Blog - Page 758 of 1214

FinDEVr Alums Featured Among Top Hackathon Payment APIs

By David Penn Posted on July 28, 2015
Categories: Blockchain, Braintree, FinDEVr 2015, PayPal, Venmo

Devpost, the self-described “home for hackers” formerly known as ChallengePost has released data from nearly 10,000 student programming projects that finally answers the question: When the going gets tough and the competitive coders get coding, which language do they choose?

You can find the answer to that question here—hint: rhymes with HTML/CSS—along with the full report from Devpost. JavaScript came in second, and Python in third, but what caught our eye were the top payments APIs. After more than 150 hackathons involving more than 13,000 hackers, which payment APIs were most in demand?

Venmo
PayPal
Stripe
Braintree
Blockchain

It was no surprise to see Finovate and FinDEVr alums among the pack. Venmo is a Finovate alum, having demonstrated its Venmo Touch technology with Braintree at FinovateSpring 2013. And PayPal, Blockchain and Braintree all presented at the inaugural FinDEVr 2014 conference for developers in San Francisco last fall. Braintree will be back again this year for FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco.

Devpost’s survey of student hackers is based on the 2014-2015 academic year. The data set included 13,281 student hackers from 160 student hackathons featuring 9,898 individual projects.

In a note about the report, the authors emphasized that sponsorship matters when it comes to being “the one that gets used” by builders. “If you show up and participate,” the authors wrote, “hackers will use your technology.”

“We looked at the 20 companies that sponsored two or more student hackathons in 2014 and had 50 or more overall projects tagged with their technologies,” the authors wrote. “Nineteen of those companies had a higher prevalence of tags when they sponsored, including 11 tagged more than twice as often when they sponsored.”

As ChallengePost, the platform served as a place for online competitions in general. But as the number of software and technology competitions began to grow, the company shifted direction to focus on “software-developer hackers.”

“Hackers make stuff and exhibit imagination, ingenuity, self-confidence, and a collaborative spirit,” wrote Brandon Kessler, company founder and CEO. “That’s who we are too, and we wanted to support the community around it.”

DevPost has powered more than 700 in-person hackathons, and partnered with companies like Uber, AT&T and IBM to help build developer communities. The company was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in New York City. The student report was DevPost’s first, but the company plans to publish rankings periodically, and encourages hackers to tag the technologies they use.

*Post updated to add FinDEVr 2014 alum, Blockchain.

If you’re interested in learning more about the technologies engineers and developers are using to build the fintech innovations of tomorrow, join us in San Francisco, October 6-7, for FinDEVr 2015: the premier event for fintech developers.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on July 28, 2015
Categories: Backbase, Dealstruck, INETCO Systems, LendingTree, Zopa

On Finovate.com

“FinDEVr Alums Featured Among Top Hackathon APIs”

Around the web

New partnership gives Lending Tree customers access to financing solutions, line-of-credit products from Dealstruck.

Backbase named “most visionary” in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Mobile Application Development Platforms.

Chris Skinner interviews Giles Andrews, Zopa CEO and co-founder.

INETCO Insight and Analytics help BECU win finalist spot in BAI-Infosys Finacle Global Banking Innovation Awards.

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

The Next FinTech Unicorn? Rumored $150 Million Heading to Kabbage

By David Penn Posted on July 27, 2015
Categories: Funding, Kabbage

The Atlanta Business Journal blog is reporting that Kabbage is making its way through a $150 million Series E round. The report adds that $120 million of the round has already been raised. Once completed, the company will have total capital of more than $585 million and a valuation of more than $875 million.

Participating in the round were BlueRun Ventures, Santander UK, Thomvest Ventures, and UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund. The round is expected to close within weeks.

The new capital will help Kabbage grow its staff—adding as many as 100 new workers—as well as “double” its office footprint. The fundraising had been more than hinted at by Kabbage CEO Rob Frohwein last month, who said that a raise was “likely.”

Jason Dell, Kabbage’s head of product, demonstrated the Kabbage Card at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

A small business lending innovator, Kabbage uses data generated by business activity—rather than relying exclusively on credit scores—to provide small businesses with a range of financing options. Kabbage has provided more than $550 million in funding, and says that its loan-application volume is up more than 200% year over year. Approximately 70% of Kabbage borrowers are brick-and-mortar merchants, according to the company.

Earlier this month, Kabbage announced a partnership with Experian that would bring its lending platform to Experian’s institutional clients that had small business and consumer customers. In May, following the company’s demo of its Kabbage Card at FinovateSpring, it teamed up with Sage Payment Solutions to launch a small business loan product.

Kabbage was founded in 2009, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The company will be presenting at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco, 6/7 October. To save your spot at our upcoming event for fintech developers, register here.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Reparo Loves Mambu: Partnership Brings New Loan Options to UK SMEs

By David Penn Posted on July 27, 2015
Categories: Mambu

Cloud banking innovator Mambu has been selected by Reparo Finance, an SME business-financing company, to provide a new line of business loans for small to medium companies in the United Kingdom.

Andrew Ward, managing director of Reparo Finance, pointed to the ability to provide financing to “neglected yet viable U.K.-based businesses.” Ward said that “partnering with Mambu has allowed our company to quickly bring more sophisticated loan offerings to market, while offering the necessary expertise and scalability to meet growing customer demand.”

Eugene Danilkis, Mambu CEO, added that his company’s technology would help make it easier for Reparo to develop “new and more accessible loan offerings” to market to the historically underserved small businesses.

From left: Mambu founder and CEO Eugene Danilkis, and David Hamilton, advisory board member, presented at FinovateAsia 2013 in Singapore.

Mambu has had a busy 2015. The company announced earlier this month that Ferratum Group selected its technology to power SME lending, and in June added a variety of new features such as multi-account credit arrangements, balloon payments for real estate and auto lending, asset-backed lending, and more. Mambu began the year being named to FinTechCity’s FinTech 50.

Reparo Finance provides SME financing options such as asset-secured loans, that range from 50,000 pounds to 1 million. Terms range from one to 24 months and a lending decision takes only two business days. The company plans to use Mambu to provide greater flexibility when it comes to payment schedules. Reparo was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Manchester, United Kingdom.

Founded in December 2011 and headquartered in Berlin, Germany, Mambu made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia 2013 in Singapore.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on July 27, 2015
Categories: Betterment, Coinbase, FIS, Fiserv, Intelligent Environments, itBit, Kabbage, Kony Solutions, Loop, Mambu, Realty Mogul, Zopa

On Finovate.com

“The Next FinTech Unicorn? Rumored $150 Million Heading to Kabbage“

“Reparo Loves Mambu: Partnership Brings New Loan Options to UK SMEs”

Around the web

Datamonitor looks at how “wealth giants” are responding to the challenge of robo-advisors like Betterment.

Atom Bank chooses front-office technology from Intelligent Enviornments and back-office technology from FIS.

Fujitsu’s PalmSecure biometric technology comes to Fiserv’s DNA account-processing platform.

e27 reviews technologies like LoopPay and the prospects for digital wallet use in Asia.

Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO, says bitcoin will be the world’s reserve currency within 15 years.

The Telegraph highlights Zopa in its look at the safety of peer-to-peer lending.

Kony launches the latest version of its mobile backend-as-a-service (MBaaS) solution, Kony MobileFabric 6.5.

Fox Business News interviews Realty Mogul founder and CEO Jilliene Helman.

itBit hosts Bankchain Discover Summit for financial industry professionals.

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Friday Feature Request: Banking/Card Transaction Annotation via Email

By Jim Bruene Posted on July 24, 2015
Categories: Feature Friday, Personal Financial Management, Simple

On Fridays, I try to post a new digital banking feature I’ve recently discovered. But with nothing to report this week, I will instead take the easy route and make a request for a new feature:

Feature: Transaction annotation by email

BBVA’s Simple has been a leader in adding richness to transaction detail. We reported here on its web-based solution for annotating transaction in late 2012 (see screenshot at top of post). Basically, that capability needs to be ported to email for, forgive me, simpler access.

The specs:

After each transaction that hits my account (preferably ALL my aggregated accounts), I get an email confirmation of each transaction with whatever data the bank/PFM can already provide on it (amount, date, merchant, category). Using a free-form field, I add whatever text I want to the description, attach a photo or file (if I so choose), and categorize it (if I’m that kind of a user).
Depending on how the feature is implemented, I press enter or hit reply and my annotations are recorded into my permanent transaction archives at the bank/PFM. Note: You must have a long-term archive solution in place for this feature to have value.
The transaction details must be in the email message itself so that I can use my email client to forward the message to others, flag for later attention, or file.
The same thing could be done via text (with a link) or notifications, but email is the key for me.

Bottom line: For me, this would be one of the best things a bank, card issuer or PFM could do to cement my loyalty—and perhaps even cough up a modest subscription fee. I want my transaction history to be both a personal diary, e.g., traveling or dining out; a tax record, for business or charitable transactions; and a searchable resource for future questions, e.g., What did I pay last month for cable?

——–

Note: Hit me on Twitter (@netbanker) if you know someone already offering this.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Hypori Introduces Seamless App Mode in Latest ACE Product Suite Release

By David Penn Posted on July 24, 2015
Categories: Hypori

With version 3.1 announced this week, virtual mobile infrastructure innovator Hypori is unveiling the new “Seamless app” mode of its Android Cloud Environment (ACE). The technology gives users secure, on-demand access to hosted Android apps, while allowing icon shortcuts to be presented as they ordinarily would be. This ensures that users of other platforms and operating systems remain in a familiar environment.

“Users enjoy the same look and feel they are accustomed to and see only the hosted apps, regardless of the OS they have chosen,” says Brian Vetter, Hypori CTO. He called the technology “another example of our dedication to user experience.”

“We want to make it easy for any IT admin to dynamically provision seamless apps to users,” added company CEO Justin Marston.

See Hypori’s ACE Product Suite 3.1 interface in the video below.

https://vimeo.com/134088893

Seamless apps have the same security reliabilities as a full virtual device, including two-factor authentication, FIPS compliant TLS 1.2 encryption, and no data-at-rest on the end point. The platform also keeps the apps and its back-end services protected by keeping everything behind the enterprise network’s firewall.

Developed in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense, Hypori’s Virtual Mobile Infrastructure helps enterprises accommodate mobile devices and BYOD policies by separating physical devices from potentially sensitive apps and data. The platform gives users access from their iPhone, iPad, or Android mobile device to a secure, virtual mobile device in the cloud.

Hypori raised more than $7 million early this year, and more than $6 million in March, for a total capital of more than $14 million. In April 2015, Hypori announced that its ACE Client had been approved for use with classified data by the National Security Agency (NSA). In May, Hypori earned the 2015 Mobility Tech Zone Product of the Year Award from TMC, and in June, the company announced that its VMI supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The Austin, Texas-based company formerly known as DroidCloud was founded in 2012. Hypori will demo its technology live in New York at FinovateFall 2015. Early-bird savings are still available, so visit our registration section today.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

New Investment for Dealstruck Boosts Lending Capital to More than $100 Million

By David Penn Posted on July 24, 2015
Categories: Dealstruck, Funding

Dealstruck has raised $10 million in new capital from Community Investment Management (CIM). The online business lender now retains total capital of $70 million and says the investment will enable it to lend more than $100 million to small businesses.

Managing partner for CIM, Jacob Haar, praised Dealstruck’s transparency and “compelling financing options” in explaining his firm’s investment in the company. In his statement, Dealstruck CEO Ethan Senturia emphasized the way lenders like Dealstruck have helped small businesses overcome traditional funding challenges, improving overall the “financial landscape for small businesses.”

“The growth in alternative lending has breathed new life into so many small businesses,” Senturia said. “And growing the capital pool means more access and more opportunity.”

Dealstruck CEO and co-founder Ethan Senturia presented Dealstruck’s Line of Credit Borrower Portal at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

The company also announced that Robert Riedl, former COO of Consumer Portfolio Services, would be joining Dealstruck as head of capital markets. Reidl has more than 25 years’ experience in specialty lending, and began his career as an investment banker at ContiFinancial Services, Jefferies & Company, and PaineWebber.

Dealstruck provides small businesses with up to $500,000 in funding. Funding solutions include traditional business loans; asset- and inventory-backed lines of credit; as well as revenue-based options. The company uses the applying business’s past two years of tax returns, current bank account information, and the FICO scores of the business’s owners in order to make a customized, funding determination in minutes.

Dealstruck’s Series B round comes just a few months after the company’s $8.3 million Series A round in April. Also this spring, Dealstruck was named to AlwaysOn’s first OnFinance Top 100. Founded in June 2012 and headquartered in San Diego, California, Dealstruck demoed its Line of Credit Borrower Portal at FinovateSpring 2015 in May.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on July 24, 2015
Categories: CurrencyTransfer, Dealstruck, DoubleNet Pay, Expensify, Hypori, ThetaRay, TransferWise

On Finovate.com

“New Investment for Dealstruck Boosts Lending Capital to More Than $100 Million”

“Hypori Introduces Seamless App Mode in Latest ACE Product Suite Release”; see Hypori live in New York at FinovateFall 2015.

Around the web

DoubleNetPay co-founder and CEO weighs in on retirement planning in Employee Benefit News.

Bank Innovation: CurrencyTransfer is preparing for a “major funding round.”

TransferWise announces support for Apple Pay.

PayPal unveils six new features for its invoicing service.

ThetaRay opens up its first office in the U.S. See ThetaRay at FinovateFall 2015 in New York.

Expensify introduces new travel-and-expense platform with new integrations and partnerships.

TransferTo and PayPal partner to enable mobile top-up in Canada.

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.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Five Alums Earn Finalist Spots in Global Banking Innovation Awards 2015

By David Penn Posted on July 23, 2015
Categories: Fidor Bank, Idea Bank, Lending Club, Moven, PayItSimple

Five Finovate alums, including three innovative bank partners, have made it to the finals of the BAI Global Banking Innovation Awards 2015.

Lending Club, Moven, and PayItSimple will compete for top honors in the “Most Innovative Non-Bank Financial Services Organization Award.”

Fidor Bank AG, headquartered in Germany, earned finalist honors in four categories. Fidor demoed its FidorPay Account at FinovateEurope 2011:

Product and service Innovation
Innovation in payments
Disruptive innovation in banking
Most innovative bank of the year

Poland’s Idea Bank made it to the finals in one category, Innovation in Payments. Idea Bank joined Efigence on the stage for FinvoateEurope 2014 and presented their transaction system for SMEs.

The winners and finalists will be recognized during the BAI Retail Delivery Conference & Expo, 13-15 October 2015 in Las Vegas.

A total of 39 finalists were selected out of more than 250 nominees. This year’s event featured three new categories: Innovation in Payments; Most Innovative Community-based Banking Organization; and Most Innovative Non-bank Organization. According to BAI president and CEO Debbie Blanucci, the goal was to recognize the full breadth of innovation in the financial services space.

“The new changes in this year’s program will enable us to further recognize innovation and originality throughout our industry,” Blanucci said, “including community financial institutions and new non-bank entrants that provide direct-to-consumer banking products and services.”

2015 marks the fifth year of the The BAI – Infosys Finacle Global Banking Innovation Awards, sponsored by Bank Administration Institute and BAI Center and Infosys.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Fintech Fundings: 22 Companies Raise $450 Million Week Ending July 24

By Jim Bruene Posted on July 23, 2015
Categories: Funding

While the week got off to a slow start, the money arrived in buckets the past 48 hours. Counting the $250 million in new debt to alt-small-biz lender LiftForward, the weekly total was $454 million. But the more widely tracked equity total was still a sizable $204 million across 20 companies including three Finovate alums: Apprenda which raised an impressive $24 million; DealStruck with $10 million to fuel its small-biz lending; and Revolut bringing in $2.3 million for its mobile P2P payment service.

The biggest equity round ($50 million) went to Remedy Partners, a Connecticut-based health tech company. While not a pure fintech play, we included it here because its primary customers are the big insurers, including the U.S. government. The second biggest round was also in the insurance arena, as Sweden’s BIMA (aka Milvik) raised $38 million for its micro-insurance products in emerging markets.

Here are the deals from 18 July through 24 July 2015, ranked by size:

Remedy Partners
Bundled care and payment programs for health insurers
HQ: Darien, Connecticut
Latest round: $50 million Series B
Total raised: $86.2 million
Tags: Insurance, health care, payments, accounts receivable, accounting
Source: Crunchbase

BIMA (Milvik)
Mobile insurance provider in emerging markets
HQ: Stockholm, Sweden
Latest round: $38.4 million Series C
Total raised: $60.4 million
Tags: Insurance, mobile, underbanked, pay-as-you-go, microinsurance
Source: Crunchbase

Mswipe
Mobile point-of-sale solution for feature phones
HQ: Mumbai, India
Latest round: $25 million Series C
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: mPOS, acquiring, credit and debit cards, payments, merchants, SMB
Source: Crunchbase

Apprenda
Platform-as-a-service provider
HQ: Troy, New York
Latest round: $24 million
Total raised: $55 million
Tags: Enterprise, development platform, Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

CircleBack Lending
Consumer lending P2P marketplace
HQ: Boca Raton, Florida
Latest round: $17.5 million Series A
Total raised: $22 million
Tags: Lending, credit, consumer, loans, investing, person-to-person
Source: Crunchbase

DealStruck
Marketplace lender for small biz
HQ: Carlsbad, California
Latest round: $10 million Series B
Total raised: $69.5 million ($19.5 million equity; $50 million debt)
Tags: Lending, underwriting, loans, SMB, P2P, peer-to-peer, investing, Finovate alum
Source: Crunchbase

Innovati
Payment-acceptance technology
HQ: Bangalore, India
Latest round: $5 million
Total raised: $6.6 million
Tags: Payments, merchants, POS, point-of-sale, acquiring, SMB
Source: Crunchbase

DataFox
Discover and track companies for investing, sales
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $5 million
Total raised: $6.8 million
Tags: Investing, sales, business development
Source: Crunchbase

Procurify
Corporate-purchasing management
HQ: Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
Latest round: $4 million
Total raised: $5.2 million
Tags: Purchasing, expense management, expense reports, accounts payable, accounting
Source: Crunchbase

Bitx
Bitcoin wallet and payments
HQ: Singapore
Latest round: $4 million
Total raised: $4.8 million
Tags: Digital wallet, bitcoin, blockchain, mobile, payments, South Africa (market)
Source: FT Partners

Limelight Health
Sales tools for insurance agents
HQ: California City, California
Latest round: $3 million Series A
Total raised: $3 million
Tags: Healthcare, insurance, brokers, sales, quotes
Source: Crunchbase

Mint Payments
Mobile point-of-sale system
HQ: Sydney, Australia
Latest round: $2.9 million
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: mPOS, SMB, payments, cards, acquiring, merchants
Source: FT Partners

Investorist
Investing and selling platform for raw land property
HQ: Melbourne, Australia
Latest round: $2.5 million Seed
Total raised: $2.5 million
Tags: Real estate, investing, off-the-plan property, B2B, SMB, enterprise
Source: Crunchbase

Revolut
P2P mobile payments and remittances
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Latest round: $2.3 million Seed
Total raised: $2.8 million
Tags: Payments, fx, remittance, mobile, prepaid debit card, Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

MoneyMover
Remittance provider
HQ: Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
Latest round: $1.6 million
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: Payments, fx, SMB, funds transfer
Source: FT Partners

Fortress Risk Management
Enterprise risk-management services for financial institutions
HQ: South Glastonbury, Connecticut
Latest round: $1 million
Total raised: $5.1 million
Tags: Security, enterprise, business intelligence, compliance, ERM, fraud protection
Source: Crunchbase

Factom
Using the blockchain for managing records
HQ: Austin, Texas
Latest round: $1 million Series A
Total raised: $1.1 million
Tags: Bitcoin, blockchain, cryptocurrency
Source: Crunchbase

Self Lender
Credit-building service
HQ: Austin, Texas
Latest round: $500,000 Seed
Total raised: $2.6 million
Tags: Lending, loans, consumer, credit score, underwriting
Source: Crunchbase

Bankers Toolbox
Risk and compliance management for financial institutions
HQ: North Hollywood, California
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: Compliance
Source: FT Partners

Cermati
Indonesian consumer financial services hub
HQ: Jakarta, Indonesia
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: Consumer, lead generation, advertising, deposits, credit
Source: Crunchbase

——-

Debt only

LiftForward
Alt-lender to small- and mid-sized businesses
HQ: New York City, New York
Latest round: $250 million Debt
Total raised: $261.3 million ($2.3 million equity, $259 million debt)
Tags: Lending, credit, SMB
Source: Crunchbase

Argos Risk
Credit risk management tools for small businesses
HQ: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Latest round: $200,000 Debt
Total raised: $2 million
Tags: SMB, accounts receivables, trade finance, underwriting
Source: Crunchbase

———

Photos licensed from 123RF.com

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Capriza Chosen by Flextronics, Marvell, NTT, Symantec to Boost Workflow Efficiency

By David Penn Posted on July 23, 2015
Categories: Capriza, FinovateFall 2015

A quartet of tech veterans have selected Capriza to help simplify essential workflows in SAP, Oracle, and Sharepoint, as well as in their custom-built systems. Semiconductor-producer Marvell and security specialist Symantec will use the Capriza platform to streamline and manage Oracle processes. Supply-chain provider Flextronics, and Japanese telecom-subsidiary NTT, will use the platform to improve SAP processes. Workflows for timesheet entries and approvals are among the main areas of focus.

Myckel Haghnazari, an IT director at Flextronics called Capriza “one of the most innovative products” he’d seen in 15 years of working in technology. Haghnazari sees the platform as critical to helping “transform some of our core front-office applications into personal, responsive mobile apps.”

As Mayank Mehta, Capriza VP for product, explained in an article earlier this month in IT Business Edge, solutions are available to help enterprises develop mobile apps from their existing application code. The problem, according to Mehta and Capriza, is that many of these solutions fail to “capture and extend” the workflow the legacy application is in. Capriza’s solution is that rather than have developers write new code or build APIs, instead use a virtual browser tool in the cloud that captures the application’s business logic and workflow automatically and that generates a smaller, micro mobile application to suit the specific need.

https://vimeo.com/110044914

Capriza calls its approach “zero coding, zero APIs, zero upgrades.”

One of Gartner’s Cool Vendors for 2014, Capriza was named one of 1o mobile startups to watch at the beginning of the year by Network World. Its technology has been deployed by T-Mobile, Brocade, VMWare, TiVo and more.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Capriza will make its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2015 in New York in September. The company has raised more than $50 million in funding, and includes among its investors Andreessen Horowitz, Harmony Ventures, and Tenaya Capital. Yuval Scarlet is CEO.

To see Capriza live at our upcoming fall event, click here to register today. Early bird savings are still available.

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook