Hypori Introduces Seamless App Mode in Latest ACE Product Suite Release

Hypori Introduces Seamless App Mode in Latest ACE Product Suite Release

Hypori_homepage_July2015

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.

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

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

Dealstruck_homepage_July2015

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_stage_FS2015

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.

Finovate Alumni News

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.

Five Alums Earn Finalist Spots in Global Banking Innovation Awards 2015

Five Alums Earn Finalist Spots in Global Banking Innovation Awards 2015

BAI_homepage_July2015

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.

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

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

money_bucketsWhile 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

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

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

Capriza_homepage_Jul2015

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.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Five Alums Earn Finalist Spots in Global Banking Innovation Awards 2015″
  • “Capriza Chosen by Flextronics, Marvell, NTT, Symantec to Boost Workflow Efficiency”

Around the web

  • FusionInvest from Misys wins “Best buy-side pricing and market display” at Systems in the City Awards.
  • Avalara and ePages partner to provide cross-border transaction tax-compliance solution. See Avalara at FinDEVr 2015 in October.
  • Der Finanzprodukt Blog profiles social payments innovator, Fastacash.
  • Dublin Globe asks if Fenergo is the “best kept secret in Irish tech.”
  • Bitcoin Magazine takes a look at how Blockstack uses the blockchain to provide clearing and settlement services for banks. Join Blockstack at FinovateFall 2015 in New York City in September.
  • Taulia and Tradeshift earn spots on CIO Review’s 20 Most Promising Procurement Solution Providers for 2015.

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

Fintech Unicorn List Q2 2015: An Estimated 46 Have Arrived + 38 On Their Tails

Fintech Unicorn List Q2 2015: An Estimated 46 Have Arrived + 38 On Their Tails

fortune_unicornWe published our first fintech unicorn list in April 2014 with a mere 11 companies. Just 15 months later, that number is up four-fold to 46. And it’s 11 more than our update two months ago (13 new unicorns less 2 falling out). Time will tell whether these valuation bets are temporary insanity from private investors or the beginning of a long cycle of re-imagining financial services. We’ll get back to you on that.

Please note: Our list includes financial technology companies (either direct services or software) founded since 2000 and valued at $900 million or more. Unlike other lists, we include exits (3 companies); public companies (5); real estate plays (2); and a few Finovate alums (3) that are not pure-play fintech, but do have substantial operations in that vertical. Without those additions, there would be 35 pure-play private fintech unicorns, or 29 if you used a strict $1 billion floor. See more caveats as the end of the post.

In addition to the 46 full-fledged unicorns, we’ve added 37 narwhals or semi-unicorns each with an estimated value of $500 million to $800 million. In total, there are 83 companies with a combined value of $121 billion, about 1/3 the most-valued bank on the planet.

Here is the breakdown by fintech sector:

Sector Unicorns Semi-U Total
Lending 14 10 24
Payments 15 7 22
Real estate 2 5 7
Insurance 4 1 5
Investing 1 4 5
Accounting 3 0 3
Security/Risk 1 2 3
Bitcoin/Block 1 2 3
Credit reports 1 1 2
Digital banking 1 1 2
Other 3 4 7
Total 46 37 83

 

And the full list (*new arrivals; **previous unicorns):

Company Sector Finovate Alum? Value ($Bil) Value Source
Lufax Lending No 9.6 WSJ June 2015
Zhong An Online* Insurance No 8.0 WSJ June 2015
Square Payments No 6.0 WSJ June 2015
LendingClub Lending Yes 5.6 Public
Zillow Real estate No 4.8 Public
Zenefits Insurance No 4.5 May 2015 round
CreditKarma Credit Yes 3.5 WSJ June 2015
Stripe Payments No 3.5 Dec 2014 round
Powa Technologies Payments Yes 2.7 Nov 2014 round
Klarna Payments Yes 2.5 Mar 2014 round
Xero Accounting Yes 2.4 Public
CommonBond Lending No <1.0 Valuation less than $1 bil per company (8/21/15)
One97 Payments No 2.0 Feb 2015 round
Prosper Lending Yes 1.9 Apr 2015 round
Affirm* Lending No 1.8 Funderbeam
Biz2Credit Lending No 1.7 Funderbeam
Dataminr* Analytics Yes 1.6 Funderbeam
Lakala* Payments No 1.6 CB Insights
Adyen Payments No 1.5 Dec 2014 round
FinancialForce.com Accounting No 1.5 Funderbeam
Oscar Insurance No 1.5 WSJ June 2015
Wonga* Lending Yes 1.5 Funderbeam
Zuora Payments No 1.5 Funderbeam
iZettle Payments No 1.4 Funderbeam
Housing.com Real estate No 1.3 Funderbeam
Qufenqi Lending No 1.3 Funderbeam
Revel Systems Payments No 1.3 Funderbeam
Social Finance (SoFI) Lending No 1.3 Feb 2015 round
Jimubox Lending No 1.1 Funderbeam
Q2* Banking Yes 1.1 Public
Coupa Software* Accounting No 1.0 CB Insights
Fenergo* Onboarding Yes 1.0 Funderbeam
FundingCircle Lending No 1.0 WSJ June 2015
Kofax Doc mgmt Yes 1.0 Acquired (Lexmark)
Mozido Payments No 1.0 Finovate est
TransferWise Payments Yes 1.0 CB Insights
Trusteer Security No 1.0 Acquired (IBM)
Vanco Payments* Payments No 1.0 Funderbeam
Avant Lending Yes 0.9 Forbes (4/15)
ClimateCorp Insurance No 0.9 Acquired (Monsanto)
Coinbase Bitcoin Yes 0.9 Funderbeam
Dynamics* Payments Yes 0.9 Funderbeam
IEX Group Investing No 0.9 Funderbeam
LendingHome* Lending No 0.9 Funderbeam
On Deck Lending Yes 0.9 Public
RenRenDai

Xoom

Lending

Payments

No

No

0.9

0.9

Funderbeam

Acquired (PayPal)

Total Unicorns 98.1

Near Unicorns

21 Inc Bitcoin No 0.8 Funderbeam
BankBazaar* Banking Yes 0.8 Funderbeam
Betterment Investing Yes 0.8 Funderbeam
Braintree Payments Yes 0.8 Acquired (PayPal)
LifeLock** Credit No 0.8 Public
Rong360 Lending No 0.8 Funderbeam
Wealthfront Investing Yes 0.8 Funderbeam
Accurate Group Real estate No 0.7 Funderbeam
App Annie** Mobile Yes 0.7 Funderbeam
Auction.com* Real estate No 0.7 Funderbeam
Ayadsi Analytics Yes 0.7 Funderbeam
Oportun (Progreso Fin) Lending Yes 0.7 Finovate est
Taulia Payments Yes 0.7 Funderbeam
WorldRemit Payments Yes 0.7 Funderbeam
AnJuke Real estate No 0.6 Funderbeam
Circle Internet Finance Bitcoin No 0.6 Funderbeam
EzBob Lending Yes 0.6 Funderbeam
FangDD Real estate No 0.6 Funderbeam
Kabbage Lending Yes 0.6 Funderbeam
Bill.com Payments Yes 0.5 Finovate est
CAN Capital Lending Yes 0.5 Finovate est
Cardlytics Marketing Yes 0.5 Funderbeam
Credorax Payments No 0.5 Funderbeam
Financial Software Systems Risk Mgmt No 0.5 Finovate est
FreeCharge Payments No 0.5 Finovate est
Kreditech Lending Yes 0.5 Finovate est
Motif Investing Investing Yes 0.5 Funderbeam
Ping Identity Security Yes 0.5 Finovate est
PolicyBazaar Insurance Yes 0.5 Funderbeam
Radius Marketing Yes 0.5 Finovate est
Receivables Exchange Lending Yes 0.5 Finovate est
Snowball Finance Investing No 0.5 Funderbeam
Strategic Funding Source Lending Yes 0.5 Finovate est
U51 Lending No 0.5 Finovate est
Wepay Payments Yes 0.5 Funderbeam
VivaReal Real estate No 0.5 Funderbeam
Zopa
Shopkeep
Lending
Mobile POS
Yes
Yes
0.5
0.5
Finovate est
Finovate est
Total Semi-U 23
Grand Total 121

*New companies and/or new unicorns
**Falling from unicorn list (note: Lifelock was a unicorn until yesterday’s stock drop)
Updates:
July 24: Added Xoom to Unicorn list based on acquisition price paid by PayPal
July 28: Added Shopkeep POS to Near Unicorn list based on $60 million Series D funding and total of $97 million raised
Aug 21: CommonBond emailed to say that the Funderbeam valuation ($2.0 billion) is incorrect and they are currently valued at less than $1 billion (but declined to disclose current valuation).

More caveats:

1. For private companies (41 of the 47 unicorns), values are hugely dependent on the terms of the deal (read this), so they are not comparable to public company valuations.
2. About half the unicorn valuations are derived from public statements by the companies or investors during recent rounds or acquisitions. However, half are estimated by analysts/algorithms from tracking firms, especially Funderbeam, an Estonian startup that’s relatively new on the scene. So there is a lot of room for error in these valuations.
3. For the “near-unicorn” list we’ve added a number of companies that recently raised large rounds, but have not made public statements about valuation. We estimated most of those at $500 million, but those are simply educated guesses.
4. We are using a broad definition of fintech including real estate. Also, we’ve included a few Finovate alums that are not pure-play fintech, but that have a significant financial services business.

Santander UK Launches Cash Kitty PFM App Developed with Kalixa, Monitise

Santander UK Launches Cash Kitty PFM App Developed with Kalixa, Monitise

Kalixa_logo

Move over millennials: Santander UK has unveiled a new money management app called KiTTi, designed to bring twenty-somethings into the world of social savings.

monitise-logoDesigned in partnership with Finovate alums, Kalixa Payments (FinovateEurope 2013) and Monitise (FinovateFall 2007), KiTTi lets up to 100 friends create collective “pots of money.” The “Cash Kitty” can be funded via a KiTTi prepaid contactless MasterCard up to £4,000, and the account can be monitored with a downloadable app available on both iOS and Android.

See Santander UK’s video introduction to Kitti below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqs9fLxUHFw

The service is available to any U.K. bank customer over the age of 18. Friends can be invited to join from within the app or by text message. More than one KiTTi account can be managed by a single KiTTi card, and KiTTi can be used for payments in both the UK and overseas. A fee of 35p is applied to each KiTTi transaction.

Sam Nixon, head of KiTTi at Santander, called the app unique to the United Kingdom and “perfect for the WhatsApp generation.”

KiTTi was designed by Monitise Create, the company’s “design and innovation” studio. Alistair Crane, chief sales officer at Monitise, called it a “major step forward in social banking and payments.” Crane says the relationship between Monitise and Santander will offer still more: “We are progressing a number of home-screen, ‘human-first’ innovations which will ultimately transform the way consumers interact with their money,” he said.

Payment functionality for KiTTi comes courtesy of Kalixa, which includes both the mobile wallet and the prepaid contactless card, as well as handling customer services, KYC, and AML systems. Jonathan Bennett, chief commercial officer for Kalixa, put KiTTi “at the crest of the wave” that is replacing cash with “simple, inclusive, sustainable services made possible by mobile.”

Kalixa was founded in 2007 and has offices in the United Kingdom and Austria. Edward Chandler is CEO. London-based Monitise was founded in 2003. Alastair Lukies is founder and CEO.

FinDEVr APIntelligence

FinDEVr2015LogoV2DateAre you building new financial technology? Be sure to register soon for the only event exclusively for fintech developers, FinDEVr 2015, on 6/7 October in San Francisco.

Industry news

  • Let’s Talk Payments highlights 29 APIs to consider before building any fintech product; many are FinDEVr alums.
  • New Y Combinator program for “very, very early stage startups” announced by YC Fellowship; deadline of 27 July 2015.

The latest from upcoming FinDEVr 2015 presenters

  • Lend Academy podcast features Kathryn Petralia, Kabbage co-founder.
  • Irish Tech News interviews Neil Costigan, BehavioSec CEO.
  • PYMNTS looks at OnDeck’s record-breaking quarter.
  • Red Herring names Kabbage a Top 100 Private Company.
  • Spreedly surpasses $1 billion in annual payment volume.
  • The Mifos Initiative joins The Open Source Initiative, a global nonprofit that promotes and protects open source software, development and communities.
  • Personal Capital featured in a Bloomberg Business column on options for new investors.
  • Business Insider looks at “transformative” fintech leadership within companies such as Braintree, Coinbase, PayPal, SamsungPay (with Loop), and Venmo.
  • GROWMARK selects Avalara AvaTax Excise and Returns Excise Enterprise.

Alumni updates

  • InComm partners with Gemalto to offer a secure prepaid mobile NFC payment option.
  • Trulioo appoints former Experian GM as president.
  • Bankless Times features Cloud Lending Solutions.

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

Finovate Debuts: Onovative’s CoreIQ Brings Automated Marketing Technology to Banks

Finovate Debuts: Onovative’s CoreIQ Brings Automated Marketing Technology to Banks

Onovative_homepage_June2015

CoreIQ is a marketing automation system developed by Onovative that speeds onboarding and broadens cross-selling opportunities for community banks and credit unions. The platform leverages the data in the banks’s core banking system to automatically distribute marketing content in a variety of formats, from email and SMS to phone calls and postcards.

“We are a hybrid between CRM and marketing automation,” Onovative CEO Michael Browning explained in a conversation during FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose earlier this year. “We bring data from all their systems and keep it behind their firewall, then use APIs to reach out to Trulioo and other companies for other functions (like Facebook ads).”

Onovative_FS2015_stage

From left: Onovative co-founders, CEO Michael Browning and CTO Clay Turner, demonstrated CoreIQ at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose.

Onovative sees its technology as a challenge to the Salesforces of the World, and similar platforms. One observer at FinovateSpring 2015 referred to Onovative as “Mailchimp for Banks and Credit Unions.” On that point, Browning admitted that “as a company, we love taking on bigger companies. It’s part of the fun of being a startup.”

Company facts:

  • Founded in June 2013
  • Headquartered in Jeffersonville, Indiana
  • Six employees
  • Raised $400,000 in capital
  • Michael Browning is CEO and co-founder

How it works

Onovative’s CoreIQ is designed to give community banks and credit unions the same high-caliber marketing tools to better engage their customers that larger financial institutions have access to. Among the key differentiators is the way Onovative handles a client’s sensitive customer data. “We centralize the data. Companies don’t have to upload to the cloud,” Browning explained. “We use APIs to access it, but we keep the data where it belongs.”

Onovative_CoreIQ_dashboard

From the main CoreIQ dashboard (above), a marketing team has insight into every client in the bank or credit union. Marketers can use the dashboard’s Account Listing Report to build customized lists for a variety of outreach campaigns—e.g., “Select personal checking account customers with balances of more than $1,000″—or to build a campaign based on the customers of a single branch, a region, current status, account type and much more.

Onovative_CoreIQ_Account_Listing

Client data can be analyzed through one of CoreIQ’s visualizations or presented in a simple list form (see below) for ready use in a campaign. Campaigns can be developed to operate through a variety of channels—from email and SMS to postcards and outbound telephone calls—and the platform provides a number of predesigned templates. These templates help not only marketers to save time, but also make it easier for community banks and credit unions to remain compliant since the message is consistent.

“In just a few seconds I can go from a list of people to a campaign,” Browning said. “And because all of this data is kept behind the firewall in CoreIQ, I’m able to see all the way through to conversions, as well.”

Onovative_CoreIQ_Account_List

CoreIQ also provides an Actionable Report Campaign tab (below) that gives marketers insight into how much their campaigns will cost, how the cost of the campaign will impact the budget, and other important campaign information and criteria. The user can also see how the actual text or SMS or email will look when it is delivered.

Onovative_CoreIQ_Campaign

Part of helping community banks and credit unions engage their customers with the same efficiency and sophistication as larger institutions includes things like providing a wide variety of templates and artwork to accompany marketing messages. Templates for email, postcard, SMS, and other message channels are available for banks and credit unions to choose from.

Importantly, as Browning pointed out in his FinovateSpring demo of the platform, CoreIQ’s template library can also include elements that have an API-component, as well. “So we have things in the pipeline like the Facebook-ad network and other display networks,” Browning said.

Onovative_CoreIQ_Onboarding_Templates

Campaigns can be easily tagged for reference and analysis, separating “offers” from “courtesy followups” and “debt collections.” Campaigns can also be linked with specific offers such as business checking or auto loans. The “Communication Template” features both an “approved by compliance” toggle button, as well as a signature space for any revisions to the template to be noted and approved.

And because the reality of multichannel communications means that not every customer is available on every channel, CoreIQ has a feature that allows any email or electronic campaign to be issued in print format if the platform detects that no electronic channel is available for a given customer. For example, the system could be configured to send a direct-mail postcard whenever it encounters a customer with no available email address.

The future

Onovative’s to-do list is long, but all items carry a central theme: Make the necessary connections to bring more data to the hands of FIs seeking deeper engagement with customers. Browning says Onovative is partnering with “people that already have a lot of consumer data and connecting it with what banks already have.” At Finovate, those partners were largely the technology folks, the payment processors and core systems providers. “We want to hook their data into our system,” Browning explained. “Reaching out via SMS, email, print, Facebook ads, Google display ads, issuing gift cards via API, integrating behavioral data from other networks … it’s all important,” he said.

Onovative_CoreIQ_Mapping-Conversions

At a starting price of $900 a month for the complete CoreIQ suite, Onovative offers FIs the ability to try the platform for a few months before making a commitment, and insists there are no long-term contracts. Browning added, “We put price right out in front. People love the fact that price is transparent.” The company recently celebrated its partnership with Massachusetts-based Avidia Bank ($1 billion in assets), and in June 2015 was featured in a Credit Union Times article on onboarding strategies for small and medium FIs.

“The most important thing a credit union can do is to understand its members as much as possible as soon as possible,” Browning said in the CU Times feature. “Cross-selling is important, but you won’t know what to cross-sell until you fully understand their situation.”

And with CoreIQ, Browning is betting that the ability for community banks and credit unions to reach that kind of full understanding will become a lot easier.


Check out the FinovateSpring 2015 demo video for Onovative below.

 

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Santander UK Launches Cash Kitty PFM App Developed with Kalixa, Monitise”

Around the web

  • Lend Academy podcast features Kathryn Petralia, Kabbage co-founder. Come see Kabbage at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco.
  • GMC Software releases GMC Inspire R10 customer communications management software.
  • DevNetwork profiles WePay at the API World 2015 conference.
  • DriveWealth joins with World Merit to promote the first Financial Literacy Challenge.
  • Sonavation unveils technology that puts fingerprint sensors under Gorilla Glass.
  • Top Image Systems inks deal with Bahrainian Xerox distributor, Business International all.
  • Dallas Business Journal interviews Chris Camillo, TickerTags founder.
  • Prosper begins debt-sale recovery strategy; charged-off loans will be packaged together for a debt sale.
  • AlwaysOn selects Taulia as an AlwaysOn Global 250 winner.
  • Beehive Startups takes a peek at MX’s culture. Check out MX’s presentation for developers at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco.
  • GROWMARK selects Avalara AvaTax Excise & Returns Excise Enterprise. Avalara will present at FinDEVr 2015, 6/7 October.
  • Forbes column on top fintech trends highlights MaxMyInterest, Prosper, Lending Club, Betterment, Vanguard, CUneXus, Patch of Land, and DarcMatter.

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.