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Announcing the Full Presenter Lineup for FinovateSpring 2014!

By Eric Mattson Posted on April 16, 2014
Categories: Uncategorized

FinovateSpring 2014 is less than two weeks away, and the excitement is building! More and more tickets are selling with every passing hour and on April 29 & 30, we're expecting to break Finovate's attendance record for the second year in a row with an audience of over 1,400 industry professionals and entrepreneurs.

You've probably already seen a few of the companies presenting at FinovateSpring this year, but a bunch of presenters just came out of stealth mode on Friday to complete the lineup. So, without further ado, here's the full lineup of 68 companies that will demo their latest fintech innovations in the heart of Silicon Valley in less than 14 days:

Artivest Avoka BodeTree ChiaraMail Coinbase CREALOGIX CUneXus D3 Banking Dealstruck defi SOLUTIONS Digital Insight Digital Retail Apps Encap Security Endeavour EyeVerify FinBuddy Fiserv FlexScore ID.me Insuritas IntelliResponse Interactions Jumio Kofax Kown Kreditech LendingRobot LendingTree LendUp Loop LOYAL3…

Announcing the Full Presenting Lineup for FinovateSpring 2014!

By Eric Mattson Posted on April 16, 2014
Categories: Uncategorized

TransferWise Hits £1 Billion Mark for P2P Cross Border Money Transfers

By David Penn Posted on April 16, 2014
Categories: TransferWise

In the eleven months since May 2013, TransferWise has seen its cumulative total volume of cash transferred cross-border climb from just over £100 million to £1 billion.

Based in London, TransferWise provides peer-to-peer money transfer services in more than 175 different currencies. The platform works by connecting people looking to transfer money from Country A to Country B, with people looking to make the exact opposite transfer.

TransferWise has raised more than $7 million since its founding in 2010. The lion's share of the capital has come from a Series A round almost a year ago led by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures. Said TransferWise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus of the newly-reached milestone: "it shows how much people need modern financial services - something where it is modern, fast and cheap." Speaking of modern, fast and cheap, TransferWise is also announcing the launch of its Android app. Said Hinrikus, "there…

Finovate Alums Make Fast Company’s Top 10 Most Innovative in Finance

By David Penn Posted on April 16, 2014
Categories: Dwolla, eToro, MasterCard, NICE Systems, OneID, TransferWise

Who knew? More than half of the world's top 10 most innovative companies in finance are Finovate alums.

Don't just take our word for it. Fast Company published its roster of innovation in the financial space as part of their quest to find those companies that are "creating radical new approaches to move cash from one place to another."

And among such widely-known and talked-about entities as Square and Bitcoin, we find more than a handful of innovators who have used the Finovate stage to help show their technology to the world.

Take a look at the companies below, accompanied by Fast Company's take on just what makes each innovator truly unique.

#1 NICE Systems Fast Company: "For connecting banks and other clients to frazzled end users when problems arise." FinovateSpring 2013

#5 Dwolla Fast Company: "For daring to take on the fee-laden credit card establishment." FinovateSpring 2012

#6 TransferWise…

Finovate Alumni News– April 16, 2014

By David Penn Posted on April 16, 2014
Categories: Betterment, Credit Sesame, Nostrum Group, Realty Mogul

Where the Alums Are: A Remembrance of FinovateSpring Past. Read what the innovators of FinovateSpring 2013 have been up to in the year since. Betterment raises $32 million in Series C round. Realty Mogul crowdfunds Hard Rock Hotel Palm Springs. Partnership with Clearly Loans brings Nostrum Group into the secured loan processing business. Credit Sesame launches free credit and identity protection service. 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.

Where the Alums Are: A Remembrance of FinovateSpring Past

By David Penn Posted on April 15, 2014
Categories: Arxan Technologies, Balance Financial, Banking Up, Banno, Better ATM Services, Braintree, CardFlight, Encap, EyeVerify, Finagraph, Finect, FinovateSpring 2013, FinovateSpring 2014, GoodApril, IntelliResponse, Jemstep, Kabbage, Kofax, Leaf, LendUp, LICUOS, Lodo Software, MoneyDesktop, Mortgage Harmony, Narrative Science, NICE Systems, Oink, OneID, OpenCoin, P2BInvestor, PayNearMe, Prestadero, Quantopian, Realty Mogul, SeedInvest, Yseop, Zooz

It is hard to believe that it is almost time for FinovateSpring 2014.

There's still plenty of time for you to get your tickets to our upcoming event in San Jose, California on April 29 and 30. Our final Sneak Peek preview post is up, all the companies who were prepping under the radar are now out of stealth, and we can't wait for you to see what this year's spring crop of fintech entrepreneurs and innovators has in store.

Before we do, however, let's take a moment to take a look back at last year's FinovateSpring alums. As we scrolled through blog archives, several themes jumped out: the appetite for startups remains as passionate as ever, with three of our Spring 2013 alums being acquired by such financial sector potentates as Intuit and PayPal. And venture capitalists continue to see innovation in this space as a more than worthwhile…

Tax Day Turns to Funding Day for Some: LearnVest Raises $28 Million, The Currency Cloud Pulls in $10 Million

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on April 15, 2014
Categories: Funding, LearnVest, The Currency Cloud

Most of us know April 15 as Tax Day, but for three Finovate alums, today is about a different flow of money than a tax return. Aside from Betterment's announcement of its $32 million round (see our post from this morning), LearnVest pulled in $28 million in Series D funding, while The Currency Cloud garnered $10 million in Series B.

LearnVest, a personal financial management and planning platform and service New funding: $28 million Series D Investors: Northwestern Mutual Capital, Accel Partners, and American Express Ventures Total Funding: $69 million Founded: 2007 Headquarters: New York, NY

LearnVest will use the funding to boost hiring efforts at its Arizona-based Expert Hub and to scale its LearnVest at Work channel, which won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2013.

Check out its Best of Show-winning FinovateFall 2013 demo video:

The Currency Cloud, a company that powers international payments with its…

Betterment Raises $32 Million in Series C Round

By David Penn Posted on April 15, 2014
Categories: Betterment

In a funding round that more than tripled the amount raised in its previous round, wealth management innovator Betterment raised $32 million from a sizable group of both new and existing investors.

Betterment's total capital now stands at $45 million. Participating in this latest round were:

Anthemis Group Bessemer Venture Partners Citi Ventures Globespan Capital Partners Menlo Ventures Northwestern Mutual Capital Among the goals for the new capital cited by Betterment CEO Jon Stein is expanding the company's range of products. This likely includes a new product for RIAs, Betterment Institutional, that the company plans to release soon. In an interview with Forbes.com, Betterment CEO Jon Stein said he expects his company to have more than $1 billion under management by the end of 2014. Betterment currently has about half that amount under management right now, and Stein says that AUM is growing at a rate of 10% a month.…

Finovate Alumni News– April 15, 2014

By David Penn Posted on April 15, 2014
Categories: CardFlight, HelloWallet, Insuritas, TransferWise

TransferWise announces more than $1 billion in P2P transfers. Insuritas picked by Nutmeg State Federal Credit Union to open and manage its turnkey insurance agency. See Insuritas demo at FinovateSpring in San Jose. Streetwise reports: HelloWallet Signs Another Big Deal with Aon Hewitt. CardFlight wins Electronic Transactions Association's 2014 Technology Innovation Award. 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.

Mobile PFM: Tracking Automobile Trips

By Jim Bruene Posted on April 14, 2014
Categories: Auto Financing, Mobile Banking, Personal Financial Management

Last week, MileIQ cracked the top-50 in Apple's "Finance | Free" category. Think of it as Fitbit for cars, running in the background automatically logging all car trips (and killing battery life).

At the end of each trip, users categorize the trip by swiping left for personal or right for business (see screenshots below). Users can also annotate transactions by "flipping" them over and typing basic details (see screenshot 2 below).

That's basically all there is to the mobile part. Users go to the companion desktop dashboard (screenshot #5) to further categorize trips, stitch the various segments into a single trip, delete items, add parking and toll fees, edit the tags, manually add a trip and create reports.

You can also create a quick email report at the push of button from within the app (screenshot #6).

It's free for 40 trips per month, but then…

SeedInvest Raises $2 Million in Crowdfunded Investment Campaign

By David Penn Posted on April 14, 2014
Categories: SeedInvest

Crowdfunder, fund thyself.

That's the strategy of crowd funding specialist, SeedInvest, which announced today that it is seeking to raise the balance of its $3 million Series A round from its own community of investors.

SeedInvest co-founder and CEO Ryan Feit explained: "Given that SeedInvest allows individuals to invest alongside VCs, we decided to eat our own dog food and hold the last millions for our own investors."

SeedInvest has $2 million already invested, courtesy of investors such as Archer Gray, Avenue A Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Krillion Ventures, and Scout Ventures. The company is gearing up to take advantage of a key feature of the JOBS Act that will allow non-accredited investors to participate in crowd funding platforms like SeedInvest later this year. Feit pointed specifically to the new funding as enabling the company to service what he expects to be a significant increase in the number…

Finovate Alumni News– April 14, 2014

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on April 14, 2014
Categories: Dashlane, FIS, Ignite Sales, Ripple, SeedInvest, TradeHero

PYMNTS looks at how Ripple hopes to build a global payments network. Android Headlines reviews TradeHero. FIS acquires CMSI, provider of consumer loan origination and portfolio management software. CNBC's Squawk on the Street interviews Dashlane CEO Emmanuel Schalit on Heartbleed. SeedInvest raises $2 million in crowd funded investment campaign. Ignite Sales wins 2014 Monarch Award for its Profitability Dashboard for OmniChannel Measurement. 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.