vaamo Partners with N26 (Formerly Number26)

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: vaamo

Robo-adviser solutions-provider vaamo teamed up with one of the hottest fintech players in Germany today, neobank N26 (formerly Number26). N26 is using vaamo's API to offer clients N26 Invest, a co-branded solution that lets users select from three investment strategies depending on their risk tolerance.

After developing its robo-adviser platform for private investors in Germany, vaamo is seeking to bolster its B2B business model. The company will power an online, automated investment solution for N26. This is the first third-party partner vaamo has signed for its B2B solutions, which can be co-branded or fully white-labeled and are available as a financial intermediary or discretionary portfolio-management solution.

vaamo says its robo-adviser platform addresses younger customers who are "not easily accessible via traditional sales channels" and it helps businesses more profitably serve customers with smaller investment volumes. Maximilian Tayenthal, founder of Number26, said, "vaamo matches perfectly our concept and enables us to provide our customers with an easy and reasonable investment opportunity."

vaamo launched…

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FinDEVr Alum UpGuard Raises $17 Million Series B

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Fundings, ScriptRock, UpGuard

Cybersecurity specialist UpGuard has raised $17 million in new funding from a group of investors that included a "strategic investment" from Australian insurance giant, IAG. The company, which made its FinDEVr debut last fall in San Francisco as ScriptRock, will use the capital to help grow its CSTAR cybersecurity preparedness-assessment solution, as well as double staff to 120 by early next year. UpGuard co-CEO and cofounder Mike Baukes said that "by providing the tools needed to build resilient information systems, make strategic decisions with real data in real time, as well as obtain cyber insurance should the worst case scenario occur, we equip businesses to start fighting fire with fire."

Alan Sharp-Paul, cofounder and co-CEO of UpGuard, during his presentation, "Integrity in the Age of DevOps," at FinDEVr San Francisco 2015.

The Series B was led by new investor Pelion Venture Partners and existing investor Square Peg Capital. All of UpGuard's other…

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ayondo, BizEquity, Chain.com, Shoeboxed, UpGuard, vaamo, Xero

On Finovate.com

Fintech Trending: Alt Lending Woes, Asia Grows, and Everbank Exits FinDEVr Alum UpGuard Raises $17 Million Series B vaamo Partners with N26 (Formerly Number26)

Around the web

ayondo launches simulated trading app, the ayondo academy. Chain announces new partnership with Initiative for Cryptocurrency and Contracts (IC3). BizEquity integrates with Xero. Shoeboxed launches Direct Downloads for reports.

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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Braintree, Finicity, and Twilio Take Top Honors at API World Awards

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Braintree, Finicity, Twilio

Finovate and FinDEVr alums Braintree, Finicity and Twilio won recognition at the API World Awards sponsored by API World 2016. Braintree earned the top spot in the Payment APIs category for its payments-platform technology, and Finicity won first place in the Finance APIs category for its Financial Data API with TxPUSH. Twilio was the top recipient of votes in the Communication APIs category. The three companies were among 18 startups competing in more than 30 API categories ranging from API Infrastructure and API Security to Enterprise APIs and Internet of Things APIs.

The jury of six featured Michael Ludden, product manager, developer relations for IBM Watson; John Musser, founder and CEO of API Science; Neha Sampat, CEO of Built.io; Michael Stowe, developer relations manager for MuleSoft; Steven Willmott, CEO of 3scale; and Rob Zazueta, director of digital strategy, TIBCO Software.

Braintree's payment platform serves both online and mobile…

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Fintech Fundings: 26 Companies Raised $530 Million Third Week of July

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Funding

As July drew to a close, fundings continued at a brisk pace with 26 new fundings during the week ending July 22. However, it  was slightly less than the average of 28 fintech deals per week this year.

The total amount raised this week was $532 million. More than half ($325 million) were debt commitments to two alt-lenders, CommonBond ($300 million) and West Creek Financial ($25 million). Total equity raised this week was $207 million, including $23 million to Finovate alum Capriza (F15) in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz

The total number of deals YTD stands at 818, nearly double last year’s 429. Total dollars raised YTD is $18.6 billion, double the $9.3 billion raised during the same period a year ago.

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Fintech deals by size from 16 July to 22 July 2016:

CommonBond
Student loan marketplace lender
Latest round: $330 million ($30 million Series C + $300 million Debt)
Total raised: $754 million ($78.6 million Equity, $675…

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Good Data

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2016, FinovateFall 2016 Sneak Peek, GoodData

A look at the companies demoing live to 1,500+ fintech professionals on 8/9 September 2016. Register today.

GoodData is the leading platform for financial services and technology companies to create and distribute self-service analytics.

Features:

Interactive data products targeting B2B partners Benchmarking sales and purchase behavior across locations to improve strategies Cross-merchant analysis to identify co-marketing opportunities

Why it's great
Financial service and technology companies can distribute analytics across their business networks and embed analytics in their existing solutions to maximize their competitive offering.

Presenter: Blaine Mathieu, Chief Marketing and Product Officer
With 25+ years' executive experience, Mathieu leads GoodData's global product and marketing strategy, investing in new market penetration and growth, and accelerating an innovative go-to-market model.
LinkedIn

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: MarketX

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2016, FinovateFall 2016 Sneak Peek, MarketX

A look at the companies demoing live to 1,500+ fintech professionals on 8/9 September 2016. Register today.

MarketX is a cross-border investment platform connecting pre-IPO shareholders with international, accredited investors to transact seamlessly and to build future business partnerships overseas.

Features:

Enabling private companies to raise funds in China Helping pre-IPO shareholders to find liquidity Providing data and research to help individual investors to invest in the best pre-IPO companies

Why it's great
As a pre-IPO investor and shareholder, you can now find liquidity from the international markets.

Presenters

Cathryn Chen, CEO and Founder
Chen worked at Deutsche Bank, Rothschild, and JP Morgan in Hong Kong and London. She later joined EverString Technology as an early employee, leveraging predictive analytics for marketing automation.
LinkedIn

 

Han Lai, Product Lead
Lai worked for HSBC and PayPal before becoming an angel investor. At PayPal, he led the merchant product conversion and…

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: Bitbond

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Bitbond, FinovateFall 2016, FinovateFall 2016 Sneak Peek

A look at the companies demoing live to 1,500+ fintech professionals on 8/9 September 2016. Register today.

Bitbond is the first global marketplace-lending platform for small business loans. The company will showcase its automated and country independent SME scoring.

Features:

Instant approval of SME loan applicants Consistent scoring quality across countries for investors High scoring efficiency and scalability

Why it's great
Bitbond scores SME borrowers consistently and efficiently across different countries.

Presenters

Radoslav Albrecht, CEO and Founder
Albrecht is the founder and CEO of Bitbond; previously, he was a senior consultant at Roland Berger and worked at Deutsche Bank London.
LinkedIn

 

Jaroslaw Nowotka, CTO
Nowotka is the CTO of Bitbond. He is an experienced software developer and previously ran Helloslash, a website builder.
LinkedIn

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DriveWealth Expands APIs for Wealth Managers

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: DriveWealth

DriveWealth, a company that offers retail investors around the world access to the U.S. equities market, announced the expansion of its suite of APIs to support investment advisers.

The New Jersey-based company is adding to its flagship investing platform by creating a set of wealth management APIs aimed at helping advisers build portfolios for their clients. The APIs, which are available to U.S. investment advisers and their international customers, will have fractional shares capability and access to U.S. equities.

The APIs offer three tiers of service:

Make recommendations to clients, who implement the strategies on their own Make initial recommendations supported by automatic portfolio rebalancing Provide clients with a fully discretionary solution

“[Investment advisers] can streamline their workflow because our Wealth Management APIs seamlessly integrate real-time fractional share technology, allowing advisers to deploy one investment strategy across multiple accounts, regardless of a client’s investable assets," said Harry Temkin, chief information officer…

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FinovateFall Sneak Peek: TokBox

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: FinovateFall 2016, FinovateFall 2016 Sneak Peek, TokBox

A look at the companies demoing live to 1,500+ fintech professionals on 8/9 September 8 2016. Register today.

TokBox, a Telefonica company, developed and operates OpenTok, a global cloud platform for embedding live video, voice, messaging, and screen sharing into website and mobile applications.

Features:

Secure real-time video, voice, and messaging Collaboration features including screen sharing and annotation Easy to embed into your existing interface

Why it's great
TokBox makes it quick and easy to embed secure real-time communications into financial service applications to offer high-touch customer service to clients online.

Presenter: Badri Rajasekar, CTO and SVP of Engineering
Rajasekar is the CTO and SVP of engineering at TokBox, the provider of OpenTok, the leading real-time communications platform. At TokBox, he leads the core engineering and operations teams.
LinkedIn

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Finovate Debuts: How the Kore Bots Deliver More than Your Average Chatbot

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Finovate Debuts, Kore

Enterprise software company Kore has a goal to simplify how customers engage with brands. The company's out-of-the-box digital assistants and its Bots Platform offer a secure messaging service that fits highly regulated environments such as banks.

At FinovateSpring 2016 the company showcased Kore Bots, chatbots that deliver alerts, perform tasks, interact with customers, and generate reports. The bots offer an inexpensive way for a bank to interact with both employees and customers in a human-like way, making person-to-system interactions more conversational.

Banks have the option to use an "off-the-shelf" Kore Bot for a quick time-to-market messaging service or they can use the Bot Platform to build their own bots with a customized persona.

Company facts:

Beta launch: October 2015 Market launch of messaging platform with Kore Bots: February 2016 Market launch of Bots Platform: July 2016 40+ customers in various stages of implementation ~200 employees Kore's Amit Aghara, SVP, solutions engineering, and David Schreffler, EVP,…

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BankBazaar, Bitbond, Boku, Braintree, Currency Cloud, DriveWealth, Dwolla, Finicity, GoodData, Kore, MarketX, Markit, Meniga, Qapital, Twilio, Zopa

On Finovate.com

Finovate Debuts: How the Kore Bots Deliver More than Your Average Chatbot DriveWealth Expands APIs for Wealth Managers Check out our latest FinovateFall Sneak Peeks featuring: GoodData MarketX Bitbond TokBox Braintree, Finicity, and Twilio Take Top Honors at API World Awards

Around the web

Equities.com profiles Meniga. BankBazaar wins "Emerging Brand of the Year" and "CEO of the Year" at seventh CMO Asia Awards. Fintech News Switzerland highlights Currency Cloud and Zopa in a look at London's top rising fintech stars. Chris Skinner interviews Ben Milne, Dwolla CEO. Boku brings direct carrier billing to Windows 10 phones in the United Kingdom and Italy. Markit enhances WSO software suite to offer new levels of automation for syndicated loan market. Wired highlights Qapital.

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

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