Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “D3 Banking’s Platform Goes Live at First Tennessee Bank”
  • “Finovate Debuts: Overbond Leverages Technology to Reimagine Bond Issuance”

Around the web

  • Zopa applies for U.K. banking license.
  • AGS Transact enters strategic alliance with ACI Worldwide, bringing its Universal Payments platform to the Indian market.
  • Wipro extends partnership with ASG Technologies to enhance compliance for financial services companies around the world.
  • iSignthis expands its reach into bitcoin industry as partner Coinify ApS announces new partnership with Blockchain.
  • NCR to deploy its Pulse Banking app for operation management at Germany’s Sparkasse Jena.
  • ShopKeep ranks 116 on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500.
  • Standard Chartered launches personalized investment tool for affluent clients.
  • Ping Identity becomes a Workday Certified Solution Partner.
  • TechCrunch reports: CrowdFlower forms a three-person scientific advisory board.
  • Bitcoin wallet company Blockchain is beta testing a new in-wallet purchase-option in partnership with payments-startup Coinify.
  • Kony enhances its Mobility Platform with launch of “Nitro” omnichannel technology.
  • Interactions launches voice biometrics for seamless caller authentication within its Intelligent Virtual Assistant.

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.

Ahead of Anticipated IPO, ayondo Acquires TradeHero

Ahead of Anticipated IPO, ayondo Acquires TradeHero

screen-shot-2016-11-15-at-10-15-26-am

Brokerage and social trading platform ayondo has acquired the TradeHero brand. Singapore-based TradeHero offers a mobile-only social trading app that competes with ayondo’s web-based brokerage platform.

The deal expands Germany-based ayondo’s footprint in Singapore and offers it access to TradeHero’s stock-market-simulation app that has been ranked the #1 finance app in the Apple app store in 90+ countries. It is expected to bolster ayondo’s 220,000 users from 195 countries.

The acquisition is strategic for ayondo and part of a string of expansion efforts. In a press release, ayondo CEO Robert Lempka said, “For ayondo, mobile technology is a big part of the Group’s strategy for expansion and growth. The TradeHero brand is extremely well established in Asia and was the missing piece in our product range.” Today’s news comes almost a year after ayondo partnered with KGI Fraser Securities to launch KGI Contrax, a platform for investors to trade Contracts for Difference.

Regarding the transition, TradeHero co-founder Dominic Morris, who will now serve as the head of innovation for ayondo Group, said, “ayondo and TradeHero share the same vision; that is, to democratise the world of investing through easy-to-use, disruptive technology and knowledge sharing.”

screen-shot-2016-11-15-at-10-16-22-am

ayondo began its expansion into Singapore in 2014 after securing $4 million in funding from Lumnior Capital. Most recently, the company announced a $117 million reverse takeover agreement with Starland Holdings, a Singapore-based property developer. The deal, which has yet to be finalized, will mark ayondo as the first fintech company to IPO on the Singapore Exchange (SGX).

TradeHero debuted its app at FinovateAsia 2012 in Singapore. Prior to today’s acquisition, the company had raised a total of $10.5 million. ayondo most recently debuted the newest version of its platform at FinovateEurope 2013.

P2Binvestor Scoops Up More Than $7 Million in New Funding

P2Binvestor Scoops Up More Than $7 Million in New Funding

p2binvestor_homepage_november2016

Small business marketplace lender P2Binvestor announced $7.7 million in new funding, courtesy of a Series A round led by Rockies Venture Club (RVC). Also participating in the Series A was Japanese venture capital firm, Future Venture Capital Co. (FVC). The investment in P2Binvestor was FVC’s first direct investment outside Japan.

P2Binvestor founder and CEO Krista Morgan said that her company was filling a significant niche for SMEs seeking financing to grow. “We’re seeing more interest in our model as venture funding hits a two-year low and more entrepreneurs are looking for ways to grow their business—while preserving their equity—by using good-quality, flexible debt,” Morgan said. She added that the new capital will be invested in technology as well as sales and marketing “as we scale to meet market demand.”

p2binvestor_stage_ff2014

P2Binvestor founder and CEO Krista Morgan demoed her company’s technology at FinovateFall 2014.

Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, and founded in 2012, P2Binvestor demonstrated its new borrower app and loan-management dashboard at FinovateFall 2014. The company specializes in providing asset-backed lines of credit, using the crowdlending format to connect both accredited and institutional investors with small businesses needing funding, and using the latest in technology to streamline the underwriting process and provide due diligence for investors. In September, P2Binvestor won the finance and banking PowerBook award from the Denver Business Journal, and extended a $10 million credit facility with Urban Settlement Solutions.

P2Binvestor has funded more than $350 million in revolving credit to more than 80 SME borrowers since the spring of 2014. The company hopes its crowd of 150 accredited retail and institutional investors will help P2Binvestor fund an additional 112 new borrowers by March 2017. P2Binvestor anticipates more than $8 million in revenue this year and expects to be cash-flow positive in 2017. The company’s average line of credit is $1 million.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • P2Binvestor Scoops Up More Than $7 Million in New Funding.
  • Ahead of Anticipated IPO, ayondo Acquires TradeHero.

Around the web

  • IBM introduces blockchain-based KYC project with Singapore’s KYCK!
  • Cardlytics adds Peter Gleason as president of international operations.
  • Jordan Ahli Bank goes live with T24 core banking system from Temenos.
  • Let’s Talk Payments features Ripple and Plaid in roundup of “startups to support your startup.”
  • Ben Brandt of Retirement Starts Today Radio interviews ProActive Budget.
  • ProfitStars announces RemitPlus Express, a remittance solution.
  • InComm collaborates with CVV+ to reduce payment card fraud.
  • Student Loan Genius powers student-loan benefits for employees of Pinterest, Twilio and Spredfast.
  • Prosper names Chief Executive Officer David Kimball.

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.

Finovate Debuts: GoodData Helps Banks Put Their Data to Work

Finovate Debuts: GoodData Helps Banks Put Their Data to Work

screen-shot-2016-11-10-at-5-36-38-pm

Every financial services organization produces data, but not all of them organize and “product-ize” the information because dealing with high data volumes is costly. GoodData seeks to help financial services companies monetize their data in a cost-efficient manner.

Blaine Mathieu, chief marketing and products officer, explains: “For us and for our clients, data and analytics are our profit center. We do this by helping you take your data, wrap it in analytics, and product-ize it and then distribute those products securely and on a massive scale.” Mathieu points out that “turning data into insight and finally into action is something we call a smart business application.”

At FinovateFall 2016 earlier this year, GoodData—used by companies across a range of industries—unveiled a product specifically for the financial services sector. The analytics delivered by GoodData help financial institutions personalize applications for clients’ needs, improve customer loyalty, and potentially increase sales.

Company facts:

  • Based in San Francisco
  • Founded in 2007
  • 42% of Fortune 500 companies use GoodData
  • Its network is made up of more than 40,000 global businesses across a variety of industries
29101696883_a1d2b6c568_kGoodData’s Blaine Mathieu, chief marketing and product officer, and Marco Mankerious, senior sales engineer, on stage at FinovateFall 2016.

We caught up with Roman Stanek, CEO and founder of GoodData, for a personal perspective on the company and its future plans.2fe61bd

Finovate: What problem does GoodData solve?

Stanek: The GoodData platform allows enterprises to take their latent data and turn it into a profit center. Customers embed analytics into their existing workflows to distribute customized analytics to their entire business ecosystem. GoodData allows you to launch data products in weeks or months, not years. Our team of experts support enterprises from inception through launch, and with thousands of successful launches we can help enterprises monetize their data assets quickly and easily.

Finovate: Who are your primary customers?

Stanek: GoodData’s primary customers are large corporations who have recognized the value in their data and are disrupting their markets by offering data products to their end users. GoodData works with companies in all verticals with the following industries leading the way: healthcare, media, retail, financial services, travel and hospitality, along with ISVs across all verticals.

Finovate: How does GoodData solve the problem better?

Stanek: By embedding analytics into the business users’ daily applications, thereby eliminating the need to toggle between applications, insight is delivered at the point of action. Given that most business users aren’t analysts, dashboards also provide suggested actions to front-line managers to easily make decisions.

Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of your solution.

Stanek: One of my favorite implementations is with ServiceChannel, a facilities management company that has completely disrupted their market. Along with providing analytics to their customers, they’ve also provided data to the contractors vying for work who would not normally think about data analysis. They’ve also provided predictive analytics to their customers by bringing in weather and geography data to help gauge when they may need to contract for HVAC work prior to large storms or heat waves, as an example. We have dozens and dozens of examples of customers who have completely changed the way their industry looks at and uses data today.

Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?

Stanek: I became an entrepreneur in the mid-90s, and while there were some difficult lessons learned, as with any successful project, I enjoyed the challenge of building a team and a company. I am constantly innovating in the dynamic, high-tech sphere and have over 20 years’ experience to help guide my decision making.

Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from GoodData that we can look forward to over the next few months?

Stanek: GoodData is excited about helping companies building smart business applications to allow all those involved in the business ecosystem access to actionable analytics. We’re also very excited about how GoodData plays a role in AI with our predictive and prescriptive analytics capabilities.

Finovate: Where do you see GoodData a year or two from now?

Stanek: You’ll see GoodData partner with large SIs to expand our network and bring analytics to everyone in the business network. We’ll work with innovative companies interested in disrupting and transforming their industry. And we’ll continue to focus on our AI technology.

GoodData’s Blaine Mathieu, chief marketing and product officer, and Marco Mankerious, senior sales engineer, debuted at FinovateFall 2016:

Nutmeg Spices Things Up with New $37 Million Investment

Nutmeg Spices Things Up with New $37 Million Investment

screen-shot-2016-11-14-at-11-13-15-am

U.K.-based robo-advisory pioneer Nutmeg scored $37 million (£30 million) in a Series C funding round this week. Convoy, Hong Kong’s largest firm of independent financial advisers, led the round, while existing investors Schroders, Balderton Capital, Pentech, Armada Investment Group, and Nigel Wray also participated.

The new investment brings the company’s total funding to $75 million and makes it the largest raise for an E.U.-based digital wealth advisor. Also, as Nutmeg said in its press release, “This is also the largest fintech fundraise since the U.K. voted to leave the European Union.”

Nutmeg will use the funds to offer more products and services and to accelerate growth. The company is currently managing $625 million (£500 million) for more than 20,000 clients. Since launching in 2011, Nutmeg has delivered returns between 6.5% and 47% for specific savings goals, ISAs, and pensions.

screen-shot-2016-11-14-at-2-51-18-pmNutmeg’s Nick Hungerford, former CEO, and Jono Hey, head of UX, demoed at FinovateEurope 2012 in London.

Nutmeg debuted its digital wealth-investment technology—before the term robo-advisor had even been coined—at FinovateEurope 2012 in London. In early 2016 the company was recognized on the European Top 100 List at the European Fintech Awards, and the company’s former CEO and founder Nick Hungerford was named one of the U.K.’s coolest people in fintech. In May of 2016, Martin Stead, Nutmeg’s former chief revenue officer, assumed the role of CEO.

Andreessen Horowitz Leads $25 Million Investment in Quantopian

Andreessen Horowitz Leads $25 Million Investment in Quantopian

quantopian_homepage_november2016

With an investment of $25 million led by Andreessen Horowitz, quantitative investment crowdfunding platform Quantopian adds a successful Series C to a year that featured winning the endorsement of billionaire investor, Stephen Cohen. This summer, Cohen invested $250 million in a fund that uses algorithms generated by Quantopian members.

Also participating in Quantopian’s funding round were Bessemer Venture Partners, Point72 Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and Spark Capital—all existing investors. The Series C takes Quantopian’s total capital to nearly $50 million.

“Quantopian has a chance to really disrupt this industry by bringing a distributed-contributor approach to finance, harnessing technology to educate and empower the greatest minds around the world,” says Alex Rampell, Andreessen Horowitz general partner. Rampell, who will join the company’s board of directors, called Quantopian “the next-generation BlackRock”

quantopian_stage_fs2013

Quantopian co-founders, CEO John Fawcett and CTO Jean Breech demonstrated Quantopian Live Trading at FinovateSpring 2013.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Quantopian demonstrated its technology at FinovateSpring 2013. With more than 300,000 algorithms on its platform, Quantopian gives quantitative-based investment and trading system-developers the capital, data, and R&D environment to build, test, and profit from their trading strategies. The company’s community of developers has more than 90,000 members, and includes everyone from financial professionals and data scientists to students and entrepreneurs.

In addition to funding and investment, Quantopian made 2016 headlines with a set of major C-level hires. In July, the company added Dragan Skoko as its new Head of Trading, and in June, Quantopian brought onboard Jonathan Larkin as chief investment officer and Derek Meisner as general counsel and chief compliance officer.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Andreessen Horowitz Leads $25 Million Investment in Quantopian
  • “Finovate Debuts: GoodData Helps Banks Put Their Data to Work”
  • “Nutmeg Spices Things Up with New $37 Million Investment”

Around the web

  • FinDEVr alum Smart Token Chain completes first smart token transfer via Ripple network.
  • From apps to APIs: Dwolla rebrands as platform.
  • PwC unveils Vulcan Digital Asset Services, a suite of digital currency solutions including digital wallets and international payment processing.
  • Entersekt to power mobile app security for FirstBank.
  • CoverHound partners with Metromile to offer more coverage options for auto and property insurance.
  • WealthForge exceeds $250M in transactions completed on platform.
  • Kabbage hires chief technology officer and chief data officer.
  • AutoGravity to power digital car sales and finance app for Fletcher Jones Motorcars.
  • Visa Developer Challenge winner Corezoid earns recognition at Money 20/20 Hackathon.

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.

Fintech Favorites

Fintech Favorites

img_0104

Kara Tham and Goh Wei Hao of Top Image Systems during their demo at FinovateAsia 2016.

Two of the companies in today’s Fintech Favorites, IBM and ACI Worldwide, led presentations at our developers conference, FinDEVr, earlier this year. FinDEVr returns to New York City, 21/22 March 2017, and will make its London debut in June 2017.

Fintech in Asia

  • Thailand’s KBank will deploy IBM’s (FD16) Hyperledger blockchain infrastructure to make it easier to manage complex corporate credit business processes. The bank initially is piloting the technology as a way to certify Letters of Guarantee.
  • “Leading by example,” in the words of Lawrence Ang, MAS has published its first set of data APIs this week. The 12 APIs include datasets on exchange and interest rates; they are part of what Ang, executive director of MAS’s IT dept., says is part of an effort to “encourage financial industry players to publish open APIs on their datasets.” Ang says more datasets will be published as APIs “in the coming months.”

Blockchain

  • KBank’s use of Hyperledger is part of a growing trend toward deploying blockchain technology to simplify and improve business transactions. IBM Technical Evangelist Stefania Kaczmarczyk discussed the opportunities in blockchain technology during her FinDEVr Silicon Valley presentation last month, “Implementation of the Hyperledger Project at IBM with Blockchain-as-a-Service.”

Payments

  • PYMNTS.com interviews W.A. Proctor, VP and product line manager of UP Immediate Payments at ACI Worldwide (FD16) in the wake of the company’s announcement that it would partner with VocaLink to bring end-to-end payments to FIs.

It’s a bot world after all

  • Among the four companies to win Best of Show at FinovateAsia was Finn.ai (F16), with its white-label, virtual bank assistant.
  • Bots are no longer bound to the two-dimensions of a smartphone screen. City Union Bank in Chennai, India, has launched Lakshmi, an AI bot housed in the body of a humanoid robot that responds in English (“and a range of physical gestures”?!) to “generic questions” on more than 125 subjects. The robot, which stands about 20 inches tall and is being tested at HDFC Bank’s innovation lab, can also provide more detailed information such as transaction history on its display screen.

Regtech

  • Mizuho Bank’s subsidiary in the Netherlands is the latest FI to implement risk and regulatory reporting technology from Wolters Kluwer. Along with BGFI, Banco Santander, Taiwan Business Bank, Bank BGZ BNP Paribas, and its parent Mizuho Bank, Mizuho Bank Nederland N.V. will deploy OneSumX to help it meet new regulatory changes from the Dutch National Bank. These changes include providing reports adopting the global standard Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) when producing financial reports.

Friday Favorites: Financial Institutions Honor Veterans

Friday Favorites: Financial Institutions Honor Veterans

If there’s one thing Americans can agree on, it’s honoring and celebrating the service of our veterans both past and present. Given the contentious election week in the United States, you’d think U.S. financial institutions would be rolling out the red, white and blue on their websites on Veterans Day today. But there was surprisingly little activity at the major banks. Most had the same old-same old on their homepages. Even Navy Federal Credit Union passed on adding anything extra for the day.

The only top-50 banks with Veterans Day graphics were Bank of America, Zions and of course USAA, all displaying page-dominating graphics on their homepages (see below). We also looked at a few credit unions (at random) and found BMI Federal Credit Union and PenFed honoring vets (see below).

Zions bank homepage featuring Veterans Day homage
Zions bank homepage featuring Veterans Day homage (11 Nov 2016)

 

USAA homepage on Veterans Day (11 Nov 2016)
USAA homepage on Veterans Day (11 Nov 2016)

 

Bank of America Veterans Day image on homepage (11 Nov 2016)
Bank of America Veterans Day image on homepage (11 Nov 2016)

 

penfed-veterans-day-homepage
PenFed Credit Union homepage on Veterans Day (11 Nov 2016)

 

bmi-fcu-vets-day
BMI Federal Credit Union leads with a Veterans Day announcement (11 Nov 2016)

FinovateAsia 2016: A Tale Told in Tweets

FinovateAsia 2016: A Tale Told in Tweets

img_2092We are thrilled so many people came out to attend FinovateAsia 2016, our first foray into Hong Kong. It was a great opportunity to see firsthand how one of Asia’s most dynamic economies is embracing the worldwide revolution in fintech innovation.

For those unable to attend FinovateAsia in person, our live coverage on Twitter (@Finovate) was a way for fintech fans to follow along. And as always, our live tweeting was supplemented by the insights and observations from our knowledgeable attendees. Here’s a small sample of what they saw and had to say this week in Hong Kong via Twitter.

fa2016_tweet_009

fa2016_tweet_007

fa2016_tweet_006

fa2016_tweet_005

fa2016_tweet_008

fa2016_tweet_004

fa2016_tweet_003

fa2016_tweet_0002

fa2016_tweet_002

fa2016_tweet_001

fa2016_tweet_0000

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “FinovateAsia 2016: A Tale Told in Tweets”

Around the web

  • Vantiv to acquire Moneris USA for $425 million.
  • IBM to help Thailand’s KBank develop blockchain network to fast-track complex corporate credit processes.
  • Aerospike launches new version of platform designed for enterprise customer-engagement apps.
  • Wipro wins 2016 Customer’s Choice award in the IT Provider of the Year category of the Payload Asia Awards.
  • Bill.com introduces new digital payments solution, Bill.com Connect.
  • “Overbond Integrates Thomson Reuters Data Universe to Optimize Price Discovery”
  • MX to power financial data for Tyfone digital banking solutions.

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.