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EZBOB Raises £3 Million in Private Equity Investment

By David Penn Posted on April 3, 2015
Categories: EZBOB

U.K.-based SME lender EZBOB has raised £3 million in new capital courtesy of a private equity investment.

The investment takes the company’s total capital to more than £16 million (more than $23 million USD), including a £7 million debt-financing round in February 2014.

EZBOB made headlines this spring with its partnership with online Chinese marketplace Alibaba. A loan guarantee agreement with the European Investment Fund (EIF) in March enabled EZBOB to increase its loan volumes by up to £40 million over the next two years. EZBOB acquired Everline, Wonga’s small business financing unit, in February.

A two-time Finovate alum, EZBOB last appeared on the Finovate stage as part of FinovateEurope 2014 conference. The company was founded in November 2011 by Tomer Guriel, CEO, and Sharone Perlstein, business development, and is headquartered in London.

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PayPal Pays $280 Million for Paydiant

By David Penn Posted on April 3, 2015
Categories: Paydiant, PayPal

Mobile payments innovator Paydiant has been acquired by PayPal in a deal believed to be worth $280 million. The acquisition, announced in March, closed today.

A specialist in white-label, cloud-based mobile payment, cardless ATM access, and offer-redemption and -loyalty solutions, Paydiant gives merchants, FIs, and processors the ability to provide and run their own mobile solutions under their own brands.

Welcoming Paydiant to the PayPal family in the company blog, PayPal President and CEO Designee Dan Schulman highlighted the role Paydiant played in helping businesses like Capital One and Subway launch mobile payments and rewards programs. Schulman also reminded readers that Paydiant provides the white-label, mobile platform for MCX’s CurrentC mobile wallet, which is supported by many of the largest retailers in the world, including CVS, Exxon, and Walmart.

According to Schulman, the goal of the acquisition is to offer merchants the opportunity to build their own branded wallets. He explained that this “will accelerate mobile-in-store payments … and drive consumer engagement through loyalty, offers, and the prioritization of preferred payment types, such as store-branded credit cards and gift cards.”

Paydiant was founded in 2010 by Chris Gardner and Kevin Laracey. Headquartered in Wellesley, Massachusetts, the company made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2013 in a joint demonstration with FIS.

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Finovate Debuts: Telenor Banka’s Synergy of Telco and Banking Brings Financial Innovation to Serbia

By David Penn Posted on April 3, 2015
Categories: Telenor banka, Uncategorized

Telenor has leveraged its success as a telecommunications company to build the first fully online and mobile-direct bank in Serbia, Telenor Banka. For its Finovate debut, the company teamed up with Asseco SEE to demonstrate its Automated Online Handset Loan powered by ASEB Multichannel Solution.

The solution enables customers to easily apply for a loan to purchase a new mobile device. Using a combination of banking and telecommunications transaction data, offers are customized, relevant, and likelier to be used.

Telenor Banka facts:

Opened in September 2014
Has 130 employees
Part of the Telenor Group with 186 million mobile subscriptions in 13 markets

The story

The “Tele” in Telenor stands for Telco, which is a large part of what Telenor Banka brings to the table. The bank was founded in 1996 as ALCO bank, but changed its name and ownership to Telenor Banka in 2014, when it became a member of Telenor Group. The goal was to provide the citizens of Serbia with modern and innovative mobile and online financial services through Telenor Banka.

At left: Martin Navratil, chairman of the executive committee for Telenor banka, presented at FinovateEurope 2015.

The presented innovation platform enables Telenor Banka’s customers in Serbia to get customized offers by two industries in one place— telecommunications and banking. The demo version of the solution is an example of a fully automated and personalized online offer of purchase loans for smart devices, personalized to the customers’ needs in real time.

While the company anticipates adding other service providers to this centralized dashboard, the current technology already offers customers conveniences such as a bill pay solution called “Bills on Click”; P2P payments to a phone number or email; and, launched in Dec 2014, the interest-free loans for purchasing smart devices from Telenor.

And in partnering with Asseco SEE, Telenor Banka has extended this service a step further with its Automated Handset Online Loan. The access to banking and telecommunications data alerts the platform that a bank customer may be in the market for a new smartphone. Moreover, the platform can extend a loan to the bank customer that not only offers rates and terms that are compatible with the customer’s financial situation, but also personalized telecommunications services and products that would make the most sense given the customer’s history.

Moving back and forth between the Telco and the banking functions of the platform is seamless for both the customer on the front end and the bank on the back end. Credit scoring, AML and KYC all take place on the platform, and relevant agreements and contracts from both the telecom and the bank are generated immediately for the consumer.

The future

Telenor Banka followed up its Finovate debut with a major milestone: the company celebrated its 50,000th account opened, making Telenor Banka one of the fastest-growing banks in the CEE region. According to Martin Navratil, chairman of the executive board and managing director, Telenor Banka is “focused on providing easy-to-use financial services and shifting from traditional banking to innovative, customer-oriented mobile solutions.” The technology demonstrated in February is scheduled to be available in the second half of 2015.

Seven months after its launch, the company has enjoyed growth of more than 50% a month, and sees its future very much focused on continuing to serve the Serbian market. “We will probably see examples of other services expanding to a smartphone user-interface as well,” Navratil said. “The more players joining the arena, the faster the market will develop and move forward.”

Read our Finovate Debut feature of Telenor Banka’s FinovateEurope 2015 partner, Asseco SEE.

See Telenor banka’s live demonstration from FinovateEurope 2015.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on April 3, 2015
Categories: Asseco, ayondo, BioCatch, blooom, CAN Capital, Dream Payments, EZBOB, PayPal, Rippleshot, Striata, Tradier, TransferWise

On Finovate

Dream Payments Raises $6 Million in Funding for mPOS Technology

Finovate Debuts: Asseco SEE Brings Real-Time Big Data to Processing to Multichannel Banking

EZBOB Raises 3 Million in Private Equity Investment

Finovate Debuts: Telenor Banka’s Synergy of Telco and Banking Brings Financial Innovation to Serbia

CAN Capital Locks in $650 Million Credit Facility

Finovate alums land almost 50% ($63 million) of the $133 million total headed to the fintech sector this week

Around the web

Striata acquires Mass Transmit for undisclosed amount.

PayPal closes acquisition of Paydiant.

Blooom participates in InvestMidwest Venture Capital Forum.

ayondo wins “Best Social Trading Program” honors at ADVFN International Financial Awards 2015.

Francepertise reviews TransferWise.

BioCatch and RippleShot earn 2015 METAwards from the Merchant Risk Council.

Tradier sees 35 million+ API calls in March. That’s 47k transactions per hour.

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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Dream Payments Raises $6 Million in Funding for mPOS Technology

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on April 3, 2015
Categories: Dream Payments

Toronto-based Dream Payments pulled in its first round of funding late last month. The $6 million comes from Canada’s early stage fintech venture capital and private equity firms, as well as institutional investors Blue Sky Capital, Real Ventures, and Rouge River Capital.

With Dream Payments, merchants use the Dream mobile Point of Sale (mPOS) terminal that works with iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. It can also integrate with a retailer’s traditional POS terminal. The startup aims to help merchants adapt to new payment acceptance methods, such as EMV and Apple Pay, and accommodates magstripe debit and credit card payments.

In addition to the payments capability, the company offers merchants a dashboard with sales and inventory metrics, customer insights, and business analytics. The solution is available for both merchants and merchant acquirers.

Dream Payments CEO, Brent Ho-Young stated that the startup will use the funding to launch the business and roll out its solutions to merchants across North America.

The startup also announced it will open its SDK to third-party developers.

Dream Payments will be demoing live on the FinovateSpring stage in San Jose on 12/13 May 2015. The early bird ticket deadline is this Friday, so be sure to pick up your ticket before then.

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Multifactor Authentication Specialist Toopher Acquired by Salesforce

By David Penn Posted on April 2, 2015
Categories: Toopher, Uncategorized

(Left to right): Toopher co-founders CTO Evan Grim and CEO Josh Alexander demonstrated their multifactor authentication technology at FinovateFall 2014.

When word hit the Finovate office that Austin, Texas-based, multifactor authentication specialist Toopher had agreed to be acquired by Salesforce, we all had the same question in mind:

Will Salesforce get the drone too?

What’s certain is that the purchase of Toopher will give the cloud-computing innovator a powerful solution to offer customers looking for multifactor authentication.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Including $200k in debt financing raised in March, Toopher’s total is $3 million.

According to the Austin Business Journal, Toopher’s seven workers will remain in Austin as employees of Salesforce. The Journal also notes that conversations between Toopher and Salesforce began a year ago, with “acquisition discussions” starting in 2015. The company has discontinued selling its own products as it makes the transition (although Toopher’s”pre-acquisition” developer portal remains open).

Writing at the Toopher blog, CEO Josh Alexander explains the move in his typically colorful fashion:

We here at Toopher have a standard question we ask new Toopherarians: ‘If you could have a superpower, what would you choose?’ Even with the normal, attractive archetypes, the most common response from a Toopherarian is to be able to provide even greater levels of security without affecting the user experience.

And with the Salesforce acquisition, Toopher now considers itself appropriately “superpowered.”

Toopher was founded in September 2011 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas. The company demoed its technology at both FinovateFall 2014 and FinovateFall 2013.

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Fintech Fundings: 13 Companies Raise $120 Million Week Ending April 3, 2015

By Jim Bruene Posted on April 2, 2015
Categories: Funding

The first quarter ended with a flourish of funding as 13 companies raised new funds ranging from $810,000 to $60 million. The total intake was $123 million, of which about half was the $60 million in debt raised by FinovateSpring15 presenter Yapstone. In addition, two Finovate crowd favorites were acquired this week: Toopher by SalesForce and ReadyForZero by Avant.

All told, about $770 million poured into the sector in March, a heady $9 billion run-rate (see previous weekly funding reports).

Here are the deals from 28 March through 2 April 2015 ranked by deal size:

Yapstone
Online and mobile payments
HQ: Walnut Creek, California
Latest round: $60 million (debt)
Total raised: $113.4 million ($53.4 million equity, $60 million debt)
Tags: Payments, mobile, Comerica Bank (investor/lender), FinovateSpring 2015 presenter
Source: Finovate

RateSetter
Consumer marketplace lender
HQ: London, United Kingdom
Latest round: $30 million
Total raised: $45 million
Tags: P2P, peer-to-peer lending, credit, underwriting, investing
Source: Crunchbase

Companisto
German equity crowdfunding platform for startups
HQ: Berlin, Germany
Latest round: $8 million
Total raised: $13 million
Tags: Crowdfunding, investing, SMB, startups
Source: Crunchbase

MyCheck
Automatic payment system catering to restaurant customers
HQ: Tel Aviv, Israel
Latest round: $5 million
Total raised: $11.1 million
Tags: Payments, mobile, SMB, restaurants
Source: Crunchbase

PeerNova
Blockchain technology
HQ: San Jose, California
Latest round: $5 million
Total raised: $19 million (includes unspecified amount of debt)
Tags: Bitcoin, virtual currency, cryptocurrencies, Overstock.com (investor)
Source: FT Partners

EZBOB
Online small business lender
HQ: London, United Kingdom
Latest round: $4.5 million
Total raised: $26 million
Tags: Loans, credit, SMB, underwriting, Finovate alum
Source: Finovate

Lendix
French marketplace lender for business loans
HQ: Paris, France
Latest round: $3.5 million
Total raised: $3.5 million
Tags: SMB, peer-to-peer lending, underwriting, credit, investing
Source: FT Partners

Bitt
Caribbean cryptocurrency exchange
HQ: Christ Church, Barbados
Latest round: $1.5 million
Total raised: $1.5 million
Tags: Bitcoin, blockchain, virtual currency
Source: Crunchbase

Scutify
Social network for investors
HQ: New York City, New York
Latest round: $1.5 million
Total raised: $2.5 million
Tags: Investing, information, traders, advice
Source: Crunchbase

Ittavi
Automates child-care payments with its SupportPay service
HQ: Santa Clara, California
Latest round: $1.5 million
Total raised: $2.6 million
Tags: Payments, automation, billpay, legal
Source: FT Partners

Gem
Bitcoin API provider
HQ: Venice, California
Latest round: $1.3 million
Total raised: $3.6 million
Tags: Cryptocurrency, developers, bitcoin
Source: Coinbase

PayNova
Swedish online payments provider
HQ: Stockholm, Sweden
Latest round: $810,000
Total raised: $810,000
Tags: Payments, mobile, online
Source: FT Partners

PPDai
Chinese-consumer marketplace-lender
HQ: Shanghai, China
Latest round: Undisclosed
Total raised: At least $70 million
Tags: Loans, consumer, lending, underwriting, P2P, peer-to-peer, investing
Source: Crunchbase

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Finovate Debuts: Asseco SEE Brings Real-time Big Data Processing to Multichannel Banking

By David Penn Posted on April 2, 2015
Categories: Asseco, Uncategorized

In some parts of the world, telecommunications companies have aggressively worked to disrupt financial services. This is very much the case in Central and Southern Europe where companies like Telenor Banka and Asseco SEE have teamed up to address relatively low adoption rates of online and mobile banking, despite the region’s high levels of connectivity.

Along with Telenor Banka, Asseco SEE made its Finovate debut in February 2015 (read Our Finovate Debut post on Telenor Banka here), unveiling their Automated Online Handset loan offer and technology solutions that made it possible. Asseco SEE is the largest provider of proprietary software solutions in the SEE (South Eastern European) region and offers end-to-end solutions that include core banking, multichannel (including ATM), and a fully native mobile app.

Asseco SEE facts:

Founded in 2007
Headquartered in Warsaw, Poland
Asseco SEE has more than 1,400 employees
Piotr Jelenski is President of the Management Board

The story

Asseco’s business lines include production of software solutions for banking, telecommunications and government, complete payment solutions (ATM and PoS implementation and services), as well as system integration.

Asseco SEE’s partnership with Telenor Banka provides a complete end-to-end solution for banking, and also a mature and flexible system that helps identify the right offers at the right time.

In addition, Asseco SEE provides a fully automated process to support the development of new products.

(Left to right): Asseco Group President of the Management Board, Piotr Jelenski, and Telenor banka Chairman of the Executive Committee, Martin Navratil

The solution, in large part, was Asseco’s ASEBA Multichannel Hub. The hub includes services for a variety of channels (web, mobile, ATM, branch, call center, etc.), as well as fundamental business operations that can be integrated with external legacy back-end systems. Thanks to this ability of integrating with external systems, Telenor Bank achieves the kind of “synergy” between telecom and the bank that makes the latter’s service unique: a customized loan offer created from data derived from two different companies.

The future

Asseco SEE is confident that the SEE region will experience the digital transformation of banks that is taking place elsewhere in Europe and around the world. Moreover, the company is confident that it will play a major role in making this happen, saying it has the experience, know-how, and full potential to help banks and other FIs make the transition.

The ASEBA Multichannel Hub is an example of this know-how. By creating an integrated e-banking solution, Asseco SEE has made it possible for banking services to be distributed over alternative channels, e.g., mobile. This provides new opportunities for financial institutions to better engage current customers and attract new ones with more personalized services.

Read our Finovate Debut feature of Asseco SEE’s FinovateEurope 2015 partner, Telenor Banka.

See the live demonstration with Asseco SEE and Telenor Banka from FinovateEurope 2015.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on April 2, 2015
Categories: Check Point, Concur, Currency Cloud, CurrencyFair, HedgeCoVest, Kantox, Misys, Moven, Quantopian, Taulia, Telenor banka, Toopher, TransferWise, Venmo, Xero, Yodlee

On Finovate.com

Taulia Appoints Cedric Bru as CEO

Multi-Factor Authentication Specialist Toopher Acquired by Salesforce

Around the web:

Moven updates iOS and Android apps for easier views of balance and spending.

Concur surpasses 30-million-user milestone.

Multi-factor authentication now available for Venmo users on both iOS and Android.

Mobile World Live interviews VP of Telenor Financial Services and CEO of Valyou, Viktoria Erngard.

FT.com Business & Economy feature on P2P foreign exchange highlights TransferWise, CurrencyFair, Currency Cloud, and Kantox.

Misys wins honors in three categories at FStech Awards 2015.

HedgeCoVest adds 14 new models to its platform.

Business Insider Australia features Xero.

Yodlee announces 100% revenue growth in Australia and New Zealand.

Check Point to acquire Lacoon Mobile Security for a reported $100 million.

Bank Innovation profiles Quantopian.

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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YapStone Closes $60 Million Debt Financing Deal

By David Penn Posted on April 1, 2015
Categories: Uncategorized

Just a few weeks shy of its Finovate debut, YapStone has secured $60 million in debt funding courtesy of Comerica Bank and Bregal Sagemount. The online- and mobile-payment technology specialist plans to use the capital to support growth in existing markets, as well as to support initiatives in new markets and new verticals.

“Our mission since we founded the company has been to change how the world pays in huge vertical markets,” said YapStone CEO and Chairman Tom Villante. “I strongly believe we’re just scratching the surface.”

Previous to this most recent round, YapStone had raised just over $50 million in equity capital via a venture round in 2009, and another in 2011.

Comerica Bank has had a long relationship with YapStone, more than a decade according to Alan Jepsen, Comerica SVP and managing director for technology and life sciences. Bregal Sagemount, by contrast, is a newer partner. Speaking of his company’s new relationship with YapStone, Clayton Main, head of credit at Bregal Sagemount, says that YapStone has “established itself as the go-to provider for payments in several massive vertical markets and online marketplaces.”

YapStone was founded in 1999, and is headquartered in Walnut Creek, California. The company’s platform drives electronic payments for marketplaces such as HomeAway and VRBO, and is used in a variety of verticals ranging from apartment and vacation rentals to nonprofit organizations. The company processes more than $14 billion in payment volume each year, and has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the Fastest Growing Private Companies for each of the last seven years.

Come see and meet YapStone at FinovateSpring 2015 in San Jose. The conference is held 12/13 May 2015. Early bird savings are in effect through Friday, so visit our registration page and save your spot today.

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Finovate Debuts: CPB Software’s PROFOS Helps Advisers Connect with Clients

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on April 1, 2015
Categories: CPB Software AG

CPB Software began in 1996 as a spinoff from a private bank in Austria. The company has created numerous products for financial services companies across Europe. At FinovateEurope 2015, CPB debuted PROFOS, a product to help advisers overcome hurdles in customer relationships.

Company facts:

$3.8 million in equity
$18.3 million in revenue for 2014
130+ employees
700+ customers in 7 countries
Founded 1996

The PROFOS platform, which works with any existing core banking system, integrates client data and combines it with consulting features. The result is an all-in-one tool to help advisers prepare for client meetings and connect with the client throughout the meeting.

To prepare for client meetings, the home screen shows daily appointments and financial market activity, and serves as a digital file cabinet that stores important documents.

It also contains a toolbox that houses both informational videos that explain complex topics, as well as negotiation tutorials, to assist advisers during the negotiation process.

Screenshots below show a sample of features an adviser may use during a client meeting:

Client dashboard

On the tablet app, the clean interface provides an overview of the client’s portfolio performance, asset allocation, and key financial information.

Investment strategy

Since clients have different learning methods, PROFOS uses both pictures and graphs to aid advisers in explaining how decisions will affect a portfolio.

The example below uses a picture to depict how risk and time could affect the client’s earnings.

Current events performance

PROFOS generates stress tests that simulate the effect(s) resulting from a major event, such as the recent Ukrainian crisis, on a client’s portfolio. The snapshot enables clients to understand the impact of both positive and negative historical events.

Goal tracking

PROFOS helps advisers track multiple financial goals for clients. The graphs make it easy for the adviser to show clients their progress and the projected possibility for achieving each goal.

CPB Software debuted PROFOS at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. Check out the live demo video.

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Taulia Appoints Cedric Bru as CEO

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on April 1, 2015
Categories: Taulia

Earlier this week, supply-chain-management solutions-provider and e-invoicing company, Taulia, announced a change in company leadership. After six years leading the company, Bertram Meyer, Taulia co-founder and former CEO, has stepped down and appointed Cedric Bru to replace him as CEO.

Bru has spent his career at Visa, Hewlett-Packard, and Syncada. He most recently served as chief sales officer at Taulia, and has been with the company since 2013. During his time as CSO, Bru has helped Taulia more than double its number of customers and build international partnerships.

Pictured are Bertram Meyer (left) and Cedric Bru (right)

Meyer will stay on Taulia’s board of directors to focus on European expansion and the company’s go-to-market strategy.

This is Taulia’s second C-level change this year: In January the company hired a new CFO; in February, it raised $15 million in funding.

Taulia debuted Enhanced Discounting to the European market at FinovateEurope 2015.

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