- Founded in 2011
- Headquartered in Louisville, Colorado
- Has 70 employees in the U.S. and India
- Ashim Banerjee is CEO
Finovate Debuts: IDmission’s INFORM Boosts Onboarding and Engagement

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InvoiceSharing is as straightforward – and unsexy – as it sounds. But beneath this eponymous exterior lies a company dedicated to using technology to help companies and financial institutions unlock major savings and efficiencies.
On Finovate.com:
Around the web:
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.
Flowers are breaking into bloom here in the Pacific Northwest. It must be time to introduce the presenting companies of FinovateSpring 2015!
We spent the weeks since our last conference reading applications, listening to pitches, and talking with CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders. We met with startups committed to reducing friction in payments, and emerging companies leveraging Big Data and biometric technology to improve transaction security.
Innovators from around the country and around the world shared with us their solutions for everything from customer onboarding to crowdsourcing private capital.
We think you’ll like what we heard. The presenters of FinovateSpring 2015 are the cream of a very good crop, and we can’t wait for you to meet them. Below is a list of the presenting companies along with a brief description of each company and its technology or innovation. We’ll be unveiling the names of a few more presenting companies a little closer to the event.
Stay tuned for our Sneak Peek series, with more information and background on our presenting companies.
In addition to the companies listed above, we will reveal a handful of stealth companies closer to the event.
Come be a part of our audience in San Jose! Click here to get your tickets before April 3rd and take advantage of Early Bird Pricing!
FinovateSpring 2015 is sponsored by The Bancorp, Capital Source, City National Bank, Envestment, Financial Technology Partners, Hudson Cook, Kyriba, and Life.SREDA.
FinovateSpring 2015 is partners with Aite Group, Bank Innovators Lab, BankersHub, BayPay Forum, bob’s guide, Breaking Banks, California Bankers Association, Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, Celent, ebankingNews, Filene, Fin-Tech.org, Hotwire, Javelin Strategy & Research, Mercator Advisory Group, SME Finance Forum, Western Independent Bankers
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.
Bitbond’s peer-to-peer bitcoin lending platform connects small businesses looking for loans with lenders in search of a fixed-income investment. Because it uses Bitcoin, Bitbond has three advantages over traditional P2P lending companies:
Though many think of Bitcoin as risky, Bitbond protects users from the digital currency’s volatility by denominating loans in U.S. dollars (USD). With USD as the base currency of the loan, the value is fixed, which mitigates exchange rate fluctuations.
Stats
Borrowers
Borrowers create an account and submit a loan request that includes the purpose, along with income, location, and other information. Loan amounts begin at BTC 0.1 ($28)* for a term ranging from six weeks to five years. Borrowers pay a fee between 0.5% to 3% of the loan amount, in addition to interest.
If borrowers want to seem more attractive to lenders, they can pay Bitbond to assess their creditworthiness. The rating ranges from A to F, and depends on factors such as credit bureau rating, type of employment, eBay feedback score, and other applicable factors.
The screenshot below shows a lender’s view of a borrower’s profile page:
Borrower benefits:
Lenders
To browse available loan requests, lenders filter listings by rating, term, country, and base currency:
Lender benefits:
Autoinvest
At FinovateEurope 2015, the startup launched Autoinvest. This new feature does exactly what you would assume: it automatically allocates funds for lenders based on pre-selected criteria: risk, currency, and geographical region.
To begin auto-investing, lenders must:
1) Determine amount to allocate
2) Select U.S. dollar or Bitcoin as the base currency. While all payments are conducted in Bitcoin, if lenders select USD, the value is fixed in dollars and the borrower and the lender mitigate exchange rate fluctuations that are common with the digital currency.
3) Appoint risk rating (Low, Medium, High)
4) Choose up to six different geographical regions
After this process, Bitbond screens and allocates funds for the lender, who has visibility to all investments in their portfolio summary.
Bitbond debuted Autoinvest at FinovateEurope 2015. Check out the live demo.
*based on Bitcoin value as of March 17, 2015
Yoyo is a mobile wallet at its core, but offers more than just a simple payment capability. The platform blends payments, loyalty, and shopping to help retailers reach their customers in new ways.
Stats
• $5M seed funding raised
• 25 employees
• 15,000 registered users since launch in January 2014
• Processes over 150,000 transactions a month
Since customers use a variety of payment methods, most retailers cannot track customer spending patterns. Yoyo gathers level III (item-level) data from purchases. By understanding users’ trends and preferences, Yoyo helps retailers offer rewards, enhance loyalty, and improve the customer experience, while minimizing friction at the point of sale (POS).
For consumers
The Yoyo app home screen (pictured above) maps retail locations that accept payment via Yoyo, shows users their payment activity, and offers quick access to the mobile wallet to enable POS payments.
After a customer adds payment information into the app, they pay at the POS using a QR code the app generates for each transaction. When the retailer scans the code, the payment is complete. Yoyo automatically credits rewards or loyalty points earned, updates the balance on their mobile wallet, and digitally stores the itemized receipt.
For retailers
When consumers pay using their Yoyo mobile wallet, they provide data on what and when they’re buying, as well as how much they are spending. Using Yoyo’s analytics and offers, retailers generate campaigns directed at different customer segments to encourage more frequent, higher spending. The campaigns also entice new customers with special deals, as well as inspire one-time customers to return.
Yoyo also offers a companion card. The back of the card has a printed QR code, along with instructions on how to register for a Yoyo account. When a retailer scans the code, new customers immediately begin receiving loyalty points. Additionally, if the customer prefers to pay with cash, they can still reap their loyalty points or redeem coupons when they present the card at the point of purchase.
What’s new?
At FinovateEurope 2015, Yoyo announced it will open the rails of its mobile platform for white-label use. In addition to Yoyo’s new, white-label option, the startup recently announced integration with the Apple Watch, giving users the ability to pay at the POS with a touch of their wrist.
Also, Yoyo is expanding its London-based operations internationally into Asia.
Check out Yoyo’s demo video from FinovateEurope 2015 where it announced the availability of its white-label API.
The best in Texas? This morning, it’s Irish security startup, Trustev.
Trustev won the Decoded Fashion competition at the annual SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. The company, which specializes in real-time fraud prevention, bested nine other finalists and more than 120 total applications to take top honors – and a cash prize of $5,000.
“This competition was meant to gain visibility for new startups with the potential to impact the future shopping experience,” said Decoded Fashion president and founder Liz Bacelar, speaking of the finalist field. Applicants included startups with specialties in e-commerce, data analytics, in-store retail technology, and mobile payments.
The win at SXSW was Trustev’s second Texas triumph in a row. Trustev won the SXSW Accelerator Award for Top Enterprise Startup last year, just as the company was making its U.S. launch – and a month after the Trustev’s demo at FinovateEurope 2014.
The event, which was part of the festival’s “lifestyle hub” SXstyle, was sponsored by retail real estate operator, the Simon Group. Judges were Christa Allen (Simon Group), Jonathan Shieber (TechCrunch), Josh Goldman (Norwest Ventures), and Skyler Fernandes (Simon Venture Group).
Trustev was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Cork, Ireland. The company was founded by Pat Phelan (CEO) and Chris Kennedy (CTO), and demoed its Trustev Retail Decision technology at FinovateEurope 2014.
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.
If you are a fintech startup, then few things are more important than access to financial market data.
And for those companies participating in the FinTech Sandbox, an “enabler of startups” that begins March 26 in Boston, that access just got even easier.
Cloud-based financial markets data provider Xignite will join the FinTech Sandbox’s roster of data partners. This roster includes three other companies fintech fans will be familiar with: Finovate alum Yodlee and FinDEVr alums Tradier and Plaid.
“Market data is the lifeblood of fintech,” said Xignite CEO Stephane Dubois, talking about his company’s participation in the Sandbox. “Without full access to these data points in the early stage of development and testing, many emerging players would not be able to reach their full potential .”
FinTech Sandbox is a nonprofit organization based in Boston that is dedicated to supporting emerging fintech companies. Participants in the six-month program get access to data feeds and APIs from leading data providers, cloud hosting from the program’s infrastructure partners, beta test partners, working office space, and “opportunities to collaborate with a vibrant community of entrepreneurs, mentors, partners, investors, and service providers.” The program begins March 26.
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.
TransferTo’s mobile remittance platform allows users to send money across borders in real time, and for a specific purpose. The San Francisco-based company aims to solve two pain points in remittance payments:
1) Small remittances incur large fees of up to 50%, making wire transfers an inefficient way to send money under $50.
TransferTo specializes in low dollar remittance payments by creating a low-cost way to send small amounts of money.
2) Senders are not able to control how the recipient spends the money.
TransferTo places the sender in control by allowing them to dictate the specific purpose for which the recipient uses the funds
Stats
The company’s secret sauce is in its partnerships. By connecting the sender’s mobile network operator (MNO) with the recipients’ MNO or utility provider, TransferTo offers a low-friction way to debit and credit the accounts.
Use Cases
1) Top up airtime via SMS
The image below shows the SMS flow. In this case, a user tops up the airtime minutes of their friend or family in the Philippines. Using any device, they send TransferTo an SMS of the recipient’s mobile phone number and select the amount to send, 90 PHP.
After agreeing to the $2 fee, the 90 PHP is automatically and instantly applied to the recipient’s prepaid airtime minutes.
2) Top up electricity meter via mobile app
On a smartphone, the sender uses the mobile web app or native Android app to send remittances. In the example below, the user wants to send 50,000 Indian Rupees (Rp) to a friend or family member in Indonesia.
They enter the recipient’s mobile phone number and meter number and select the amount to load on the prepaid electricity meter. After agreeing to the fee and confirming the amount, the beneficiary instantly receives Rp 50,000, along with instructions on how to apply the balance to their electricity meter.
It is also available on a web platform:
Depending on the recipient’s geographical region, the sender can specify remittances for:
TransferTo’s API enables financial institutions and money transfer companies to offer a white-labeled service as a complement to traditional P2P payment services. PayPal, Wells Fargo, and Western Union are current clients.
TransferTo demonstrated prepaid electricity remittance at FinovateEurope 2015. Check out the live demo video.