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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on August 4, 2015
Categories: Alkami Technology, Backbase, Cachet Financial Solutions, Evo Snap*, FIS, Green Dot, Handpoint, Jack Henry, PayPal, Top Image Systems, TradeHero, Wallaby Financial

On Finovate.com

“Wallaby Upgrades Credit Card Optimization Solution with Spend Monitor”; come see Wallaby at FinDEVr, San Francisco, 6/7 Oct.

Around the web

Backbase-powered Touch Bank goes live in Russia. Check out what Backbase has for developers at FinDEVr San Francisco on 6/7 October.

Top Image Systems appoints Andrew Pery as new CMO.

Campus FCU integrates Alkami Technology’s ORB Platform into its core banking system.

Green Dot launches mobile cash-processing technology.

Security First Bank picks FIS to provide core banking system.

PayPal hires John Rainey, former United Airlines executive, as new CFO.

Fox Chase Bank to deploy SilverLake core system from Jack Henry.

“Cachet Introduces Express Mobile Deposit Solution for Small Financial Institutions”

EVO Snap* to fast track EMV migration for software vendors and retailers; partners with Handpoint.

Macquarie Capital Securities and TradeHero launch Warrant Hero, a virtual warrant competition, with RM100,000 in prize money to be given away.

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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T. Rowe Price, Fidelity Lead $130 Million Investment in Twilio

By David Penn Posted on August 3, 2015
Categories: FinDEVr 2015 San Francisco, Twilio

An investment of $130 million has boosted the total capital of cloud communication innovator Twilio to more than $233 million. The Series E round was led by T. Rowe Price and Fidelity Investments, and included participation from Salesforce Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), Arrowpoint Partners, Amazon.com, and Altimeter Capital.

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson praised the way Fidelity and T. Rowe Price understood his company’s “developer-first, platform business model.” Twilio plans to use the new capital to speed up its product roadmap, particularly its Real-time Communications Suite; pursue new markets internationally; and expand its presence in the enterprise.

Twilio provides developers with APIs that make it easier to add voice, messaging, and video functionality into their mobile and web apps. The company launched its Programmable Voice solution in 2008, and now gives builders access to SMS, MMS, VoIP, authentication, video, and IP messaging. Twilio will make its FinDEVr debut at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco in September.

Recent headlines for Twilio include the launch of Twilio IP Messaging in May, and Twilio Video in April. In February, Twilio made its first acquisition, purchasing authentication specialist, Authy, for an undisclosed sum. Twilio counts among its customers companies as diverse as Home Depot and Uber, Box and Coca-Cola.

In May, Twilio announced a $50 million development fund. In partnership with Bessemer Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and DFJ, the fund will kickstart companies that have built solutions based on Twilio’s technology. The first company to be funded was conference calling app, Speakeasy, to the tune of $5 million.

Twilio is headquartered in San Francisco, and has offices in New York, London, Estonia, Columbia, Germany, Hong Kong, and Ireland. Join them at FinDEVr 2015 San Francisco next month.

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Patch Of Land Adds Commercial Real Estate to Platform

By David Penn Posted on August 3, 2015
Categories: Patch of Land

Real-estate crowdlender, Patch of Land, has gone commercial.

Investors on the crowdlending platform will now be able to put their capital in commercial real estate opportunities instead of simply residential ones. Patch of Land said the addition of commercial real estate gives investors greater diversification, provides the opportunity for “consistent cash-flowing returns” and serves as a “complement” to the platform’s shorter-term residential real estate investment opportunities.

Patch of Land says investors can expect annual yields of between 6% to 10% with the commercial real estate, and terms of as few as 12 months and as many as 60 months are expected to be offered.

From left: Patch of Land CMO AdaPia d’Errico, and CTO Brian Fritton, co-founder, demonstrated the Patch of Land platform at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

One of the largest real estate crowdfunding platforms in the United States with more than $32 million invested through the platform, Patch of Land is a peer-to-real-estate (P2RE) marketplace that connect accredited and institutional investors seeking asset-backed, high-yielding, short-term investments with borrowers looking for alternative funding sources.

Patch of Land was named to Entrepreneur magazine’s 100 Brilliant Companies to Watch 2015 earlier this year. The company raised $23 million in new funding in a round led by SF Capital Group in April.

Here are a few more metrics on Patch of Land since inception in October 2013:

Total loans funded: $40,148, 500
Number of loans funded: 134
Total funds returned to investors: $6,866,745
Average loan size: $301,110

Patch of Land has investments in 25 states including California, Texas, New York, Florida, Ohio, and Massachusetts. Just over half (56%) of the projects funded by Patch of Land have been single-family residential, with multifamily residential coming in second at 36%. It will be worth watching to see how these numbers change now that commercial real estate is available as an investment option on the platform.

Founded in February 2013 and headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Patch of Land demonstrated its crowdfunding platform at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on August 3, 2015
Categories: Betterment, CR2, FutureAdvisor, i-exceed, NICE Systems, Patch of Land, Personal Capital, Radius, Thinknum, Twilio, Vanguard, Wealthfront

On Finovate.com

“T. Rowe Price, Fidelity Lead $130 Million Investment in Twilio“

“i-exceed Unveils Appzillon 3.1 with Enhanced Security, UX”

“Radius Raises $50 Million in Round Led by Founders Fund”

Around the web

Daily Fintech profiles financial analysis platform, Thinknum.

Patch of Land adds commercial real estate to its crowdfunding platform.

CR2 appoints Tammo van Leeuwen as market strategy director.

NerdWallet looks at Wealthfront, Betterment, FutureAdvisor, Personal Capital, and Vanguard in feature on how automation disrupts investing.

Dough Roller features FutureAdvisor as a free service to manage your child’s college fund.

Battery Ventures, a tech-focused investment firm, has agreed to acquire Physical Security Business Unit, part of the security division of NICE Systems in a deal valued up to $100 million.

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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Fintech Fundings: 17 Companies Raised $580 Million Week Ending July 31

By Jim Bruene Posted on July 31, 2015
Categories: Funding

Another monster week in fintech. Depending on how much Stripe received in its round (at a $5 billion valuation), something north of $600 million flowed to 17 fintech companies worldwide. That closes out the month at just under $2 billion raised ($1.65 billion equity; $250 million debt), more than double the $900 million raised a year ago ($675 million equity; $225 million debt).

About 80% of the money this week ($479 million) flowed to Finovate and FinDEVr alums, our biggest week ever (not including the Lending Club IPO which raised $865 million). To put that in perspective, during all of 2014 our alums raised just over $1 billion (excludes IPOs (Yodlee, OnDeck, and Lending Club). An even more startling number: In July 2014, we had one alum funded to the tune of $27 million. During July 2015, 17 alums raised more than $750 million.

Will fintech funding go higher? It’s hard to look at the year-over-year trend and think that it will get much higher. The bigger question for startups, and their backers, is what happens after “peak fintech?” Is there a gradual decline to a sustainable level of investment, or are we witnessing a bubble, which by definition is the precursor to a bath. Given the enormous size of the financial services industry and the pent-up demand for digital services, as well as infrastructure modernization, we firmly believe in fintech’s sustainability.

Finovate and FinDEVr alums raising money this week:

Kabbage $120 million (of rumored $150 million at $875 million valuation)*
Twilio $130 million (at a rumored $1.1 billion valuation)*
Behalf $119 million
Shopkeep $60 million
Radius $50 million
Expensify $17.5 million

——
* Presenting at our upcoming developer event, FinDEVr 2015

Here are the 17 companies by deal size from 25 July to 31 July:

Kabbage
Alt-lender to small businesses
HQ: Atlanta, Georgia
Latest round: $120 million Series E (of rumored $150 million at $875 million valuation)
Total raised: $585 million ($357 million debt, $228 million equity)
Tags: Lending, credit, underwriting, SMB
Source: Finovate

Twilio
Cloud communications
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $130 million ($1.1 billion valuation)
Total raised: $234 million
Tags: Messaging, SMS, text messaging, marketing, VoIP, API, developers, FinDEVr presenter 2015
Source: Crunchbase

Behalf
Small-business short-term alt-lender
HQ: New York City, New York
Latest round: $119 million Series B
Total raised: $129 million
Tags: Credit, lending, underwriting, SMB, financing, factoring, receivables financing, Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

Shopkeep
iPad point of sale system
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $60 million Series D
Total raised: $97.2 million
Tags: Credit, debit cards, merchants, SMB, online, acquiring, POS
Source: Finovate

Radius
Predictive marketing technology
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $50 million Series D
Total raised: $129 million
Tags: Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

China Rapid Finance
Consumer credit marketplace in China
HQ: Shanghai, China
Latest round: $35 million Series C (at $1 billion valuation)
Total raised: $56 million
Tags: Lending, credit, underwriting, consumer loans
Source: Crunchbase

iwoca
Short-term small-biz financing
HQ: London, United Kingdom
Latest round: $20 million
Total raised: $31.5 million
Tags: Credit, alt-lending, SMB, financing, loans
Source: Crunchbase

Expensify
Expense report management
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $17.5 million
Total raised: $27.8 million
Tags: Expense reports, SMB, accounting, enterprise, strategic investor
Source: Finovate

Seedrs
Equity crowdfunding marketplace
HQ: London, United Kingdom
Latest round: $15.6 million Series A
Total raised: $22.8 million
Tags: Investing, P2P, SMB, peer-to-peer
Source: Crunchbase

Crowdcube
Debt and equity crowdfunding marketplace
HQ: Exeter, England, United Kingdom
Latest round: $9.4 million
Total raised: $13.1 million
Tags: Lending, investing, SMB, equity, loans
Source: Crunchbase

OneVest
Platform for investing in startups
HQ: New York City, New York
Latest round: $3 million Series A
Total raised: $5.3 million
Tags: Investing, SMB, wealth management
Source: Crunchbase

Cryptocurrency Research Group
Card processing
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: $3 million grant
Total raised: $3 million
Tags: Bitcoin, crypto, blockchain, R&D
Source: Crunchbase

Stockal
Automated stock-trading adviser
HQ: Bangalore, India
Latest round: $160,000
Total raised: $160,000
Tags: Investing, mobile, trading
Source: Crunchbase

Buyatab
Digital giftcard solutions
HQ: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: eGift cards, SMB, prepaid card, gifting, fee income
Source: FT Partners

realbest
Online real estate platform
HQ: Berlin, Germany
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: Unknown
Tags: Homeowners, mortgage, house buying
Source: FT Partners

Stripe
Online payment processing and management
HQ: San Francisco, California
Latest round: Undisclosed (less than $100 million at $5 billion valuation)
Total raised: $190+ million
Tags: Payments, credit, debit cards, API, merchants, SMB, online, acquiring, Visa (investor), American Express (investor)
Source: Crunchbase

Cognia
Payment processing for telephone-based transactions
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: $4.6+ million
Tags: Payments
Source: FT Partners

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Radius Raises $50 Million in Round Led by Founders Fund

By David Penn Posted on July 31, 2015
Categories: Radius

An investment of $50 million gives predictive analytics innovator, Radius, total capital of more than $125 million and a valuation of somewhere between $500 million and true unicorn status: $1 billion, according to Fortune.

The round was led by Founders Fund, and featured participation from a host of other investors, including AME Cloud Ventures (Jerry Yang), BlueRun Ventures, Formation 8, Glynn Capital Management, Salesforce Ventures, and Yuan Capital. The new funding will support product development, as well as developing what Radius CEO Darian Shirazi called “the Radius customer success organization.”

In a statement, Joe Lonsdale, a founding member of Formation 8, highlighted the rapid adoption of Radius’ technology as a reason to support the company. “The team at Radius has pulled ahead with a clear network effect, which means that their data is getting updated hundreds of millions of times a day,” Lonsdale said. “It’s no surprise they are becoming the leading platform for marketing to businesses, and it’s clear they’re just getting started.”

Radius CEO Darian Shirazi demonstrated his company’s platform at FinovateSpring 2014 in San Jose.

Speaking of the struggle marketing professionals often have when working the data to better engage and reach customers, Shirazi said, “We address the challenge with a single, beautifully designed application that allows CMOs to navigate, define, expand, and acquire their entire customer universe.”

The capital infusion comes just a few weeks after Radius made headlines with a quartet of executive hires. In June, Radius added Chief Operating Officer David Obrand; Vice President of Sales Jerry Clarno; Senior Vice President of Strategy Andrew Garvin; and Senior Vice President of Marketing Angela Zener.

Radius specializes in providing businesses with big-data technology that helps them better understand their customers, identify new market opportunities, and intensify their marketing efforts. Solutions like the Radius Intelligence Cloud and Business Graph, according to Shirazi, make it easier for marketing teams to reach specific audiences. The company’s proprietary technology within The Intelligence Cloud uses data on more than 30 million SMEs in the United States, and more than 50 billion data points to help businesses turn their customer data into actionable marketing opportunities.

Radius was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2014 in San Jose.

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Expensify Tallies Up $17.5 Million in Funding to Support its New Fintech Investment Fund

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on July 31, 2015
Categories: Expensify, Funding

Automated expense-report-management platform Expensify closed a $17.5 million round of funding earlier this week from OpenView Venture Partners. The new installment brings the company’s total funding to $27.2 million.

The San Francisco-based startup, which has 16,000 customers, will use the funding to support its newly launched endeavor, Expensify Ventures, a strategic investment fund for early stage fintech startups. According to David Barrett, Expensify CEO:

Every day we meet with entrepreneurs and companies that have awesome ideas when it comes to solving some of the corporate world’s biggest pain-points, and making life easier for both employees and employers … . From receipt-capture to expense management and even booking travel, a ton of companies are out there trying to make these processes easier, and Expensify wants to be involved.

Expensify is positioning itself as a unique type of investor with an empathetic point of view. “Fundraising is pretty much the worst part of a CEO’s job,” the company states on its web page. “We know—we’ve been there. But we’ve made it through the ring of fire (many times) and are now in a position where we’re ready to give back. Let us help.”

As a VC, the company is looking to invest in startups focused on financial technology, mobile OCR, travel services, payments, and anything relevant to business travelers and accountants. One of the first companies to partner with Expensify through Expensify Ventures is Piper, an alternative receipt solution.

Expensify’s most recent Finovate appearance was on stage at FinovateSpring 2013 where it debuted its invoice solution.

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i-exceed Unveils Appzillon 3.1 with Enhanced Security, UX

By David Penn Posted on July 31, 2015
Categories: i-exceed

Meet the new Appzillon.

i-exceed technologies announced the release of Appzillon 3.1 this week. The company’s flagship mobile application development platform now comes equipped with a number of new enhancements designed to make it easier to create “fully functional, omnichannel apps.”

New widgets, style editors, additional default themes, and over-the-air (OTA) support have been added to the platform. New security features include static analyses reporting, enforced geo-fencing, biometric authentication, as well as the ability to add multiple encryption layers for further security automatically.

App testing has also been enhanced on the platform so that a single test can now be executed automatically across a number of different channels. The admin module has been upgraded to provide detailed analytics on app usage and performance.

Recent headlines for i-exceed include the company’s partnership with Kris FinSoftware to spur development of the mobile internet in the Philippines—announced in July. i-exceed also notched a major deployment with Exim Bank in March, and began the year with an agreement with Indonesia’s Telkosigma to help the company build and market mobile versions of its banking, financial, and capital markets solutions.

i-exceed was founded in May 2011 and is headquartered in Bangalore, India. The company demonstrated its Appzillon platform as part of FinovateAsia 2013 in Singapore.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on July 31, 2015
Categories: AcceptEmail, Acculynk, Algomi, Ayasdi, BehavioSec, Bill Guard, Expensify, FIS, Lending Club, Mint, On Deck Capital, PayStand, Pindrop Security, Smarty Pig, SocietyOne, Toshl, Tradeshift, Tradier, TSYS, Yodlee

On Finovate.com

“Expensify Tallies Up $17.5 Million in Funding to Support its New Fintech Investment Fund”

Around the web

AcceptEmail partners with PayWithMyBank to make bill pay convenient and less costly.

SocietyOne hires former Lending Club executive as its new chief marketing officer.

Spend Matters highlights Tradeshift as a company to watch in 2015.

Pindrop Security releases new version of fraud detection system to more effectively identify and predict fraudulent activity.

Yodlee hosts webinar on how to build financial apps to meet rapidly evolving customer expectations.

BehavioSec mentioned as one “wild invention of the future” that the Pentagon is behind.

Tradier announces 75+ investor platforms and advisors integrating with its API.

Algomi adds 100th buy-side firm to its Honeycomb Network.

American Banker: FIS in talks to acquire SunGard.

PYMNTS.com interviews Sarah Hartman, senior director of consumer payment solutions at TSYS.

India West profiles Ayasdi founder and CEO, Gurjeet Singh.

Benzinga’s list of 10 PFM apps for teens and young adults features Toshl Finance, Manilla, BillGuard, Mint, and Smarty Pig.

Acculynk teams up with TouchPay, combining online billpay with self-service payment kiosks.

OnDeck rolls out mobile app for account management on the go. Come see OnDeck at FinDEVr in San Francisco, 6/7 October 2015.

Let’s Talk Payments interviews PayStand CEO Jeremy Almond.

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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Behalf Closes $119 Million Series B

By David Penn Posted on July 30, 2015
Categories: Behalf

Check out the big raise for Behalf.

Alternative small-business financier Behalf announced a $119 million investment that takes the company’s total capital to $129 million. The Series B round was led by MissionOG, an early to growth-stage VC firm, and the new funding will go toward adding staff, as well as providing more and larger working capital lines to SMEs.

Joining MissionOG in the Series B were Maverick Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, and Victory Park Capital. Victory Park Capital provided a credit facility as well as an equity contribution.

Behalf also announced the opening of new headquarters in New York City.

From left: Behalf VP of Product Meeka Metzger; Director of Product, Andrew Abshere; and founder and CEO Benjy Feinberg presented the Behalf’s Vendor Platform at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

Behalf enables small businesses to buy up to a $50,000 inventory. The company directly pays vendors for the small business, and the business pays Behalf back on terms ranging from $10-$30 per $1,000 per month. Behalf uses its proprietary credit-scoring technology to approve as many as 40% of its applicants, and can provide credit decisions in less than four minutes.

Merchants appreciate being able to pay vendors on whatever terms their vendors demand, and repay Behalf on terms that may be more flexible and favorable to them.

The company began 2015 with a new collaboration involving MasterCard and Comdata, to provide financing options for small businesses using MasterCard. In February, Behalf CEO Benjy Feinberg was interviewed by Ideamensch, and in March, the company was a finalist in the “Best B2B Innovation” category at the 2015 PYMNTS Innovator Awards 2015. Founded in 2011 and based in New York City, Behalf demonstrated its Vendor Platform at its Finovate debut, FinovateFall 2014.

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Neon Release Adds Touch ID and Enhanced Notifications to Oink 2.0

By David Penn Posted on July 30, 2015
Categories: Oink, Virtual Piggy

Touch ID authentication and an enhanced notification engine are among the features in the Neon release of the new mobile app from Oink.

The upgrades balance greater functionality for younger millennials and generation Z on the one hand, with increased transparency for parents and regulators on the other. Dr. Jo Webber, CEO and founder of Oink (formerly Virtual Piggy), acknowledged that specific challenge. “By adhering to U.S. COPPA laws we are delivering the appropriate controls and safeguards to allow Oink money-transfers to be used by all members of the family,” she said.

Oink 2.0 is available for download from the Apple Store. The app is optimized for iPhone 5 and requires iOS 7.0 or later.

The app was introduced in early June. It features a new P2P capability that allowed family to deposit funds into an Oink account that could be used to fund a parent-supervised Oink card. The new notifications engine will give parents “complete visibility” into who is funding their children’s accounts, as well as the ability to manage individual funders, and to freeze spending from the account.

This past spring, the app was featured in USA Today’s list of “5 financial musts for college grads.” Oink was founded in February 2008, and is headquartered in Hermosa Beach, California. The company demonstrated its mobile app at FinovateSpring 2013 in San Francisco, having won Best of Show honors at FinovateEurope 2013 in London earlier in the year.

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ShopKeep Rings Up $60 Million Investment

By David Penn Posted on July 30, 2015
Categories: ShopKeep POS

In a Series D round led by Activant Capital, ShopKeep has raised $60 million in new funding. The investment boosts the company’s total capital to more than $97 million.

The company plans to use the new financing to “grow its overall customer base, strengthen industry partnerships, and launch international operations, starting with the U.K. this month.”

Steve Sarracino, Activant Capital founder, who will be joining ShopKeep’s board of directors, put ShopKeep at the front of an “evolution” in the world of mobile payments and small business technology. “We see tremendous opportunity for the company to build on its existing success as the operating system for small business and retail.”

From left: ShopKeep co-founders, CEO Jason Richelson and COO David Olk, demonstrated ShopKeep POS at FinovateFall 2012 in New York.

ShopKeep president and CEO, Norm Merritt added that he sees his company’s role as more than just providing SMEs with a point-of-sale system. “We now play the role of an IT department to small business owners, democratizing invaluable business-management tools previously accessible only to the big-box retailers.”

ShopKeep has developed an iPad-based point-of-sale system and business-management platform for small businesses. The company has more than 2,000 users of its technology; more than 18,000 customers; and processed more than $6 billion in transactions via its network in the past year.

The company was honored with a 2015 Silver Stevie Award for Customer Service in March. Also that month, ShopKeep acquired Payment Revolution for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition added payment processing to the ShopKeep platform. In January, ShopKeep launched its Pocket app that included real-time reporting functionality.

ShopKeep was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in New York. The company demoed its point-of-sale system, ShopKeep POS, at FinovateFall 2012. While no valuation was released, based on this funding we added the company to our Fintech Near-Unicorn list.

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From left: Patch of Land CMO AdaPia d’Errico, and CTO Brian Fritton, co-founder, demonstrated the Patch of Land platform at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

—— * Presenting at our upcoming developer event, FinDEVr 2015

Radius CEO Darian Shirazi demonstrated his company’s platform at FinovateSpring 2014 in San Jose.

From left: Behalf VP of Product Meeka Metzger; Director of Product, Andrew Abshere; and founder and CEO Benjy Feinberg presented the Behalf’s Vendor Platform at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

From left: ShopKeep co-founders, CEO Jason Richelson and COO David Olk, demonstrated ShopKeep POS at FinovateFall 2012 in New York.

——
* Presenting at our upcoming developer event, FinDEVr 2015