Alumni News

Signicat Teams Up with Cryptshare to Enhance Identity Verification in the Enterprise

Signicat Teams Up with Cryptshare to Enhance Identity Verification in the Enterprise
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Signicat

A partnership between digital identity company Signicat and German software solution provider Cryptshare soon will bring to market a new B2B identity verification solution. The new offering marries platform-independent email encryption and secure file transfer technology with trusted sender and recipient identities to ensure secure business communication as well as legal proof of the sender and recipient. With a broad range of use cases in both retail and enterprise markets, the companies anticipate making the new solution available in the third quarter of 2021.

In their partnership announcement, the companies highlighted both the centrality of email as a communication channel for both personal and business use. Despite the rise of alternative forms of communications including text messaging, email is still embraced by 87% of all citizens in the U.K. Businesses can take advantage of the popularity of email, Signicat and Cryptshare assert, if they are willing to take the necessary steps to ensure both security and traceability. Today’s announcement integrates the two companies’ technologies so that Cryptshare’s services can be accessed using eIDAS-compliant secure authentication.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, Signicat made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2017. At the event, the company demonstrated its rapid onboarding and digital signing solutions Signicat Assure and Signicat Sign. Acquired by Nordic Capital in the spring of 2019, the company has since appointed a new CEO in Asger Hattel, acquired Dutch identity verification specialist Connectis, collaborated with fellow Finovate alums like Mambu, and was named one of the fastest growing companies in Europe by The Financial Times.

“We live in a society where now more than ever we must ensure trust between businesses and consumers online,” Hattel said when the announcement in the FT was made. “In Signicat, we are building a progressive digital trust company that both embraces innovation and business needs in this area. We have a decade’s worth of experiencing building the tools, so we are ideally placed to address this growing market opportunity.”

Signicat partner Cryptshare is headquartered in Freiburg im Breisgau in Southern Germany. Founded in 2000, the company has four million users of its technology in 30 countries around the world, including 2,000 corporate customers. Dominik Lehr is CEO.

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DriveWealth Forges Partnership with Plaid

DriveWealth Forges Partnership with Plaid
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, DriveWealth, Plaid

It’s getting hard not to wonder if Plaid is better off as a bachelor …

Last week, we highlighted how the financial data connectivity platform rebounded from its failed union with Visa to launch a range of new initiatives including new offerings (new income verification solution Plaid Income), new partners, and a diversity-oriented accelerator program, FinRise.

Today brings news that Plaid has teamed up with global brokerage infrastructure platform – and fellow Finovate alum – DriveWealth. Courtesy of a single API integration, customers of both firms will be able to streamline and simplify the online investment account funding process for their clients.

“The combination of DriveWealth and Plaid to enable anyone from fintechs and banks to investment advisors and RIAs to quickly and securely add investment capabilities to their current offerings, via a simple API, will give more consumers equal access to investing in the U.S. markets,” DriveWealth CEO Bob Cortright said.

The integration will enable customers of both DriveWealth and Plaid to authenticate end user bank accounts using Plaid’s technology, and leverage tokenization to provide fast and secure verification of bank funding sources using DriveWealth’s API. The combination not only improves the ACH success rate, it also boosts transparency into the fund transfer process while safeguarding client data.

Plaid Head of Revenue Paul Williamson credited the wealth management industry for its advances in technology in recent years. But he pointed out that there is still more friction in the process than there needs to be. “Companies like DriveWealth are changing that and this partnership combines to power of Plaid with DriveWealth to make digital investing experiences even easier,” Williamson said.

In addition to this week’s partnership with DriveWealth, Plaid also announced that it is working with Dun & Bradstreet to bring the benefits of alternative data to small business credit risk analysis. The new integration will enable small business owners to safely share financial account information and potentially improve their credit profile with the commercial credit reporting agency.

“Small businesses need all the support they can get, and this integration makes the process of creating and building a business credit profile secure and simple, which can lead to better access to financing and more business opportunities,” Global Head of Policy at Plaid John Pitts said.

And by the way, Plaid is not the only fintech in today’s partnership announcement that is populating the headlines of late. DriveWealth began 2021 with the acquisition of institutional broker dealer Cuttone & Company. The deal will bring additional market and regulatory expertise to the Chatham, New Jersey-based brokerage infrastructure API provider – as well as a network of institutional trading partners.

More recently, DriveWealth teamed up with Aghaz to support the Seattle-based roboadvisor’s investment app for Muslim customers, partnered with cross-border roboadvisor Hemista to bring fractional share investing in both U.S. and Indian stocks to Indian ex-pats, and collaborated with GenZ-focused investment app Alinea.

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PayPal Users Can Now Checkout with Crypto

PayPal Users Can Now Checkout with Crypto
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, PayPal

PayPal launched Checkout with Crypto today. The new development enables users with cryptocurrency holdings to seamlessly transact using crypto at the online point of sale. Starting today, U.S. shoppers can make purchases using crypto at millions of online businesses.

The new Checkout with Crypto payment option will automatically appear in U.S. users’ PayPal wallets at checkout when they have a cryptocurrency balance of Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, or Bitcoin Cash that will cover an eligible purchase. Because PayPal makes money when users buy and sell cryptocurrencies on its platform, it is not charging additional transaction fees.

“As the use of digital payments and digital currencies accelerates, the introduction of Checkout with Crypto continues our focus on driving mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies, while continuing to offer PayPal customers choice and flexibility in the ways they can pay using the PayPal wallet,” said PayPal President and CEO Dan Schulman. “Enabling cryptocurrencies to make purchases at businesses around the world is the next chapter in driving the ubiquity and mass acceptance of digital currencies.”

Essentially, Checkout with Crypto works behind-the-scenes of a transaction to help customers sell cryptocurrency through the PayPal platform. PayPal then uses it to pay a merchant, who receives U.S. dollars in exchange. Because of the embedded nature of the tool, the process happens in one seamless flow at checkout.

There are a few restrictions around Checkout with Crypto. First, the tool is only available to U.S. users. Second, purchases must be eligible. Finally, users can’t split the payment among currency types. In other words, in order to make a purchase in cryptocurrency, they must have a sufficient balance of a single cryptocurrency.

In the coming months, PayPal plans to expand the service to its full list of 29 million online merchant clients across the globe.

This move expands PayPal’s previous cryptocurrency capabilities. In partnership with Paxos, PayPal began enabling users to buying, selling, and holding crypto last October.

Photo by Charles Etoroma on Unsplash

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Fiserv Buys Pineapple Payments

Fiserv Buys Pineapple Payments
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Fiserv, Mergers & Acquisitions

Financial services technology provider Fiserv made its latest acquisition this week. The Wisconsin-based company has agreed to purchase payment processing and payment acceptance startup Pineapple Payments.

Financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close next quarter, were not disclosed.

Under the agreement, Fiserv will continue to provide processing services to Pineapple’s 25,000 merchants. Fiserv anticipates the purchase will expand the reach of its own payment solutions, including the CoPilot partner platform, Clover, and Clover Connect.

“With Pineapple Payments already operating as a key distribution partner of Fiserv, we expect to accelerate the delivery of new and innovative capabilities to a host of new merchant clients,” said Fiserv President and CEO Frank Bisignano. “Together, we will provide omni-channel payments technology and services to enable merchants to maximize the potential of electronic payment processing. We look forward to welcoming Pineapple Payments to the Fiserv family and continuing to provide the best-in-class solutions and service that merchants and their customers expect.”

Headquartered in Wisconsin and founded in 2016, Pineapple Payments provides payment processing and omni-channel payment acceptance solutions for integrated software vendors and SMBs.

Today’s deal is Fiserv’s 35th acquisition. Prior to today, the company most recently bought up digital card services platform Ondot in a deal announced last December.

Photo by Any Lane from Pexels

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Meniga Brings in $11.8 Million Investment to Build Out Green Banking

Meniga Brings in $11.8 Million Investment to Build Out Green Banking
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Meniga

On the heels of its FinovateEurope demo this week, digital banking player Meniga has raised $11.8 million (€10 million). The investment brings the company’s total funding to $55.7 million.

Velocity Capital and Frumtak Ventures led the round, followed by Industrifonden and Meniga customers UniCredit, Swedbank, Groupe BPCE, and Íslandsbanki.

“Meniga has established itself as a trusted strategic partner to top-tier banks around the world for Personal Finance Management and Business Finance Management tools, which are built on top of its market-leading data consolidation and enrichment technologies,” said Willem Willemstein, General Partner & Founder at Velocity Capital Fintech Ventures. “We’re extremely excited about the growing demand for the personalised banking experiences that Meniga delivers, such as its new product, Carbon Insights, which uses transaction data to measure a bank customer’s carbon footprint.”

Meniga will use the funds to increase its R&D efforts and further build its sales and service teams. The company also said it will use the funds to bolster its green banking products.

The latter point is notable because Meniga has been making a name for itself in the green banking arena since the launch of its Carbon Insights tool. While multiple digital banking providers, such as Aspiration and Treecard, have launched in an effort to promote ESG banking for individual consumers, there have not been many players helping incumbent banks to compete by offering their own green banking products.

Launched last year, Carbon Insights enables banks to inform customers about their carbon footprint based on their spending habits and offers them the ability to reduce or offset it. Earlier this month Iceland’s Íslandsbanki became Meniga’s first client for Carbon Insights.

During the company’s FinovateEurope demo, Meniga CEO and Co-founder Georg Ludviksson noted that the company is currently implementing Carbon Insights with banks in four separate countries. “The demand is growing fast,” he added. “Carbon-concious consumers are here to stay.”

Founded in 2009, Meniga powers banking apps used by more than 100 million people in more than 30 countries. The company is headquartered in the U.K. with offices in Reykjavik, Stockholm, Warsaw, Singapore, and Barcelona.

Photo by Alena Koval from Pexels

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Jumio Makes History with $150 Million Investment in Digital Identity

Jumio Makes History with $150 Million Investment in Digital Identity
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Jumio

In the biggest fundraising for an identity verification company to date, Jumio has locked in an investment of $150 million. The funding comes courtesy of Great Hill Partners, a private equity firm that specializes in investments in “high-growth, disruptive companies.” The investment takes Jumio’s total funding to more than $255 million, according to Crunchbase.

“Jumio’s innovations helped establish the identity verification market, and the need to establish someone’s digital identity remotely has never been greater,” Jumio CEO Robert Prigge said. The company plans to use the new capital to automate its identity verification solutions, expand the breadth of its Jumio KYX Platform, and further build out the platform’s suite of AML compliance solutions.

As part of the investment, Great Hill Partners’ Nick Cayer and Matt Vettel will join Jumio’s Board of Directors. Cayer, who has been with Great Hill since 2006, praised the company as “the de factor global leader in online identity verification, fraud detection, and compliance.” He added that given the mandate many institutions have to digitize processes such as onboarding and KYC monitoring, firms like Jumio can play a key role in helping them keep pace with the growing volume of digital and mobile-based transactions.

Making its Finovate debut in 2013 and being acquired by Centana Growth Partners in 2016, Jumio has verified more than 300 million identities issued by 200+ countries and territories since inception in 2010. With customers and partners in a wide range of verticals – from financial services and the sharing economy to retail, travel, and online gaming – Jumio leverages AI, biometrics, machine learning, and certified liveness detection to help ensure that customers are who they claim to be. Jumio’s KYX Platform, launched last fall, provides organizations with an end-to-end identity verification and eKYC solution that enables them to onboard new accounts safely and accurately, keep existing accounts secure, and meet their compliance obligations with regards to KYC, AML, and GDPR.

“Digital transformation is more than a buzzword. It’s today’s business imperative,” Prigge said. “To succeed, organizations must transform quickly and do it in ways that build trust, security, and satisfaction. Businesses can tailor the Jumio KYX Platform to fit their unique needs and risks and tap into services that accelerate digital transformation without sacrificing security and convenience.”

Learn more about how Jumio fights deep fakes and bots in our interview from last summer featuring company VP of Marketing, Dean Nicolls.

Photo by asim alnamat from Pexels

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Zopa Receives $28 Million Investment

Zopa Receives $28 Million Investment
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Zopa

Peer-to-peer lending platform and digital bank Zopa landed some extra funds this week, now that its new banking platform is starting to take off.

The U.K.-based company pulled in $28 million (£20 million) from existing investors, bringing its total raised to $465 million.

Investors in today’s round include IAG Silverstripe, which led the round, as well as Augmentum, Alternative Credit Investments, Venture Founders, and others. The company will use the funds to support the growth of its digital bank.

Zopa secured its banking license last June and has since transitioned its platform from a peer-to-peer lending operation to a digital bank with a peer-to-peer lending option. Since that time, Zopa began offering savings accounts, which have reached $346 million (£250 million) in customer deposits, and a credit card product that has made Zopa a top 10 credit card issuer in the U.K. based on new customers.

The new funding comes at a time when competition among digital banks is at an all-time high. Zopa is poised to do well in the battle for new clients and deposits, however. The company has built a well-established client base, resources, and relationships since it was founded in 2004 as a peer-to-peer lending platform.

Zopa CEO Jaidev Janardana echoes this. “Less than a year since launching our bank, we have exceeded our plan for growth, both in terms of customers and balance sheet,” he said. “This capital injection will enable us to continue on this accelerated path. Our strong entry to the U.K. savings and credit card markets shows the organic appeal of our products and we are happy to have investors who share our excitement at the opportunity to serve more customers across more product categories.”

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

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Pindrop to Buy NextCaller

Pindrop to Buy NextCaller
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Pindrop Security

Phone-based fraud prevention company Pindrop acquired Next Caller this week. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.

Pindrop anticipates the purchase of NextCaller, a call verification and fraud detection solution for contact centers, will position the company for growth, expand its client base, and position it as an industry leader.

“Our two companies will now be able to service the market in its entirety with the right solution for whatever stage of voice security and authentication they are in,” said Next Caller Co-founder and CEO Ian Roncoroni.

The deal comes at a time when demand for call centers is expanding. In a recent report, Forrester found that 42% of brands surveyed saw an increase in year-over-year call center call volume since the pandemic began. Additionally, 65% of companies reported they struggle to manage the high call volume and 80% of firms reported that fraud is a very serious issue in the call center.

Given this, Pindrop CEO Vijay Balasubramaniyan has a positive outlook for the fraud prevention industry. “We couldn’t be more bullish about the future,” he said, “The need for our combined solutions will only continue to grow as brands across multiple industries not only look to better secure their voice channel, but also improve the customer experience. Understanding who you are speaking to is the most effective way to build a better relationship with customers, resulting in a higher NPS and subsequently more profitable exchanges.”

As for what’s next, Next Caller will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary under Pindrop.

Founded in 2011, Pindrop debuted an IVR solution as well as the availability of its voice authentication technology for use in OTT streaming devices. Headquartered in Alabama, Pindrop is privately held and has raised a total of $213 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Citi Ventures.

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NYMBUS Picks Red Hat as Cloud Platform Partner

NYMBUS Picks Red Hat as Cloud Platform Partner
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, NYMBUS

Financial services platform NYMBUS has selected the cloud platform from open source solution provider Red Hat for its digital banking ecosystem. The platform, Red Hat OpenShift, will enable Nymbus to help its community bank and credit union customers accelerate their digital transformations.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we bank, possibly forever,” Nymbus CEO Jeffery Kendall said. “It provided the push for local banks and credit unions to establish more secure, flexible, end-to-end digital banking solutions.” Kendall added that the partnership with Red Hat would give Nymbus’ partners more “freedom of choice” in the way they implemented their cloud banking strategies as well as the “multi-cloud uptime” Kendall said was “critical for the banking industry.”

Courtesy of the new partnership, Nymbus customers will be able to deploy and launch a turnkey, digital bank-in-a-box – running on OpenShift – on whatever cloud platform they prefer. The open source, cloud-agnostic nature of Red Hat’s solution helps institutions avoid being dependent on a sole vendor, which can impede innovation.

“Cloud technology is reshaping the way banking services are created and delivered in our digital world,” Red Hat VP and Global Head of Financial Services Richard Harmon said. “It is providing service providers the ability to quickly adapt to market changes and make it easier for community banks and credit unions to consume new software. We are excited to work with Nymbus to bring the innovation of open source and cloud technology to the market. Nymbus truly embraces the open source way of working, and we are looking forward to contributing to their success.”

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Miami Beach, Florida, Nymbus most recently demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage in 2019 as part of FinovateFall. The company began this year with a pair of C-suite hires – Chief Alliance Officer Sarah Howell and Chief Product Officer Larry McClanahan – a new partnership with NYDIG to support bitcoin banking, and a $53 million Series C funding round that took the company’s total capital to more than $98 million.

Photo by Darkhanbaatar Baasanjav from Pexels

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Blend to Acquire Title365 from Mr. Cooper

Blend to Acquire Title365 from Mr. Cooper
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Blend, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Mr. Cooper

Digital lending platform Blend has agreed to acquire Mr. Cooper-owned Title365 for $422 million.

Blend will leverage Title365 for its title, escrow, and settlement services. Integrating this technology into Blend’s platform will allow the company to automate title commitment upon loan application submission, digitally reconcile settlement fees in real time, and streamline communication among parties. Ultimately, Blend anticipates that Title365’s industry expertise will help minimize costs by integrating title and settlement into the loan process.

Title365 was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in California. The company fits nicely with Blend’s approach of offering a modern experience with its mission “to be the most technologically advanced title insurance and settlement services provider.”

Title365 will be part of Blend’s title marketplace that allows lenders and consumers to choose their preferred title and escrow partner. The tool will be similar to Blend’s insurance marketplace that allows consumers to shop for competitive rates from more than 25 insurance carriers.

“We’re really excited about the agreement to add Title365 to our team as we continue our work to build the full consumer homebuying journey into our platform,” said CEO Nima Ghamsari. “With Title365, we will be able to expand our ability to put lenders at the center of a vastly improved homebuying journey that delivers new levels of efficiency, speed, convenience, and cost savings to everyone.”

Founded in 2012, Blend recently received $300 million in new funding, bringing its total funding to $665 million and boosting its valuation to $3.3 billion. The company facilitated $1.4 trillion in loans last year and counts 285+ lender partners, which together are responsible for around 30% of all mortgage volume in the U.S.

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Flutterwave and PayPal Partner to Empower African eCommerce

Flutterwave and PayPal Partner to Empower African eCommerce
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, PayPal

Payments ecosystem giant PayPal announced a collaboration with Flutterwave, a leading payments technology company in Africa, this week. Through the collaboration, PayPal will enable its users to pay African merchants using Flutterwave’s platform.

The partnership will not only connect Flutterwave’s African merchant clients with PayPal’s 377 million accountholders, it will also help them work around the fragmented and complex payments infrastructure in Africa. To use the new functionality, online shoppers across the globe simply select the Pay with PayPal option while checking out at an African merchant’s page online.

Flutterwave launched to help businesses and individuals make payments across the continent flexibly and affordably. This comes at a crucial time for Africa. The ecommerce sector on the continent is expanding and is expected to grow from $16.5 billion in 2017 to $29 billion by next year.

“The collaboration reinforces our vision of creating a seamless digital payments system for Africa’s business communities that can now transact with international consumers,” said Flutterwave Founder and CEO Olugbenga Agboola. “By working with PayPal, we can further strengthen our commitment to our customers and service users as we will be enabling them to transact and expand their business operations to reach new markets.”

Flutterwave was founded in 2016 and has since processed over 140 million transactions worth over $9 billion. Today’s news comes just a couple of days after the company closed a $170 million round at a $1 billion valuation.

Photo by Jack Sparrow from Pexels

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eToro To Go Public in $10 Billion SPAC

eToro To Go Public in $10 Billion SPAC
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, eToro, Mergers & Acquisitions

Social trading and investment marketplace eToro announced today that it is making the leap to go public. In true 2021 style, however, the Israel-based company isn’t pursuing an IPO. Instead, eToro is merging with FinTech Acquisition Corp. V, a publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), in a deal worth $10 billion.

When the deal is finalized, the combined company will operate as eToro Group Ltd. and is expected to be listed on the NASDAQ.

The move to go public comes after a period of growth for the Israel-based company. Last year, eToro added more than five million new users and brought in $605 million in revenue, 147% higher than the revenue it saw in 2019. Additionally, average monthly registrations have grown from 192,000 in 2019 to 440,000 in 2020. In January 2021 alone, eToro added more than 1.2 million new registered users. Similarly, the number of trades executed on its platform has grown– from eight million average trades per month in 2019, to 27 million in 2020, and 75 million in January 2021 alone.

“We founded eToro with the vision of opening the global market for everyone to trade and invest in a simple and transparent way,” said eToro CEO Yoni Assia. “Today, eToro is the world’s leading social investment network. Our users come to eToro to invest, but also to communicate with each other; to see, follow, and automatically copy successful investors from all around the world. We created a new category of wealth management – social investing – and we are dominating the market as evidenced by our rapid expansion.”

eToro is the seventh fintech to use a SPAC to go public in the past few months, joining SoFi, BankMobile, Payoneer, MoneyLion, Apex, and OppFi.

eToro was founded in 2007 and has offices in Cyprus, the U.K., Australia, and the U.S. The company is among Finovate’s earliest alums, demoing at the very first FinovateEurope conference in 2011.

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

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