortlisted in the Best Consumer Payments category of the PayTech 2018 awards. In 2018 alone, the company has launched its service in the UAE, Canada, Mexico, and Israel – with more than 50 countries now able to receive PaySend transfers. More than 100,000 people currently use its service.

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Finovate Alums Take Top Honors at FinTech Breakthrough Awards

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Apex Clearing Corporation, BizEquity, Cloud Lending Solutions, Dynamics, eMoney Advisor, Experian, Finicity, Fiserv, Green Dot, Klarna, Kofax, MasterCard, NuData Security, PayPal, Risk Ident, Stash, TD Ameritrade, ThreatMetrix, Tradeshift, TransUnion

Dedicated to recognizing “the top companies and products in the financial services and technology industry today,” FinTech Breakthrough has announced its FinTech Breakthrough Award Winners for 2018. This marks the second year the independent organization has sponsored the fintech awards event, recognizing fintech startups and veterans from a wide variety of categories including payments, lending, investing, and regtech.

“The FinTech Breakthrough Awards serve as a testament to the passion, skill and vision of individuals and teams that are truly setting the standard for innovation in the global FinTech industry,” Managing Director for FinTech Breakthrough James Johnson said in 2017 during the Awards’ inaugural year. “We are thrilled to recognize all of the FinTech Breakthrough Award winners for their well-deserved industry recognition as they drive the global FinTech market forward.”

This year featured 20 Finovate alums earning top honors from FinTech Breakthrough. The names and Finovate demo dates for each winning alum – as well as the category they won – are featured below. For a complete list of 2018 FinTech Breakthrough Award Winners, visit the company’s awards announcement page.

Leadership

Consumer Lending

  • Innovation Award for Consumer Lending – Text for Credit by Experian (FF17)

Business Lending

Wealth Management

Payments

Investments

Consumer Banking

Financial Research and Data

Fraud Prevention and Transaction Security

This marks the second time both eMoney Advisor and ThreatMetrix have been honored by the FinTech Breakthrough Awards. Among last year’s winners were a significant number of Finovate alums including: Sindeo, BizFi, DriveWealth, Quovo, Jumio, Trulioo, Qumram, and Xero.

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WeInvest Raises $12.3 Million for its WealthTech Platform

WeInvest Raises $12.3 Million for its WealthTech Platform
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, WeInvest

B2B digital wealth management solutions provider WeInvest has taken in an investment of its own today. The Singapore-based company just closed on $12.3 million in Series A funding.

The financing comes from a handful of angel investors, along with London-based Schroders, which acquired a minority equity stake in the company. This is WeInvest’s first major funding after an undisclosed round in 2017.

In an interview, WeInvest Co-Founder and CEO Bhaskar Prabhakara told DEALSTREETASIA that the funds will be used to promote product development and to “expand the functional range of [the] platform across regional regulatory requirements, business models, and products.”

Unlike other models, WeInvest’s roboadvisory services empower traditional advisors with tools to help them compete with pure roboadvisory plays. WeInvest has three main products. TrackWealth offers simplified account aggregation and wealth analysis for advisors to provide their clients. GrowWealth, provides goal-based and thematic investing roboadvisory services that advisors can offer their self-directed clients. And AdviseWealth offers a service for relationship managers.

Founded in 2015 and with 38 employees, WeInvest offers its services in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, India, and Dubai. Prabhakara recently presented AdviseWealth at FinovateMiddleEast 2018 in Dubai. WeInvest has 5 clients and anticipates it will double that number by the end of the year.

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Watch Demo Videos from FinovateSpring for Free

Watch Demo Videos from FinovateSpring for Free
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinovateSpring 2018

If you’re bummed because you missed out on FinovateSpring– or just missed a demo session to take a conference call– we’ve got you covered! Starting today, you can watch all of the FinovateSpring demos for free on Finovate’s video archives.

Of course, there’s nothing like seeing the demos live and in person– networking opportunities included– but this is the next best thing. To start you off with a small sample, here are the five companies whose demos won Best of Show (as voted by the audience).

AlphaRank

Conversation.one

Dynamics

Kasasa

Trusona

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Mitek Acquires A2iA for $49.7 Million

Mitek Acquires A2iA for $49.7 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Mergers & Acquisitions, Mitek

Digital identity verification company Mitek is bolstering its capabilities this week with the acquisition of A2iA, an artificial intelligence and image analysis company, for $49.7 million. This is Mitek’s second acquisition in under a year– last October the company acquired ICAR for $15 million.

A2iA leverages AI and machine learning to create algorithms that process millions of checks, IDs and documents daily for financial services companies, retailers, mobile operators, healthcare providers, and governments. The company, which pulled in revenues of more than $15 million last year, works in more than 42 countries and 11 languages. A2iA’s software is used by top U.S. banks as well as all banks in the U.K., 90% of French banks, and 90% of Brazilian banks. It is leveraged by more than 75,000 ATMs worldwide.

In the press release, James B. DeBello, CEO and Chairman of Mitek said that he anticipates the acquisition to help Mitek get ahead in the industry. He added, “Mitek’s Mobile Verify product will be able to read government-issued identity documents even more accurately and quickly than today, and authenticate them using A2iA’s advanced AI algorithms, thereby increasing companies’ trust that their customers are who they say they are.” The move will also double the size of Mitek’s Labs team, a group that has been behind each of Mitek’s 39 patents.

Mitek software is deployed in 6,100 U.S. banks, including all 10 of the largest U.S. financial institutions, and is used by more than 80 million end consumers. The company is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the ticker “MITK” with a market cap of $305 million. Mitek was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in San Diego, California. The company most recently demoed its MobileVerify solution at FinovateFall 2017. Earlier this month, Mitek made headlines when it agreed to deliver digital KYC for cryptocurrency broker BTCDirect.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Avaloq, ID.me, Klarna, Mitek, Moneyhub, PaySend, Revolut, Sberbank, Temenos, Tinkoff Credit Systems, WeInvest

On Finovate.com

  • Mitek Acquires A2iA for $49.7 Million.
  • WeInvest Raises $12.3 Million for its WealthTech Platform.
  • Finovate Alums Take Top Honors at FinTech Breakthrough Awards.
  • PaySend Adds KYC and Risk Management Technology from 4Stop..

Around the web

  • Deutsche Bank Luxembourg to deploy Avaloq Banking Suite.
  • Temenos unveils new digital onboarding and origination platform, Temenos Origination.
  • Revolut announces support for XRP and Bitcoin Cash.
  • Moneyhub integrates with Intelliflo to enable real-time, two-way sharing between financial advisors and clients.
  • Klarna acquires e-commerce shopping cart, Shop.co.
  • Sberbank to test ICO technology issued by Level One.
  • Tinkoff Bank to launch a new Development Hub in Sochi.
  • ID.me teams with LinkedIn to provide one year of LinkedIn Premium for free to U.S. service members and veterans.

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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GoodData Launches GoodData Spectrum UI Tools

GoodData Launches GoodData Spectrum UI Tools
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: GoodData

Data analytics and insights company GoodData has launched a new tool today that will help businesses transform their user interface. GoodData Spectrum is a set of three user interaction frameworks that deliver insights to help support decision-making and change how organizations use analytics.

GoodData Spectrum consists of three frameworks:

  • GoodData.UI offers turnkey, commercial, open source, and custom components organizations can use to build their own custom apps.
  • KPI Dashboards helps organizations track KPI changes over time and receive alerts when KPIs reach a certain threshold.
  • Analytic Designer allows organizations to explore curated datasets and discover insights.

“Analytics within organizations today is no longer about one-size-fits-all with low adoption rather, analytics is now critical to everyday business success,” said Roman Stanek, CEO at GoodData. “With GoodData Spectrum, we now enable data and insights to support the complete range of business decisions.”

In the press release, Cody Alton from GoodData client Zalando said that the new tools help his organization design with end users in mind. He added, “With GoodData Spectrum we can roll out customized features based on our product vision and roadmap to ensure we exceed the needs of our customers.”

Founded in 2007, GoodData works with 70,000 companies across the globe, including 8 of the 10 largest brands. The company’s business intelligence solutions reach more than 1 million end users. At FinovateFall 2017, GoodData showcased its Insights PaaS. Last month, the company made its first foray into insuretech with the launch of two new solutions, Underwriting Insights and Claims Insights

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