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A Boku Win for Carrier Billing in Expanded Microsoft Partnership

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 14, 2015
Categories: Boku

Direct mobile billing startup Boku took home a big win last week. The San Francisco-based company expanded its partnership with Microsoft to enable direct carrier billing in the Windows store.

Sprint’s U.S. customers can now make purchases from the Windows store using their mobile phone number. Previously limited to mobile transactions, customers can now purchase applicable content on all Windows devices. Boku’s previous integration with the Windows store resulted in an 8x increase in purchase rates in emerging markets and a 3x increase in developed markets.

In a press release, Boku CEO Jon Prideaux highlighted the solution’s convenience, security, and ubiquity. He says with this new move that “[Microsoft is] creating a tremendous opportunity for developers and consumers alike.”

If you’re not familiar with direct mobile carrier billing, this graphic explains how it works:

In addition to the Windows Store, Boku can be used to make purchases at:

Google Play
PlayStation Store
Facebook App Center
League of Legends
Spotify

Boku works with 300+ mobile operators in 60+ countries. The company demoed its mobile payment service at FinovateEurope 2011 in London.

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Finovate Alums Take Silver and Bronze at UBS Future of Finance

By David Penn Posted on December 14, 2015
Categories: WealthForge

Finovate newcomer Capital Preferences and alum WealthForge won second and third place respectively at the UBS Future of Finance Challenge Finals last week. Aesthetic Integration, which specializes in the qualitative analysis of financial algorithms, took first place.

The first-prize winner was awarded $50,000. Capital Preferences earned $20,000, and WealthForge won $10,000. Along with the other 60 regional finalists, all three companies will have access to UBS’s expert mentors and partners, and three months of intensive support and acceleration to get innovations market ready. The competition featured more than 600 applicants.

On making the finals last month, WealthForge Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder Mat Dellorso focused on how his company could help firms like UBS add “significant scalability to (its) network of financial advisers and investment banking professionals.” WealthForge earned its spot in the finals with its Invest Now button, demonstrated earlier this year at FinovateSpring 2015.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, WealthForge recently added Bill Robbins as chief revenue officer. A financial services veteran with more than 20 years of experience in building brokerage platforms, and a former president of BB&T Securities Services, Robbins will lead WealthForge’s sales, marketing and platform development.

Incorporated in 2014, Capital Preferences uses game theory, econometrics, and experimental economics to provide a unique client-risk profiling system for financial institutions. Calling client profiling “a major area of weakness for most advice firms,” Capital Preferences co-founder and CEO Bernard Del Rey credited UBS for recognizing his company’s technology and giving it a spot in the finals. He says the demand “for our technology and patent-pending methods” is from all sides of the industry and includes “bespoke private banks, regulators, and large-scale consumer-credit players in the U.S. and Australia.”

Capital Preferences makes its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2016 in London. To find out more about our upcoming February fintech conference, visit our FinovateEurope 2016 page.

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Finovate Debuts: CellTrust Separates Work & Personal Communications, Even on Same Device

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 14, 2015
Categories: CellTrust, Finovate Debuts

In an era when BYOD is not just a fad, but a need, CellTrust SecureLine helps businesses manage their enterprise’s mobility while keeping operations secure and compliant.

Company facts:

Founded: 2006
HQ: Scottsdale, Arizona
Offices in Canada, London, Australia, and Singapore
Funding: $10.1 million

CellTrust SecureLine creates a work phone and a personal phone on the employee’s existing device by issuing a unique mobile business number for professional communications.

In 2014, CellTrust partnered with Good Technology to leverage the Good Dynamics SDK and create CellTrust SecureLine for Good, a containerized version of the solution that offers a full ecosystem of encrypted business apps.

How it works

Companies without mobility-management containers can use CellTrust SecureLine, although it will track only phone and text-message communications. The example below shows the containerized version, integrated with apps in the Good container such as email, Salesforce, and EyeVerify.

As you can see, the employee has placed all of their business apps on the right side. All work-specific apps are designated by a lock icon.

When placing a business call, the employee selects the Good for Work app to access contacts.

CellTrust is fully integrated with the device and pulls in the user’s existing contacts (see below left). No additional steps are needed; the employee proceeds with the call as they naturally would.

The recipient receives the call normally, with no special app or additional steps; however, after answering, CellTrust plays a recorded disclosure customized by the bank.

The technology works similarly when sending and receiving text messages:

Compliance

Because all work communication takes place under a business number, CellTrust enables corporations to dig into business conversations while offering privacy for personal ones.

CellTrust archives work communications in real time on its server. To respond quickly to compliance requests, the company partners with Actiance and GWAVA to offer:

Reporting
Audit trails
Traceability
Archiving

At the end of every business day employees receive a recap of all work conversations.

What’s next?
CellTrust is working on tools to keep employees and clients compliant by prohibiting the sending of personally identifiable information (PII) across insecure channels. The company is also working on integrating with CRM apps.

Brian Panicko, SVP, global sales strategy, and Dragan Marceta, director, sales engineering, presented CellTrust SecureLine at FinovateFall 2015 in New York:

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Trulioo Raises $15 Million with Help from American Express Ventures

By David Penn Posted on December 14, 2015
Categories: Funding, Fundings, Trulioo

Identity-verification specialist Trulioo picked up $15 million in new funding to help fuel growth. The round featured participation from American Express Ventures, along with existing investors BDC Capital, Blumberg Capital, and Tenfore Holdings. Trulioo’s total capital now stands at more than $23 million.

Trulioo CEO Stephen Ufford called the investment a vote of confidence in the company’s ability to help FIs deal with the complexity of cross-border compliance. Specializing in AML (anti-money laundering) and KYC (know your customer) verification, Trulioo’s technology enables businesses to provide frictionless ID verification in more than 40 countries around the world.

Anatoly Kvitnitsky, director of corporate development for Trulioo, demonstrated GlobalGateway at FinovateFall 2015.

Rohit Bodas of American Express Ventures highlighted Trulioo’s global reach as one of the reasons for backing the company, and called cross-border compliance “a complex problem and an important issue for the financial industry.” GlobalGateway, Trulioo’s identity-verification platform, leverages 145 different data sources, including alternative sources such as mobile apps, social media, and ad networks to verify online identities. The technology is effective in developing markets such as China, Brazil and India, and developers can integrate the technology via Trulioo’s web portal, XML Direct, or through a Normalized API.

Trulioo recently partnered with fellow Finovate alum Avoka and integrated GlobalGateway with the latter’s Transact technology. Trulioo expanded its coverage to India in October, taking its total reach to four billion worldwide.

American Express Ventures focuses on startups with technologies that can help it expand its core capabilities as well as grow in digital commerce and financial inclusion. The firm includes Finovate alums Bill.com, LearnVest, and Radius among its investments.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Trulioo demonstrated its GlobalGateway platform at FinovateFall 2015. The company also presented at the inaugural FinDEVr developers conference in 2014.

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Fintech Fundings: 30 Companies Raise $100 Million Week Ending 11 Dec 2015

By Jim Bruene Posted on December 14, 2015
Categories: Funding

Money_click Buoyed by 7 Startupbootcamp Insurance entrants—each grabbing $17,000—a record 30 fintech companies raised money this week for a total of just under $100 million ($95.8 million). Only two companies topped 7 figures: real estate specialist EasyProperty ($37.6 million) and Lemonade, a P2P insurance play ($13 million).

Four Finovate alums were among the bunch:

CBANC Network took in $4 million for its community bank information network
Trizic grabbed $2 million for its wealth-management platform
Rippleshot was given another $1.2 million to further card-fraud methods
BankersLab received an undisclosed investment towards its commercial lending training and compliance tools

With just two weeks remaining in the year, the total invested in private fintech companies YTD is $18.1 billion.

Here are the deals by size from 5 Dec to 11 Dec 2015:

EasyProperty
Residential and commercial property search
Latest round: $37.6 million Series C
Total raised: $47.9 million
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Tags: Consumer, SMB, home buying, rental, mortgage
Source: Crunchbase

Lemonade
Peer to peer insurance
Latest round: $13 million Seed
Total raised: $13 million
HQ: New York City, New York
Tags: Consumer, P2P, insurance
Source: Crunchbase

Clip (PayClip)
Mobile payments and point-of-sale platform
Latest round: $8 million Series A
Total raised: $16.4 million
HQ: Mexico City, Mexico
Tags: Consumer, SMB, merchants, mPOS, credit/debit card acquiring, payments
Source: Crunchbase

GroundFloor
Real estate lending marketplace
Latest round: $5 million Series A
Total raised: $6 million
HQ: Atlanta, Georgia
Tags: Consumer, P2P lending, credit, underwriting, mortgage, investing, commercial real estate
Source: Crunchbase

KeyPair Inc
NFC hardware for mobile payments
Latest round: $5 million Series B
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: Seongnam, Korea
Tags: Consumer, mobile, security, authentication, identification
Source: Crunchbase

CBANC Network
Community financial institution research network
Latest round: $4 million Series B
Total raised: $5.7 million
HQ: Austin, Texas
Tags: Enterprise, B2B, networking, compliance, policies, Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

Aye Finance
Alt-lender to micro and small businesses
Latest round: $3 million
Total raised: $4 million
HQ: New Delhi, India
Tags: SMB, loans, commercial lending, credit, underwriting
Source: Crunchbase

Income&
Mortgage-based investment vehicle
Latest round: $2.9 million Seed
Total raised: $2.9 million
HQ: San Francisco, California
Tags: Consumer, investing, mortgage, REIT
Source: Crunchbase

Paynear
Mobile point-of-sale solution
Latest round: $2.5 million Seed
Total raised: $2.5 million
HQ: Hyperabad, India
Tags: SMB, merchants, acquiring, payments, mPOS, point of sale, hardware
Source: Crunchbase

Curve
Stealth mobile payments company
Latest round: $2 million Seed
Total raised: $2 million
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Tags: Consumer, mobile, payments, debit/credit cards
Source: Crunchbase

Melody Health Insurance
Health insurance startup
Latest round: $2.0 million ($2 million + $1.8 million option)
Total raised: $2.0 million
HQ: Denver, Colorado
Tags: Consumer, SMB, insurance, health care
Source: Crunchbase

TabbedOut
Mobile POS system for restaurants and bars
Latest round: $2 million Series C add-on
Total raised: $41 million
HQ: Austin, Texas
Tags: SMB, merchants, acquiring, payments, mPOS, point of sale
Source: Crunchbase

Trizic
Wealth-management platform for financial advisers
Latest round: $2 million
Total raised: $5 million
HQ: San Francisco, California
Tags: Advisers, investing, wealth management, Finovate Alum
Source: Finovate

Cookies Labs
P2P payments
Latest round: $1.6 million
Total raised: $1.6 million
HQ: Berlin, Germany
Tags: Consumer, person to person, payments, transfers
Source: FT Partners

Backed
Alt-lender specializing in credit with co-borrowers
Latest round: $1.5 million Seed
Total raised: $1.5 million
HQ: New York City, New York
Tags: Consumer, lending, personal loans, co-borrower, joint application, underwriting
Source: Crunchbase

TRData
Market data communications platform
Latest round: $1.3 million
Total raised: $1.3 million
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Tags: Investing, advisers, enterprise, trading, information
Source: FT Partners

Rippleshot
Credit and debit card security
Latest round: $1.2 million Seed
Total raised: $1.2 million
HQ: California
Tags: Consumer, security, big data, Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

Purse.io
Bitcoin payments
Latest round: $1 million Seed
Total raised: $1.3 million
HQ: San Francisco, California
Tags: Consumer, cryptocurrency, payments, remittances, P2P payments
Source: FT Partners

MoneyRemaid
Financial platform for underbanked
Latest round: $100,000 Prize
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: Malaysia
Tags: Remittances, PFM, financial literacy, MasterCard (sponsor)
Source: MasterCard

Rightindem
Insurance claim processing technology
Latest round: $17,000 Accelerator
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Tags: Insurance, enterprise, Startupbootcamp (accelerator)
Source: FT Partners

BimAfya
Mobile micro-insurance platform
Latest round: $17,000 Accelerator
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Tags: Insurance, underbanked, mobile, Startupbootcamp (accelerator)
Source: FT Partners

Covi Analytics
Analytics tool for insurance companies
Latest round: $17,000 Accelerator
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: California
Tags: Insurance, analytics, big data, underwriting, Startupbootcamp (accelerator)
Source: FT Partners

FitSense
Wearables analytics platform for insurance companies
Latest round: $17,000 Accelerator
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: Singapore
Tags: Insurance, enterprise, mobile, Startupbootcamp (accelerator)
Source: FT Partners

massUp
White-label platform for niche insurance sales
Latest round: $17,000 Accelerator
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: Germany
Tags: Insurance, mobile, underwriting, Startupbootcamp (accelerator)
Source: FT Partners

Quantifyle
Personal health monitoring for insurance rebates
Latest round: $17,000 Accelerator
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Tags: Insurance, Startupbootcamp (accelerator)
Source: FT Partners

Safer
Personal risk analyzer for insurance selection
Latest round: $17,000 Accelerator
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Tags: Consumer, insurance, lead gen, Startupbootcamp (accelerator)
Source: FT Partners

BankersLab
Lending training and compliance platform
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: San Francisco, California
Tags: Enterprise, training, commercial lending, benchmarking, gamification, Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

Bitx
Bitcoin exchange
Latest round: Unknown
Total raised: $8.8 million
HQ: Singapore
Tags: Consumer, payments, cryptocurrency, blockchain
Source: Crunchbase

eCurrency Mint (eCM)
Digital currency platform for central banks
Latest round: Undisclosed Series C
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: Dublin, Ireland
Tags: Central bank, cryptocurrency, bitcoin
Source: Crunchbase

Lenny
Credit-building microloans for college students
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: Unknown
HQ: Santa Monica, California
Tags: Consumer, lending, student loan, youth market, credit, Dwolla (partner)
Source: Crunchbase, Finovate

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Julie Parrish Joins Check Point as New Chief Marketing Officer

By David Penn Posted on December 14, 2015
Categories: Check Point

Former NetApp CMO Julie Parrish will join Check Point Software as the company’s new Chief Marketing Officer.

“(Julie) is a key addition to our executive team,” Check Point president Amnon Bar-Lev said. He added that Parrish will help the company focus on “delivering best-of-breed products” and growing Check Point’s brand awareness in the security space.

Parrish, who also served as SVP for worldwide channels sales at NetApp, pointed to Check Point’s “20-year track record” of innovation and said she looked forward to having “the opportunity to extend Check Point’s lead in the market.”

Prior to her work at NetApp, Parrish held leadership positions in marketing and channels sales at a number of Fortune 1,000 companies including Symantec, Nokia, and 3Com. She is a graduate of Santa Clara University .

Check Point Software Technologies (NASDAQ: CHKP) specializes in providing online security solutions for both the enterprise and the consumer. With more than 3,400 employees, Check Point secures more than 100,000 businesses and “millions of users” around the world.

Founded in 1993 and headquartered in San Carlos, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel, Check Point Software Technologies made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2008. In July, the company’s consumer division, ZoneAlarm launched its Windows 10 compatible antivirus software, and in April Check Point partnered with FireEye to share threat intelligence.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 14, 2015
Categories: blooom, Boku, CellTrust, Check Point, MaxMyInterest, ReadyForZero, Trulioo

On Finovate.com

“Finovate Debuts: CellTrust Separates Work From Personal Communications, Even on Same Device”

“Julie Parrish Joins Check Point as New Chief Marketing Officer”

“Trulioo Raises $15 Million with Help from American Express Ventures”

“Finovate Alums Take Silver and Bronze at UBS Future of Finance”

“A Boku Win for Carrier Billing in Expanded Microsoft Partnership”

Around the web

Jeff for Banks researches the success of FinovateFall 2010 Best of Show winners.

Kim Komando highlights ReadyForZero as a way to manage debt.

Blooom featured on the cover of December’s Thinking Bigger Business magazine.

Michael Halloran joins MaxMyInterest as head of partnerships and business development.

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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Trizic Raises $2 Million to Help Advisers Compete with Algorithms

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 11, 2015
Categories: Funding, Trizic

Trizic, a startup that creates wealth-management solutions to help advisers keep up with advancing technology, closed $2 million in funding earlier this week.

This is the company’s third round of funding and brings its total to $5 million. Contributing investors were not disclosed. Trizic has named only one investor in past rounds, Operative Capital, which also funds AlphaClone.

The San Francisco-based company’s Accelerator is a cloud-based advisory platform that caters to both advisers and their clients. The adviser platform offers portfolio automation and management, securities trading, rebalancing, compliance reporting, and client billing services. Accelerator also provides an intuitive client-facing platform with customized portfolio insight and reporting.

Accelerator is available as an API that advisers can customize and white-label with their existing applications. Trizic’s SaaS model uses a contract-free pricing model that charges a percentage based on AUM, starting at 0.05%

Trizic demoed Accelerator at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

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Finovate Debuts: LiftForward Allows Clients to Offer Risk-free Purchase Financing

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 11, 2015
Categories: Finovate Debuts, LiftForward

Never buy another device. Never own a computer again. While sounding like a Luddite’s mantra, these statements are the basis for LiftForward’s new platform.

LiftForward launched in 2013 as a marketplace loan platform where investors lend small businesses up to $1 million. This lending platform is the basis for the company’s TaaSLift, a technology-as-a-service platform that enables LiftForward clients to finance product purchases for their end customers.

Using this model, businesses pay a flat monthly fee and avoid tying up capital and dealing with asset depreciation schedules.

Company facts:

10 employees
Founded 2013
Headquartered in New York City, New York
Funding:
- $2.3 million Series A, Aug 2014
- $2 million debt financing, Aug 2014
- $7M million debt financing, Mar 2015
- $250 million debt financing, July 2015

Microsoft case study

LiftForward’s recent partnership with Microsoft illustrates how business clients use TaaSLift to offer financing. While Microsoft has long offered subscription versions of Office software, the company was eager to set up a similar model with its hardware, specifically the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book.

The screenshot below shows how users select their device type, subscription term, and quantity.

At the end of the term, customers return the device, exchange it for a new one, and begin a fresh term. The key benefit to Microsoft is that the technology-as-a-service, by making upgrades much easier, increases the lifetime value of the client.

LiftForward handles all financial aspects. Customers enter their information and financials on a co-branded platform. Once the information is collected, the underwriting process begins.

LiftForward not only underwrites the loans using its proprietary LiftSCORE, but also funds the loan and bears the risk. The screenshot below shows a high-risk application in the underwriting platform.

After LiftForward approves the request, the customer e-signs online documents, and Microsoft ships the devices together with a membership card, software, warranty, and accessories.

The TaaS platform flexibly scales quantity. It can service a small company in need of two computers or a school that requires two million.

What’s next?

While LiftForward’s current product targets businesses, a direct-to-consumer offering is in development.

LiftForward’s CEO Jeffrey Rogers and CTO Michael Grassotti showed TaaSLift at FinovateFall 2015:

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 11, 2015
Categories: Arroweye Solutions, Boku, Lendio, LiftForward, MaxMyInterest, Personal Capital, Trizic, WealthForge

On Finovate.com

“Finovate debuts: LiftForward Allows Clients to Offer Risk-free Purchase Financing”

“Trizic raises $2 Million to Help Advisers Compete with Algorithms”

Around the web

Financial Planning speculates about Personal Capital’s future.

Utah Business Magazine names Lendio one of the best companies to work for in Utah for the third consecutive year.

Arroweye Solutions selected to provide prepaid card production and personalization services for The Members Group.

Microsoft partners with Boku for carrier billing.

Financial Times mentions MaxMyInterest (paywall).

Wealthforge one of three winners of the UBS Future of Finance Challenge.

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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CBANC Network Garners $4 Million in Series B Funding

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 10, 2015
Categories: cbanc Network, Funding

CBANC, a collaborative network for bank and credit union professionals, raised $4 million earlier this week. The Series B round was led by CBANC founder Hank Seale. Other investors include Texas Independent Bancshares, Mike Maples, and Adams Street Partners. When added to its previous round of $1.7 million, this brings the company’s total funding to $5.7 million.

CBANC launched its network as a platform where financial industry professionals can ask, answer, and share industry-related intelligence, specifically regarding regulation and new technology. It counts 7,000 financial institutions as members, which represent 85% of community banks and 33% of credit unions across the United States.

The company plans to use the funds to increase membership, add features and expand its base of 22 employees. “We’re very well engaged on the compliance side of things,” CBANC CEO Bryan Koontz tells the Austin-American Statesman, “Now we want to bring the vendor community into the network, and we plan to invest in new features and new ways for the vendors to interact.”

CBANC demoed its professional network at FinovateFall 2011 in New York.

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Exit Stage Right: Trustev Sells to TransUnion for $44 Million

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 10, 2015
Categories: Acquisition, TransUnion, Trustev

Today, in a blog post titled, A New Chapter, Trustev announced it has been acquired by one of its investors, TransUnion (NYSE: TRU), which went public on the NYSE earlier this year.

Pat Phelan says the exit will “allow us to deeply integrate with TransUnion and put our collective, rich-data sets and advanced technology to work in spotting fraudulent transactions even better than we already do.”

The deal between the two companies, which have been partners since 2014, closed for $44 million. TechCrunch reports Trustev will see $21 million of the amount up front and $23 million more contingent on meeting certain targets.

TransUnion, one of the big-three U.S. credit bureaus, has recently been expanding into fraud and identity-management solutions. In a press release, TransUnion’s president and CEO Jim Peck said:

As fraud grows in volume and sophistication, TransUnion continues to invest in building our global capabilities to help companies manage their risk. Holistic information is a powerful tool to help our customers approve good transactions and prevent fraud, and Trustev’s innovative capabilities are at the forefront of technology in this increasingly critical field.

Trustev, a Cork, Ireland-based company with 15 employees spread across the globe, says its service will not change for current customers. All employees have committed to stay.

Trustev debuted its Retail Decision solution at FinovateEurope 2014 in London. The company’s Retail Decision offers brick-and-mortar retail locations real-time verification of customer identities at the point of sale. TransUnion Interactive, a consumer subsidiary of TransUnion, debuted ZenDough at FinovateSpring 2010.

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