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Roostify Garners $500,000 in Funding from Wells Fargo Accelerator

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 9, 2015
Categories: Funding, Roostify

Mortgage loan technology startup, Roostify, landed $500,000 in funding last week.

The San Francisco-based company received the funds as a part of its participation in Wells Fargo’s startup accelerator program, a semiannual bootcamp for fintech companies. The year-old accelerator has hosted Finovate alums EyeVerify and Zumigo, which graduated in the spring of 2014.

The $500,000 installment adds to Roostify’s series A round received mid-month October from USAA, Colchis Capital Management, and two tier 1 banks. Since the amount of the series A was undisclosed, Roostify’s total funding is unknown.

Roostify debuted at FinovateSpring 2014 in San Jose.

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Fintech Fundings: 20 Companies Raise $175 Million Week Ending 6 Nov 2015

By Jim Bruene Posted on November 9, 2015
Categories: Uncategorized

Last week, 20 companies raised $175 million, including $25 million in debt. It was the sixth week in a row that the number of fintech fundings topped 20. And the dollar total has hit 9-figures ($100 mil) or more 12 weeks in a row now. Both of the streaks will likely stop during the holidays, but so far the sector has defied gravity for the past 12 to 18 months, so even December could surprise.

Chinese P2P lender Meili Jinrong led the pack with a massive $65 million A round. But the most surprising funding was the $42 million to the Atlanta-based alternative credit bureau, FactorTrust. Two Finovate alums added capital: Roostify which picked up $500,000 from Wells Fargo’s startup accelerator to further its mission to streamline the mortgage process for consumers and Figo, a German-based firm, which banked “7 figures” to expand its suite of banking APIs.

This week’s funding puts the 2015 year-to-date total to $16.0 billion, or $22 billion if you add the two October IPOs.

Here are the rounds by size from 31 Oct through 6 Nov 2015:

Meili Jinrong
P2P lending
Latest round: $65 million Series A
Total raised: $65 million
HQ: China
Tags: Consumer, lending, loans, peer-to-peer, investing
Source: FT Partners

FactorTrust
Alternative credit bureau
Latest round: $42 million
Total raised: $42 million
HQ: Atlanta, Georgia
Tags: Enterprise, underwriting, lending, risk management
Source: Crunchbase

Expansion Capital Group
Small business alt-lender
Latest round: $25 million Debt
Total raised: $37.1 million (includes $35 million debt)
HQ: Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Tags: SMB, financing, credit, loans, commercial lending
Source: Crunchbase

Invoice2Go
Invoicing solution
Latest round: $15 million Series C
Total raised: $50 million
HQ: Redwood City, California
Tags: SMB, invoicing, accounts receivables, billing, accounting
Source: Crunchbase

Mercatus
Energy-project financing
Latest round: $6.7 million
Total raised: $10.4 million
HQ: San Jose, California
Tags: Enterprise, SMB, investing
Source: Crunchbase

inov8
Mobile payments technology
Latest round: $5.4 million
Total raised: $5.4 million
HQ: Lahore, Pakistan
Tags: Consumer, mobile, payments
Source: FT Partners

POKKT
Rewards and alt-currency platform
Latest round: $5 million Series B
Total raised: $7.5 million
HQ: Mumbai, India
Tags: Consumer, payments, rewards, gaming
Source: Crunchbase

Compeon
Finance portal for small businesses
Latest round: $2.74 million
Total raised: $2.74 million
HQ: Emsdetten, Germany
Tags: SMB, lead gen, financing, commercial lending, price comparison
Source: Crunchbase

Eagle Alpha
Alternative data platform for asset managers
Latest round: $1.8 million Seed
Total raised: $6.3 million
HQ: Dublin, Ireland
Tags: Advisers, trading, investing, wealth management
Source: Crunchbase

Ingage
Investor relations platform
Latest round: $1.7 million
Total raised: $4.6 million
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Tags: Enterprise, investing, compliance, information management
Source: FT Partners

BTL Group
Blockchain technology
Latest round: $1.5 million
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Tags: Blockchain, bitcoin, cryptocurrency, enterprise
Source: FT Partners

Change Labs
Personal finance tracking
Latest round: $800,000
Total raised: $800,000
HQ: Caesarea, Israel
Tags: Consumer, PFM, financial management, messaging, savings
Source: Crunchbase

Roostify
Home buying application
Latest round: $500,000
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: San Francisco, California
Tags: Consumer, Wells Fargo (investor), Finovate alum
Source: FT Partners

Call Levels
Financial markets monitoring and notifications
Latest round: $500,000
Total raised: $500,000
HQ: Singapore
Tags: Consumer, investing, trading, securities
Source: Crunchbase

TawiPay
International remittances price-comparison site
Latest round: $400,000 Seed
Total raised: $500,000
HQ: Lausanne, Switzerland
Tags: Consumer, payments, remittances, lead gen, price comparison
Source: Crunchbase

ZapChain
Bitcoin trading community
Latest round: $350,000
Total raised: $350,000
Tags: Consumer, investing, trader, cryptocurrency, social network
Source: Crunchbase

Loanbaba.com
Consumer loan marketplace
Latest round: $320,000 Seed
Total raised: $320,000
HQ: Mumbai, India
Tags: Consumer, lending, lead gen, loans, small business loans, mortgage
Source: Crunchbase

Wirex Limited
Bitcoin debit card (e-coin)
Latest round: $187,000 Crowdfunding
Total raised: $187,000
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Tags: Consumer, debit card, payments, cryptocurrency
Source: Crunchbase

Figo (formerly known as LeanBanking)
Banking APIs
Latest round: “7 figures” (exact amount undisclosed)
Total raised (previously): $780,000
HQ: Hamburg, Germany
Tags: Consumer, API, developers, Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

Scout Finance
Next-generation financial research
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: $1.7 million (prior to latest round)
HQ: New York City, New York
Tags: Consumer, investing, information, trading
Source: Crunchbase

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on November 9, 2015
Categories: CUneXus, Digital Insight, Dream Payments, Fiserv, Kony, Misys, PayPal, PaySwag, Persistent Systems, Roostify, Shoeboxed, Thomson Reuters, Trulioo, Vouch

On Finovate.com

“Roostify Garners $500,000 in Funding from Wells Fargo Accelerator”

“Dream Payments Launches its EMV mPOS System in Canada”

Around the web

Misys launches FusionCapital 2.o.

Digital Insight and CUneXus team up to bring digital lending technology to Digital Insight’s financial institution clients.

Thomson Reuters unveils its new desktop platform, grouping all FX transaction venues into one single point of access.

NBT Bank to deploy Sales Enablement from Fiserv, a mobile messaging solution for wealth managers.

PaySwag and PayPal are among the companies highlighted in Inc.’s look back at Money20/20.

Entrepreneur.com features Vouch, a social network for credit.

StartupSmart profiles document-capture specialist, Shoeboxed.

Persistent Systems designs and implements online communities for cloud-managed wi-fi solution provider, AirTight Networks.

Trulioo Selected as Runner-up for Startup Canada Award for Innovation.

Orasi Software signs partnership agreement with Kony Solutions.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on November 6, 2015
Categories: ayondo, Betterment, BizEquity, Credit Karma, Entersekt, Prosper, Roostify, ShopKeep POS

Around the web

Roostify to join Wells Fargo’s Fall 2015 accelerator program.

Michael DeSimone named ShopKeep’s chief operating officer.

CU Today looks at Prosper and its plans to partner with credit unions.

The American Bankers Association endorses BizEquity’s Banker Office business valuation platform and performance service.

Betterment tops $3 billion in assets.

Inc. features Credit Karma CEO Ken Lin as he discusses four lessons from a year in the Unicorn Club.

VentureBurn features Entersekt CEO, Schalk Nolte.

ayondo’s first Singapore client, KGI, launches its TradeHub-powered, KGI Contrax product.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Figo Announces New “Seven Figure” Financing Round

By David Penn Posted on November 5, 2015
Categories: Figo

While the amount of the investment remains undisclosed, German banking-as-a-service specialist Figo this week announced it had completed a “seven-figure” funding round.

Participating in the investment were High-Tech Gruenderfonds (HTGF), 360T founder Carlo Koelzer, and Joerg Heilig, VP of Engineering at Google.

Figo GmbH CEO Andre M. Bajorat said the investment would help the company gain European market share and support further product development. CFO Heiko Rahlfs emphasized that the investment would bring both technical talent and industry connections to the company. “In addition to Joerg Heilig’s expertise,” Rahlfs said, “we can benefit from Carlo Koelzer’s network and his reputation in the fintech sector.”

Figo founder Markus Ludemann demonstrated the figo-API at FinovateEurope 2013 in London.

Koelzer praised the way Figo leveraged regulatory changes to provide “not only an established banking API, but also an entire banking services platform, supporting a vast number of innovative banking solutions.”

“I believe in the significance and the positive impact of the change in this sector,” Koelzer said. “Hence my decision to invest.”

Calling itself the first banking service provider in Europe, Figo provides an API that integrates readily with third-party systems, enabling businesses to connect their goods and services to more than 3,000 banks and financial service providers. The banking-as-a-service platform connects services to more than 50 million online banking accounts.

Figo demonstrated its API at FinovateEurope 2013 (as Lean Banking), before pivoting to focus on B2B solutions. Founded in August 2012, Figo is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 5, 2015
Categories: ACI Worldwide, ayondo, BehavioSec, blooom, Figo, Holvi, Klarna, Meniga, Motif Investing, P2BInvestor, Payoneer, Tradeshift, Trustly, Xero, YapStone

On Finovate.com

“Finovate, FinDEVr Alum News at Money20/20″

“Figo Announces New “Seven-Figure” Financing Round”

Around the web

Payoneer Selected by Amazon to Expand Cross-Border Payment Options in Select Countries.

Business Insider names Holvi, BehavioSec, Trustly, Meniga, and Klarna among the 12 hottest Nordic fintech startups.

Xero reaches 600,000 subscribers in 180 countries.

Tradeshift launches Tradeshift Risk, a solution to monitor and mitigate supplier risk.

SecureAuth and BehavioSec form partnership.

ayondo launches first product in Singapore.

Crowdfund Insider interviews Krista Morgan, CEO and co-founder of P2Binvestor.

ACI Worldwide acquires payment gateway, PAY.ON.

Let’s Talk Payments interviews Tom Villante, CEO and co-founder of YapStone.

MainStreet features “simplified 401(k) robo-adviser” Blooom.

SavingAdvice.com reviews Motif Investing.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Finovate, FinDEVr Alum News at Money20/20

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 4, 2015
Categories: Arxan Technologies, Endeavour, Kabbage, PayItSimple, Socure, SplitIt

I spent the majority of last week at Money20/20 catching up with Finovate and FinDEVr alums.

With 5 tracks of panel discussions and product announcements, plus an exhibit hall floor, it was impossible to parcel out all of the themes buzzing around. However, from the slice of the mega-conference that I attended, the overarching theme was payments, specifically, removing friction from the payments experience. This became evident in the product announcements and discussions throughout the keynote sessions from Stripe, Poynt, Chase, Verifone, Google’s AndroidPay, Samsung Pay, PayPal, MCX, and First Data.

In addition to these larger players, there were many smaller companies in attendance. I sat down with five Finovate and FinDEVr alums to find out what’s new.

Arxan
Arxan, which protects applications, has experienced 50% year-over-year growth for the past 5 years.

Last week the company announced the extension of its application protection to the Apple TV. Arxan safeguards the TV operating system and already protects multiple pre-installed applications on the Apple TV. The apps are shielded using multi-layered guards to fortify the application from being reverse-engineered and compromised and are inserted within the binary code of the applications.

See Arxan’s FinDEVr 2015 presentation.

Endeavour
This was the first time I’ve chatted with Endeavour since they debuted their mobile account opening solution at FinovateSpring 2014. The Austin-based company revealed some crucial news— it was acquired by Genpact, an operational efficiency specialist for enterprise organizations.

The structure of Endeavour’s organization will remain more or less unaffected by the acquisition which Genpact hopes will bolster its Lean Digital offering by adding Endeavour’s mobile expertise.

Kabbage
Kabbage recently partnered with ING, Santander, and Kikka Capital, and the company is growing fast. These partnerships will help the Atlanta-based company expand operations outside of the U.S. Kabbage is especially targeting the growing ecommerce market in India through its Bangalore office.

Kabbage anticipates originating $1 billion in small business loans in 2015, and is planning a major push into consumer loans next year.

Watch Kabbage’s presentation from FinDEVr 2015 and its demo from FinovateSpring 2015.

Socure
Socure uses a person’s existing online “fingerprint” (Facebook photos, email address, and phone number) to validate their identity. Because Socure sources the data from pre-existing information users to simply take a selfie to validate who they are.

In my discussion with Socure the company disclosed plans to extend its services to verify information for small and medium-sized businesses. Today, this process consists of manually scouring websites for data. Socure’s technology could speed up and streamline that process.

Check out Socure’s demo video from FinovateFall 2015

SplitIt (formerly PayItSimple)
SplitIt offers point of sale financing with no interest by placing a hold on the customer’s existing line of credit. The solution launched at FinovateFall 2014 under the name PayItSimple. Alon Feit, the company’s CEO, states that the new name is a better reflection of what the company does.

Since launching last year SplitIt has signed 100 merchant partners and is in negotiations for $14 million in funding. After the round closes the company plans to use the funding to further grow its merchant base, as well as its 15-person team.

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FinDEVr APIntelligence

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on November 4, 2015
Categories: Arxan Technologies, Avoka, BehavioSec, Blockstack.io, Entersekt, FinDEVr APIntelligence, Praesidio, SimplyTapp, Tradier, Trulioo, Twilio, VISA, Xignite

Are you building new financial technology? Be sure to check out coverage from our recent developers conference in San Francisco. We’re taking the fintech developer tool showcase to New York on 29/30 March 2016. Stay tuned for details.

Developer news

“The Next Web: How to Design with Developers”

“Money20/20 Hackathon: A H-API Ending”

The latest from FinDEVr San Francisco 2015 presenters

Think Big Data mentions Praesidio as a startup using machine learning in its cyber-security solution.

“Xignite Surpasses 50 Billion API Calls in a Single Month”

VentureBeat: Twilio rolls out new feature set designed to help developers build messaging apps using its platform.

Arxan Technologies extends its app-security protection to Apple TV.

“Digital Asset Holdings Acquires Blockchain-as-a-Service Innovator, Blockstack.io“

Security solutions from Arxan Technologies now running on more than 500 million devices.

Alumni updates

Tradier teams up with Equities Lab to bring real-world trading experience to college students.

Google appoints Entersekt CTO Christiaan Brand as product manager for security and identity teams.

Pymnts looks at how SimplyTapp is addressing host card emulation.

Visa Inc. to Acquire Visa Europe.

Fierce Finance IT features BehavioSec.

Avoka partners with Trulioo to provide digital identification authentication to international banks.

Stay up-to-date on daily developments by following FinDEVr on Twitter.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on November 4, 2015
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Azimo, Jumio, mBank, PaySwag, Tradier

Around the web

Let’s Talk Payments interviews Max Haynes, CEO of PaySwag, on banking for the underbanked.

Tradier teams up with Equities Lab to bring real-world trading experience to college students.

ACI Worldwide adds Janet Estep, NACHA president and CEO, to its board of directors.

Jumio partners with Tutorfair to help parents find and identify the right tutor for their school-age children.

Bank Innovation looks at mBank and its embrace of biometrics.

Think Big Data mentions Praesidio as a startup using machine learning in its cyber-security solution.

Google appoints Entersekt CTO Christiaan Brand as product manager for security and identity teams.

Pymnts looks at how SimplyTapp is addressing host card emulation.

Money-transfer service innovator Azimo goes live in Romania.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Coin Card: A Compelling Package, But Will it Work in Enough Places?

By Jim Bruene Posted on November 3, 2015
Categories: Credit/Debit Cards

I finally received my Coin this week, and I’m about to load some cards and head to the grocery store (or maybe the new Amazon Bookstore). (Update: It worked the first two tries, at a U.S. Bank ATM and grocery store POS. But, alas the third time was not a charm as it wouldn’t read at a hardware store POS despite a valiant effort by the clerk. Attempt #4 with a coffee shop closed-loop card worked, barely, taking 10 to 15 swipes.)

But before I get too disillusioned by the real-world experience, I wanted to pen a column about why, even in a world with Apple Pay, Android Pay and Chase Pay, the supercharged-plastic Coin delivers substantial perceived value on a number of fronts.

Here’s the value for someone like me that typically carries 6 credit/debit cards when traveling (2 personal, 2 business, 1 ATM, 1 AMEX) and 4 or 5 around town:

Extra security (peace of mind): Fewer plastic cards to lose = less worry
+
Simplifies travel prep: Easier to verify your physical wallet inventory before heading out and zero chance of forgetting a card (assuming you don’t forget Coin)
+
More card options: Can store all your cards, including mag stripe loyalty/prepaid cards, in mobile wallet (max of 8 in Coin plastic at any one time)
+
Slims physical wallet: Going from 10 pieces of plastic to 4 (Coin, backup plastic card, driver’s license, health insurance)
+
Reference for online usage: The Coin mobile wallet is a handy and secure place to store card details and customer service numbers
+
Cash backup: I stopped carrying an ATM card years ago since I only used it a few times per year. But every once in a while, I could really use cash. Having Coin in my wallet solves that.
+
X-factor: For early fintech adopters, it’s a cool little package and would make a nice gift for the fintech geek who has everything.

On the other hand, I’m toast if I go “Coin only” and lose it or it doesn’t work at a particular terminal. Most bloggers are reporting 80% to 90% success rates. So in reality, you need to carry at least one credit card as emergency backup.

Bottom line: It’s a nifty device, but the swipe success rate is crucial. If Coin can get to a 95%+, I think it will be worth the $100 to a sizable group of fairly well-heeled techies. However, sub-90% success rate makes it much less interesting since on one wants to be that guy holding up the checkout line with his fancy black card.

Assuming it works, there is no single Coin benefit worth $100. But the combination of seven makes it compelling (though it would be MUCH easier to sell at $30 or $4o; no one paid over $50 in the pre-order frenzy two years ago). Coin could bolster its security positioning by partnering with BillGuard or others to scan card transactions looking for fraud.

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Feedzai Unveils its New Anti-fraud Solution, Data Science Studio

By David Penn Posted on November 3, 2015
Categories: Feedzai

Fraud prevention is one area where big data offers much promise. So it is no surprise to learn that Feedzai, a company that specializes in leveraging big data to help companies prevent fraud, has developed technology that brings the blessings of big data-powered, anti-fraud prevention to the masses.

The new technology is called Data Science Studio, and it promises to give organizations large and small the ability to use “advanced machine learning techniques” to fight fraud on their own.

Feedzai CEO Nuno Sebastiao says that “by putting a sophisticated, yet easy-to-use, environment for data-science modeling in the hands of all the teams and people who need it, we’re democratizing big data for our customers.”

From left: Feedzai VP of Sales Nuno Pires and CEO Nuno Sebastiao demonstrated Feedzai fraud prevention at FinovateEurope 2014 in London.

Todd Clark, general manager STAR Network at First Data Corporation added that “software like Feedzai’s is doing natively more and more of what data scientists do. Now we have the capabilities to get our data modeling done within days and weeks, not months, with data science already built in.”

With Data Science Studio, business professionals with nontechnical backgrounds can now build, deploy, and manage predictive analytics models. The platform is available as a cloud-based solution or on-premise, and while users won’t need technical know-how in order to build their own anti-fraud models, they will need—as CMS Wire pointed out in their coverage of the news—”domain expertise in risk or fraud management.”

Feedzai has had a busy 2015. The company last month announced a partnership with fellow Finovate alum, Emailage, combining email risk assessment with its own fraud-risk scoring. And in September, Feedzai teamed up with another Finovate alum, Socure, bringing together its anti-fraud technology and Socure’s real-time online identity-verification solution. The company has more than $26 million in capital, having raised more than $17 million in a Series B round in May.

Feedzai was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California. The company demonstrated its fraud prevention solution during its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2014 in London. For information about our upcoming conference in London on 9/10 February 2016, visit our FinovateEurope 2016 page.

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Xignite Surpasses 50 Billion API Calls in a Single Month

By David Penn Posted on November 3, 2015
Categories: Xignite

So, how did you spend the summer?

Xignite announced today that it reached more than 50 billion API call-requests in July. The high mark broke the company’s previous records and affirms Xignite’s place among the major API cloud data-providers worldwide.

Xignite CEO and founder Stephane Dubois credits a tripling in API call volumes over the past year-and-a-half to the fact that both startups and larger FIs have become much more comfortable working with the cloud. “In the past, APIs have been downplayed and relegated as a solution to power small websites and applications,” Dubois said. “But now, the financial services industry realizes that good APIs backed by strong, open designs and native cloud architecture, like Xignite, can tackle the most mission-critical of applications.”

Xignite developer Anand Viswanathan talked about streaming financial data and future API delivery technologies at FinDEVr San Francisco 2015.

Xignite leverages the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud to process millions of API requests per hour. Matt Wood, general manager for product strategy at Amazon Web Services, pointed to the get-to-market speed of AWS, as well as the way the platform helps cut costs and enables FIs to “be more agile” as reasons why Xignite uses the technology.

Xignite drives financial apps for more than 1,000 companies in 55 countries. It maintains a collection of more than 1,000 market-data APIs drawing from more than 150 sources. Founded in 2006 and headquartered in San Mateo, California, Xignite launched its #FintechRevoluton API Ecosystem initiative in September, featuring more than 20 technology firms and accelerators. In October, OTC Markets Group announced that it would add Xignite as a provider of real-time Level 1 market data. And in June, Xignite announced that it would help four of its fellow Finovate alums—Betterment, Motif Investing, Personal Capital, and SigFig—bring their technologies the Apple Watch.

Xignite developer, Anand Viswanathan last month discussed the future of streaming financial data at FinDEVr San Francisco 2015. Xignite also participated in FinovateFall 2015 in September, demonstrating its Cloud Streaming technology.

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