Alumni News

Airwallex Teams Up with OurCrowd to Enable Investors to Fund Startups in Local Currency

Airwallex Teams Up with OurCrowd to Enable Investors to Fund Startups in Local Currency
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, OurCrowd
  • Venture investing platform OurCrowd announced an integration with Airwallex.
  • The integration will make it easier for investors around the world to use their local currency to invest in startups.
  • Based in Israel, OurCrowd made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2016.

Payments and financial platform Airwallex and venture investing platform OurCrowd announced a new partnership this week. The two companies are combining their efforts to make it easier for both institutions and accredited investors to invest in startups wherever they are and in their local currency – all with a single click.

The integration works with OurCrowd allocating a global account for each investor. Investors can choose to convert their funds into a number of different currency options, including their own local currency. OurCrowd converts the funds to the selected currency at a transparent rate that is typically guaranteed for 24 hours. More than a third of OurCrowd’s FX flow has moved via Airwallex since the company embedded its API in February. OurCrowd anticipates increasing its flow to 90% by the end of the year.

“With the globalization of the startup world advanced fintech which is multi-currency is a game changer,” OurCrowd CEO Jon Medved said. “Now you can be sitting in Israel and invest in a Silicon Valley startup, pay in Shekels with a single click and it is totally transparent.”

Traditionally, investors have had to convert their local funds into U.S. dollars and then send those funds by wire in order to invest in startups. In contrast, the partnership between OurCrowd and Airwallex will provide investors from more than 195 countries with a platform that enables them to use their own currency to invest in startups. Integrating Airwallex’s API into its platform also gives accredited investors access to Airwallex solutions such as Global Accounts, Payouts, and LockFX which offer further opportunities for investors to participate in startup deals.

Pranav Sood, EGM, EMEA at Airwallex, described the partnership as another success for embedded finance. Sood explained that the integration was a “perfect example” of supporting the growth of its end users while simultaneously giving OurCrowd tools to add to the services they are able to offer. “From streamlining payment processes for investors and startups to minimizing FX costs, embedded finance is simplifying the way businesses operate across borders,” Sood explained.

Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, Airwallex helps more than 100,000 businesses streamline their international payments and financial operations. The company offers solutions for payments, treasury and spend management, as well as embedded finance, and processes $50 billion in annualized transaction volume. In recent months, Airwallex has forged partnerships with Brex, payments network TrueLayer, business payments platform MODIFI, and Expedia. Founded in 2015, the company has raised more than $900 million in funding at a valuation of $5.6 billion.

OurCrowd made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2016. At the conference, the Israel-based company showed how its app provided an interactive investment discovery and review process to help accredited investors make better, more informed decisions. One of the most active venture investors in Israel over the past ten years, according to Pitchbook, OurCrowd has more than $2.2 billion in commitments. The company has deployed capital into more than 420 portfolio companies and 50 funds across five continents. Founded in 2013, OurCrowd has more than 225,000 registered members from 195 countries on its platform today.

Photo by Maria Isabella Bernotti

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Digital Mortgage Platform SimpleNexus Integrates with Finastra’s MortgagebotLOS

Digital Mortgage Platform SimpleNexus Integrates with Finastra’s MortgagebotLOS
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finastra
  • Digital mortgage platform SimpleNexus has integrated with Finastra’s MortgagebotLOS.
  • The bi-directional integration is designed to streamline the home financing process for both home buyers as well as lenders, credit unions, and banks.
  • Finastra was formed in 2017 as the product of a merger between Misys and D+H.

Digital mortgage platform SimpleNexus has integrated with Finastra’s loan origination system for digital mortgage lending, MortgagebotLOS. The bi-directional integration will streamline home financing for both home buyers as well as the credit unions, banks, and lenders who cater to them. Homebuyers will be able to submit mortgage applications by smartphone or other Internet-connected device, and will benefit from being able to easily and securely scan and upload required documents. Automated mortgage loan milestone updates, courtesy of real-time data syncing between the two systems, notify homebuyers on their progress and point to next steps.

“The integration enables financial institutions to optimize their use of both platforms while providing borrowers with a seamless and supportive mortgage application process,” Finastra director of product management Mary Kay Theriault said. “Our goal is to equip lenders with the tools they need to stay ahead in any mortgage market.”

Ben Miller, SimpleNexus CEO, underscored the importance of the bi-directional integration of the two technologies. Miller noted that both homebuyers and lenders will benefit from improvements in convenience, efficiency, and overall usability with the new “from-anywhere digital mortgage application portal.”

Among the first banks to have deployed the technology are ChoiceOne Bank, based in Michigan, and Flanagan State Bank, based in Illinois. Both institutions have leveraged the integration to improve the navigability of the mortgage process for homebuyers as well as reduce manual and redundant tasks for loan originators and processing teams.

Founded as a merger between Misys and D+H in 2017, Finastra currently serves more than 8,100 financial institutions – including 45 of the world’s top 50 banks -across 130+ countries. The company offers solutions for lending and corporate banking, payments, treasury and capital markets, investment management, and banking-as-a-service.

Last month, Finastra announced a partnership with Open Finance company and fellow Finovate alum MX. The partnership will integrate MX’s PFM, insights, and account aggregation solutions with Finastra’s Fusion Digital Banking platform. Also in July, Finastra announced that it was working with European payments processing startup Salve Financial Hub and specialist mortgage lender and savings provider Melton Building Society.

Headquartered in London, Finastra maintains offices in Canada, Singapore, the UAE, and the U.S. Simon Paris is CEO.

Photo by PhotoMIX Company

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Tradeshift Forms Joint Venture with HSBC, Raises $70 Million

Tradeshift Forms Joint Venture with HSBC, Raises $70 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Daily news, Funding, Tradeshift
  • Tradeshift is partnering with HSBC to develop embedded finance solutions.
  • As part of the partnership, HSBC is contributing $35 million to Tradeshift’s $70 million funding round announced today.
  • There is limited information about the details of the new joint venture between the two parties, but the announcement said more information will be unveiled ahead of the planned launch slated for early 2024.

Supply chain procurements and payments company Tradeshift is teaming up with HSBC to launch a new business. The jointly-owned business endeavor will focus on developing embedded finance solutions and financial services applications. 

As part of the partnership, HSBC is investing $35 million in Tradeshift as part of a round that is expected to close at around $70 million. Existing investors AYTK Limited, LUN Partners Group, Fuel Venture Capital, Doha Venture Capital LLC, Notion Capital, IDC Ventures and The Private Shares Fund contributed to the round.

The round will add to the more than $1.1 billion in funding Tradeshift has amassed since it was founded in 2009.

Details about the new joint venture between Tradeshift and HSBC are sparse. The announcement states that the two will “deploy a range of digital solutions across Tradeshift and other platforms” that will include embedded finance tools for trade, e-commerce, and marketplaces. The new business will enable Tradeshift to globally scale its business commerce network that currently sits at one million users.

Tradeshift expects that the HSBC brand will “bring instant credibility and broad appeal” to the new financial solutions. HSBC currently facilitates more than $800 billion in trade each year. 

“The world’s biggest trade bank and the world’s largest trade network are joining forces,” said Tradeshift CEO and Co-founder Christian Lanng. “Our deepening partnership with HSBC delivers a strong foundation from which to scale and accelerate our vision of a trade network that creates economic opportunity for businesses everywhere.”

The two will announce more details about the joint venture ahead of its launch, which is expected in early 2024.

“We are very excited to partner with Tradeshift to help businesses and their suppliers trade more smoothly using world-class technology and solutions that the joint venture will deliver,” said HSBC CEO of Global Commercial Banking Barry O’Byrne.

Photo by Yusuf Miah

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Maine’s Machias Savings Bank Partners with Jack Henry to Modernize Tech Stack

Maine’s Machias Savings Bank Partners with Jack Henry to Modernize Tech Stack
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Jack Henry
  • Maine-based Machias Savings Bank has partnered with Jack Henry to modernize its technology stack.
  • Founded in 1869, Machias Savings Bank has $2.4 billion in assets.
  • Jack Henry has been a Finovate alum since 2010. Newsweek named the company as one of America’s Greatest Workplaces in 2023.

One of the oldest banks in Maine, Machias Savings Bank, has turned to Jack Henry to modernize its technology stack. The financial institution will deploy Jack Henry’s core processing solution to help automate processes and improve efficiency. Machias Savings Bank also will take advantage of business process solutions like Jack Henry’s Enterprise Workflow, as well as access more than 950 API-integrated, third-party fintechs that are a part of Jack Henry’s ecosystem.

“Jack Henry’s innovative mindset positions us well for a technology transformation that will help us stay competitive throughout shifting market and economic conditions,” Machias Savings Bank COO and EVP Peter Greene said. He added that the partnership will help the bank reduce costs while better serving its commercial customers, which have been a special focus for the institution.

“These modernization efforts will help Machias Savings Bank strengthen its connection to a new generation of customers, compete with the big banks, and remain a strong pillar in their community,” Jack Henry SVP and president of Bank Solutions Stacey Zengel added.

A Finovate alum since 2010, Jack Henry serves community and regional financial institutions, providing both internally developed technology solutions as well as integrations with leading fintech innovators. With more than 8,000 clients, the Monett, Missouri-based company offers digital banking, payments, lending, financial crime, and financial health solutions to help banks, credit unions, and other financial services companies innovate faster and compete more effectively against larger rivals in both finance and tech.

Last month, Jack Henry announced its support for the Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service. In June, the company launched its real-time payment fraud feature – Payrailz Fraud Monitor. The technology leverages AI and machine learning to identify and assess multiple fraud indicators to provide actionable scores on each payment transaction. The AI-based offering was made possible by Jack Henry’s acquisition of Payrailz in 2022. In addition to its partnership with Machias Savings Bank, Jack Henry teamed up with Platinum Federal Credit Union in May; First Community Bank, Sunrise Bank, and Today’s Bank in April; and virtual bank Greenpenny in January.

Jack Henry trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker JKHY. The firm has a market capitalization of $12 billion.

Machias Savings Bank was founded in 1869. The institution has $2.4 billion in assets, and 17 branch locations throughout Maine. Larry Baker is president and CEO.

Photo by Blue Arauz

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Ledgible and DigiShares Team Up to Boost Accuracy in Digital Asset Tax Accounting and Reporting

Ledgible and DigiShares Team Up to Boost Accuracy in Digital Asset Tax Accounting and Reporting
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, DigiShares
  • Digital asset tokenization platform DigiShares partnered with digital asset tax, accounting, and data platform Ledgible.
  • The partnership will ensure greater accuracy and efficiency when assessing taxes for cryptocurrency and tokenized assets.
  • Founded in 2018, DigiShares made its Finovate debut at our all-digital event, FinovateSpring 2021.

White-label digital asset tokenization platform DigiShares has inked a partnership with digital asset tax, accounting, and data platform Ledgible. The collaboration will give DigiShares issuers, investors, and their accounting teams greater accuracy and efficiency in the challenging area of crypto and tokenized asset taxation.

Specifically, DigiShares will send subscriber investment, trade, and distribution to Ledgible’s Digital Asset Tax and Accounting Platform. Ledgible’s platform then analyzes the economic and ownership activity and normalizes it to enhance CPA-led preparation of Forms 1065 and 1120, Schedule K-1, and other tax returns. The technology assesses digital asset tax liability and provides that data to the customer’s accounting system.

“With the growing adoption of crypto and tokenized assets, tax gain and loss accuracy and efficiency in this new, complex environment is critical for each participant in the tokenized asset ecosystem,” Ledgible CEO Kell Canty said.

Founded in 2018, DigiShares made its Finovate debut at our all-digital event FinovateSpring 2021. The company, headquartered in Denmark, demoed how its technology provides automation and liquidity for real estate via its digital asset tokenization platform. DigiShares digitizes and automates both the processes related to financing of projects as well as ongoing corporate management and ownership. In addition to real estate, use cases for the company’s digitization technology include payments, KYC, e-signing, investor management, and legal processes.

“This collaboration opens new possibilities for our clients in managing digital assets, enabling them to stay compliant and confident in their tax and accounting practices,” DigiShares co-founder and CEO Claus Skaaning said.

2023 has been a busy year of partnerships for DigiShares. This spring, the company announced collaborations with cryptocurrency company TFC Services, Spanish real estate discovery solution Equito App, alternative trading system (ATS) company Oasis Pro Markets, and chartered trust company Fortress Trust. Earlier this month, DigiShares teamed up with Texture Capital to help boost liquidity opportunities for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).

Photo by Oleksandr Canary Islands

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Bluevine Integrates Accounts Payable Tool into Small Business Banking Platform

Bluevine Integrates Accounts Payable Tool into Small Business Banking Platform
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, BlueVine, Daily news
  • Bluevine launched an accounts payable solution this week.
  • The new offering will be available within Bluevine’s small business banking suite.
  • The accounts payable tool will offer businesses tools such as bill capture and storage, approval workflows, payment scheduling, and automatic accounting reconciliation.

Small business banking innovator Bluevine is enhancing its platform this week by launching a new accounts payable (AP) offering within its small business banking suite.

Including the new AP tool will help business owners manage payments within their Bluevine Business Checking accounts. Tools such as bill capture and storage, approval workflows, payment scheduling, automatic accounting reconciliation, and user provisioning and management will help businesses automate their AP processes.

“As small businesses scale, often they face more complexity in managing their operations,” said Bluevine SVP, GM of Banking Charles Amadon. “Our accounts payable solution is purpose-built to strike a balance between providing a robust set of AP automation tools, with the ease-of-use that our customers have come to expect from Bluevine.”

The AP feature builds out Bluevine’s current small business banking platform, which the company launched in 2019 to help small businesses manage their finances, deposit checks, transfer funds, and pay invoices. Bluevine has unveiled a series of enhancements to its business banking platform in recent years, including the launch of billpay in 2022, and international payments capabilities earlier this year.

“Every decision we make has the SMB at the heart of it, starting with the essential question – will this help them grow and run their business easier? Based on customer feedback we knew AP automation was something they wanted and needed. Putting all that power right into their checking account dashboard is an exciting step forward, and further differentiates Bluevine Business Checking with even more added value,” added Amadon.

Bluevine launched in 2013 to serve as an alternative lending provider for small businesses. Since then, the California-based company’s tools have reached 500,000 entrepreneurs. Bluevine has raised just shy of $770 million from investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, 83North, Citi Ventures, ION Crossover Partners, SVB Capital, Nationwide Insurance, and M12. Eyal Lifshitz is CEO.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko

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Finovate Global Japan: Fintech Challenges, Neobank Milestones, and Funding SMEs

Finovate Global Japan: Fintech Challenges, Neobank Milestones, and Funding SMEs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finovate Global

When we think of fintech in Asia, China often comes quickly to mind, as do Singapore, Hong Kong, and a few other places. But Japan? Not so much.

Why is this so? One of the more interesting reads on the topic of fintech in Japan that I’ve come across is a Deloitte study Japanese Fintech in the Global Context. In the report, Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting Social Impact Director Yasuyuki Ogyu explains some of the challenges that prevent Japan from having the sort of fintech industry we see in countries like the U.S. – or neighbor and rival China.

Ogyu notes that Japan has “a favorable B2C market environment.” Unfortunately, the country also has a “rock-solid yet inflexible financial infrastructure.” This has made investors hesitant to commit capital to new financial services businesses for fear that the return of investment would be low and slow compared to other opportunities in the region. Ogyu shows how, in contrast to the U.S., the high level of quality demanded of Japanese IT systems makes them “ill-suited (in terms of speed and cost) to new initiatives like fintech.” Comparisons between API laws in the U.S. and Europe compared to Japan show that there is still a great deal of work to be done educating the public on the value of “services that utilize personal data.”

Check out the full report. Deloitte’s study is an interesting look at the relationship between fintech innovation and the incumbent Japanese financial services industry. The report also provides a handful of recommendations that might help fintechs make greater inroads in the country.

That said, what are some of the more interesting developments on the Japanese fintech scene of late?

Just a few months after securing a deposit-taking license and one month after going live with its mobile app, Japanese digital bank Habitto announced that it surpassed 12,000 downloads. Habitto has also received more than $922,500 (¥130 million) in new deposits over the past month. But the download milestone news almost was overshadowed by a report that the neobank had opened a new office in the fashion district of Cat Street Uruhara.

Habitto co-founder and CEO Samantha Ghiotti explained. “Despite being a mobile-first finance brand, we still believe that it’s essential to connect with customers at ground level and with a human approach,” Ghiotti said. “Trust in financial brands is built over time. We can only achieve this trust through a combination of positive customer experiences both on mobile and face-to-face.”

Ghoitti and Chief Creative Officer Liam McCance founded Habitto in 2021. The Tokyo-based neobank offers an interest rate of 0.3% on deposits up to ¥1 million as well as a Visa debit card. The company’s mobile app includes free financial advice, personalized money plans, and in-app chat and video call services. Habitto has raised a total of $7.3 million in funding from investors including Saison Capital and Cherubic Ventures.

Turning to the B2C end of the country’s fintech sector, we note that Olta, a Japanese fintech that helps SMEs secure funding, has raised $17.8 million in funding. The investment in the Tokyo-based fintech takes the company’s total capital raised to more than $60 million. A sizable number of investors participated in the Series B round. These investors include SBI Investment, Spiral Capital, DG Ventures, WingArc 1st, AG Capital Delight Ventures, Tottori Capital, Nobunaga Capital Village, BIG Impact, and Aozora Corporate Investment.

Olta was founded in 2017. The company provides cloud-based factoring services for the procurement of funds to meet short-term funding needs without resorting to debt. Olta’s role in supporting small businesses during the COVID pandemic was highlighted by Nikkei Asia in the spring of 2020. One meat wholesaler described how he was able to convert several hundred thousand yen in accounts receivable into cash using Olta’s services.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Photo by Andrey Grushnikov

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Core Banking Provider Tuum Partners with Bank Orchestration Platform Numeral

Core Banking Provider Tuum Partners with Bank Orchestration Platform Numeral
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Numeral
  • Core banking provider Tuum and bank orchestration platform Numeral announced a new partnership this week.
  • The two companies will work together to help financial institutions and fintechs launch and grow across Europe and the U.K.
  • Paris, France-based Numeral made its Finovate debut this spring at FinovateEurope in London.

A strategic partnership between core banking provider Tuum and bank orchestration platform Numeral is designed to help both financial institutions and fintechs to launch and grow across Europe and the U.K. The combination of Numeral’s bank integrations and Tuum’s modular core banking platform will enable FIs and fintechs to access a variety of European and U.K. payment schemes – including SEPA, Bacs, FPS as indirect participants via integrations with E.U. and U.K. partner banks.

This provides access to partner banks’ local virtual IBANs – or to issuing their own local IBANs. According to research from Numeral, European consumers said they were 83% more likely to use financial services that offered local IBANs instead of foreign ones. The company’s survey also noted that a quarter of respondents said that they had experienced “IBAN discrimination” when using a foreign IBAN. The partnership between Tuum and Numeral, by facilitating local IBANs, will boost consumer trust as well as combat the issue of IBAN discrimination.

In a statement, Numeral CEO Édouard Mandon underscored the importance of scale when it comes to unit economics in fintech and financial services. “Building a pan-European payment infrastructure is critical for financial services and fintech companies to access a broader market, acquire more customers and achieve profitability,” Mandon said. He highlighted the challenge of financial institutions trying to build these solutions internally and pointed to the partnership between Tuum and Numeral as a better way. “Financial services companies should be able to build systems that correspond to their specific needs from readily available building blocks,” Mandon added.

Tuum VP of Global Partnerships Jean Souto shared Mandon’s concern about the challenges FIs face when it comes to allocating scarce resources. “Establishing operations across different countries demands substantial capital and operational expense,” Souto explained. “With Tuum and Numeral’s joint proposition, companies can now harness the power of a modular core banking platform and a pan-European bank orchestration platform.”

Headquartered in Paris, France, Numeral demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope earlier this year. At the conference, the company showed how financial institutions can leverage its technology to automatically send, receive, and reconcile SEPA payments. The company also demoed how its API platform optimizes FI payment operations by automating bank payment processing. The same month that Numeral made its Finovate debut, the firm announced that it was going live in the U.K.

Providing the payment infrastructure for European fintechs such as Swile and Spendesk, Numeral says that it is on pace to process $5.5 billion (€5 billion) in 2023. The company announced in May that it was teaming up with BNP Paribas and European Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) outfit Alma to automate payments to merchants.

Numeral has raised €13 million in funding. The company includes Balderton Capital and Kima Ventures among its investors.

Photo by cottonbro studio

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Grasshopper Bank Partners with Financial Crime Assurance and Testing Specialist Cable

Grasshopper Bank Partners with Financial Crime Assurance and Testing Specialist Cable
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Cable, Daily news, Women in Fintech
  • New York-based digital bank Grasshopper announced a partnership with automated financial crime assurance and testing specialist Cable.
  • The partnership will enable the bank to enhance its own compliance and risk management capabilities.
  • Cable made its Finovate debut last September at FinovateFall.

Digital bank Grasshopper has turned to Cable for its automated financial crime assurance and testing capabilities. The bank will leverage Cable’s technology to deploy next-level automation that will enhance the advanced compliance and risk management capabilities of its own compliance program.

“Cable will help us and our fintech partners take advantage of the latest automation to gain superior visibility and comprehensive compliance insights, which will enable our clients to scale more efficiently and responsibly – back by the leading advanced compliance technology,” Grasshopper Chief Compliance Officer Chris Mastrangelo said.

Cable offers a solution that enables both banks and fintechs to automate their compliance assurance and effectiveness testing. The company’s Automated Assurance offering helps institutions discover regulatory breaches and control failures when they occur, empowering compliance teams to take immediate action. Cable’s technology streamlines a variety of manual processes including operations in quality control, stakeholder reporting, and record management. The company says that businesses have achieved nearly a 6x average return on investment in their first year using Cable. Clients using Cable’s complete suite of solutions have saved an average of $440,000 a year, according to the company. Cable demoed its technology at FinovateFall last year.

Based in New York, Grasshopper is a digital bank with total assets of more than $700 million. The institution caters to the “innovation economy,” serving small businesses, startups, venture capital and private equity, as well as fintechs. The bank’s partners include a number of Finovate alums including Visa, FIS, and Alloy. Grasshopper won Best Use of Tech in Banking at the 2023 Banking Tech Awards USA sponsored by sister publication Fintech Futures.

“As one of the most innovative BaaS providers, Grasshopper demonstrates that integrating cutting-edge compliance infrastructure and automation is mission-critical to the success of the best BaaS companies in today’s banking landscape,” Cable CEO Natasha Vernier said. Grasshopper will take advantage of Cable’s Partner Hub, which provides compliance infrastructure that is specifically designed for bank-fintech relationships. This includes automated risk assessments, automated assurance, quality assurance, management information, reporting, and more.

Vernier co-founded Cable with Chief Product Officer Katie Savitz in 2020. The company raised $11 million in Series A funding in May. Stage 2 Capital and Jump Capital provided the financing, along with existing investor CRV. This year alone, Cable has partnered with digital asset custody platform Palisade, embedded banking software platform Treasury Prime, U.K. bank Griffin, and crypto payments company Ramp.

Photo by Silas Jaeger

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Embroker Partners with Password Management Provider Dashlane, Cyber Insurer Cowbell

Embroker Partners with Password Management Provider Dashlane, Cyber Insurer Cowbell
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Dashlane
  • Business insurance platform Embroker has announced strategic partnerships with Dashlane and Cowbell.
  • The partnerships are designed to help the company improve customer security and enhance liability coverage.
  • Dashlane is a password management provider. The company won Best of Show at FinovateFall in 2012. Cowbell is a cyber insurance provider for SMEs.

Embroker is taking two giant steps toward enhancing security and liability coverage on its business insurance platform. The San Francisco-based company has forged strategic partnerships with password management provider Dashlane and cyber insurance provider for SMEs Cowbell.

“Through Cowbell and Dashlane, we are not only able to support our customers in the event of a cyber breach, but also help them avoid one altogether,” Embroker Chief Insurance Officer David Derigiotis said. “It is services like these that are shaping the next generation of insurance, making getting coverage easier and actively beneficial to those who hold policies with us.”

Courtesy of the partnership, Embroker policyholders will be able to access Dashlane’s enterprise password management technology. Dashlane’s solution leverages zero-knowledge encryption, which stores passwords and other sensitive data in vaults that are private – even to Dashlane. The company also offers dark web monitoring to alert Embroker customers when their information may have been exposed. Dashlane CEO John Bennett called the partnership “a natural pair” due to the potential impact of breaches on policy premiums. “By aligning with a partner like Embroker, we’re helping to create safer business environments from start to finish for the startup community, holistically protecting businesses from the increasing cyber threats they face,” Bennett said.

Embroker’s partnership with Cowbell will combine the company’s Cyber Liability Product with Embroker’s own LPL solution via API. The addition gives Embroker customers broader options when it comes to bespoke coverage. Embroker announced that the combination with Cowbell has completed the company’s law bundle offering.

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in New York, Dashlane made its Finovate debut in 2012. At the conference, the company won Best of Show for its technology that enables instant checkouts and universal logins while maintaining privacy and security. In the years since, Dashlane has grown into a credential management leader that has secured more than 2.5 billion credentials and safeguarded passwords and passkeys for more than 20,000+ companies.

Dashlane’s John Bennett joined the company as CEO in February of this year. In April, the company became a board member of the FIDO Alliance. The following month, Dashlane announced a partnership with Network Communications Industries (NCI) to provide password management support to companies in Australia and New Zealand.

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American Express Introduces Commercial Partner Program

American Express Introduces Commercial Partner Program
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, American Express, Daily news
  • Credit card giant American Express launched its Sync Commercial Partner Program this week.
  • The program offers a suite of APIs that fintechs can embed into their existing B2B apps and services, including spend management, procurement, and other B2B software solutions.
  • As a result, businesses can access Amex tools and services within the fintech apps they already use.

American Express unveiled its Sync Commercial Partner Program today. The new program includes a suite of APIs that fintechs can embed into their own B2B apps, reaching business customers on the platforms they already use.

Using the Sync Commercial Partner Program, fintechs and software providers can embed Amex virtual cards into their own spend management, procurement, and other software solutions aimed at U.S. businesses. The Sync Commercial Partner Program is scalable to suit a range of fintechs’ needs; it offers robust developer tools, and comes with a dedicated Amex support contact. In a future iteration, Amex will enable fintechs to integrate virtual cards that can be added to several mobile wallets.

The card company said that it will add more B2B payment and data capabilities in the coming months.

“American Express Sync will put more B2B capabilities in the hands of fintechs and ultimately enable their customers to get more value from the platforms they use to run their businesses,” said American Express Vice President on the Global Commercial Services team Todd Manning. “Today’s announcement means that our broad base of American Express U.S. Business and Corporate customers will have more ways to pay their suppliers digitally.”

The use of embedded B2B payments has been expanding over the past few years. In 2021, the transaction value reached $700 billion in the U.S. By 2026, the value is expected to nearly quadruple to $2.6 trillion.

At launch, the Sync Commercial Partner Program has six early adopters– Centime, Eved, HQ, Melio, and PayEm. “Together, American Express and PayEm are providing customers with an intuitive way to manage payments, expenses, and cash flow by leveraging on-demand virtual Cards,” said PayEm CEO and Cofounder Itamar Jobani. “Our customers can now generate unique virtual Card numbers for specific employee requests or vendor transactions, giving them greater control, enhanced security, and streamlined reconciliation.”

Amex’s launch of its Sync Commercial Partner Program is the company’s latest move to boost its digital finance offerings. Last month, Amex partnered with Plaid to allow its customers to connect with Plaid’s 8,000+ connected apps without having to share their password with the third-party provider. And last spring, the card company launched American Express Global Pay, a cross-border payments tool for U.S. small businesses.

Listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker AXP, American Express has a market capitalization of $124 billion. Stephen Squeri is CEO.

Photo by CardMapr.nl on Unsplash

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Embedded Finance Platform ASA Secures Partnership, Investment from Quansight Initiate

Embedded Finance Platform ASA Secures Partnership, Investment from Quansight Initiate
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, ASA

Travis Oliphant, CEO of OpenTeams and venture partner with Quansight Initiate, has announced a strategic partnership with and investment in embedded finance platform ASA. The partnership will connect ASA with the open source community, enabling the company to build solutions and provide expertise in machine learning, and AI strategy and architecture.

“We are impressed with ASA’s commitment to helping fintech entrepreneurs engage more easily with existing banking technology, all while empowering account holders with greater control of their data,” Oliphant said in a statement. “We see strong potential for financial institutions to unleash the power of innovation that can bubble up from open-source communities into fintech solutions. ASA is transforming the industry, and I look forward to collaborating with the team as they grow.”

Terms of the investment were not disclosed. Oliphant and Quansight join former JP Morgan Chase CIO Austin Adams and former BECU CEO Benson Porter among ASA’s roster of investors. The funding adds to the $1.8 million in seed capital ASA raised in 2021.

Data scientist and entrepreneur Travis Oliphant is the creator of Python program language library NumPy, and founding contributor of Python’s SciPy library. Oliphant is also founder of Anaconda (previously Continuum Analytics), open source non-profit NumFOCUS, OpenTeams, and OpenTeams Incubator. Launched in 2019, OpenTeams is an open source solution provider that supports more than 680+ open source technologies.

Founded in 2020, ASA helps financial institutions and fintechs forge productive partnerships. The Utah-based company connects banks and credit unions with fintechs, providing a secure and compliant marketplace that makes it easy for FIs to implement the digital solutions their customers want. Via a strategy it calls collaborative banking, ASA has pioneered a new approach open banking that allows financial institutions to enter these partnerships while at the same time maintaining ownership and control over customer data. This helps remove regulatory risk and liability from the partnership, facilitating collaboration. ASA counts more than 25 community financial institutions, including Pyramid FCU and University Credit Union, and fintechs among its partners.

“We firmly believe that, if approached the right way, embedded fintech has the power to redefine bank and fintech partnerships, and the backing of industry powerhouses such as Travis reinforces the value of our technology,” ASA co-founder and CEO Landon Glenn explained. “Our team is already benefitting from Quansight Initiate’s deep expertise and insights, and we are confidence that we can accelerate the collaborative banking movement together.”

ASA most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall last September. At the conference, the company showed how its trusted, closed ecosystem offers community banks and credit unions a way to collaborate and deliver the latest fintech innovations to their customers.

We spoke with ASA Head of Fintech Relationships Ryan Ruff at the company’s first Finovate appearance in 2021. In our conversation, Ruff explained the company’s unique approach to open banking. He also discussed how collaborative banking enables FI/fintech partnerships at scale.

Photo by Joshua T

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