Alumni News– January 16, 2015

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgLinedata Capitalstream to offer e-SignLive by Silanis.
  • 13 Finovate alums win 2015 Paybefore Awards.
  • Payment Services Provider Anderson Zaks teams up with card-linked offers specialist, Birdback.
  • EZBOB launches scratch card promotion.
  • MarketWatch’s Your Digital Self column looks at Jingit.
  • Baseline magazine features a recent study by Arxan Technologies on the state of mobile app security.
  • The Mifos Initiative joins Microcredit Summit Campaign to integrate social performance management and poverty measurement tools into its free and open source cloud-based core banking system.
  • The Super early bird deadline for FinovateSpring 2015 ends tonight! Pick up your tickets now to save big time.
  • Monetise partners with MoneyPass to offer mobile money services to MoneyPass customers.
  • Lending Club Pilots Program to Provide Low Interest Financing to Google Partners.
  • In 2014, secondary transactions surged to a record $1.4 billion on SecondMarket.
  • Spend Matters debunks myths about Taulia. Check out Taulia at FinovateEurope next month.
  • Infosys announces $250 Million USD ‘Innovate in India Fund’ to support Indian start-ups.
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.

Alumni News– September 29, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgCreditCards.com and Wallaby launch the WalletUp mobile app to help consumers maximize credit card rewards.
  • LendingRobot will now manage up to $10,000 for free.
  • Billhighway debuts at #1 on Detroit Free Press Top Workplaces List in Small Business category.
  • miiCard participates in NSTIC Pilot for State of North Carolina eID Program.
  • Birdback brings card-linked offers to US and Brazil.
  • Smart Tuition and peerTransfer partner to help International tuition payers.
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.

Finovate Alumni News– April 11, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgFinovateSpring 2014 Sneak Peek: Part 6 is now up.
  • Jumio partners with IdentityMind to provide anti-money-laundering Bitcoin compliance for exchanges.
  • FIS launches GenNOW to make it easier for mobile and prepaid card users to access their funds from FIs.
  • Aon Hewitt and HelloWallet partner to help employers bring financial wellness to their workforce.
  • PayPal partners with Samsung to enable users to pay with their fingerprint, launches app for smartwatches.
  • Blackhawk Network recognized for Best Prepaid Innovation at Innovation Project 2014 conference awards.
  • CU Times looks at Citizens Business Bank’s success with Guardian Analytics’ fraud prevention tools.
  • App Developer Magazine looks at Lighter Capital’s RevenueLoan.
  • Birdback and Affiliate Window bring the ease of online offers to offline retailers based in Europe.
  • Betterment’s mobile app makes mobile PIN login available for users.
  • Bill.com wins Monarch Innovation Award in Innovative Industry Partner category.
  • BizJournals profiles Kabbage co-founder and COO, Kathryn Petralia.
  • American Express Open Forum takes a look at ZenPayroll. See them demo at FinovateSpring in San Jose.
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.

Finovate Alums Raise $600 Million in First Quarter of 2014

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Want some context on the torrid pace of fintech financing in the first three months of 2014?

Consider this: a year ago, fourteen Finovate alums raised a total of more than $150 million in the first quarter of 2013.

A year later, we have just nine alums raising more than twice as much in the month of March alone.

March Madness, indeed.
Q1 of 2014 saw 23 Finovate alums walk away with just under $600 million in capital. The biggest haul of the quarter came courtesy of Klarna, which raised more than $125 million. 
But there were plenty of similarly impressive fundraisings, including the $85 million raised by Credit Karma, and the $77 million and $75 million secured by OnDeck and Tradeshift, respectively.
Total raised = More than $592 million
January — $91 million raised by seven companies
February — $139 million raised by seven companies
March — $362 million raised by nine companies

Note: Funding prior to becoming a Finovate alum not included. Questions? Comments? Email us at David@finovate.com or Julie@finovate.com

UK-Based Card-Linked Offers Company, Birdback, Raises $2.4 Million

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Adding to the flood of funding this month, card-linked offers company Birdback recently announced $2.4 million dollars in venture funding.

Passion Capital led the round, followed by:

    • Paul Nikkel
    • Luke Johnson
    • Playfair Capital
    • #1seed

The UK-based company will use the round to retailers and financial institutions. Users in the UK, France, and Brazil will have the first opportunity.

To learn more about Birdback, check out its demo from FinovateEurope 2013.

Finovate Alumni News– May 21, 2013

  • FinovateLOGO.jpgBirdback teams up with Braintree for 3-day payments hackathon.
  • Indiana Members CU chooses Jack Henry & Associates’ Symitar for in-house core processing.
  • Keynote DeviceAnywhere adds mobile scripting, UI enhancements.
  • VoiceTrust moves operational headquarters to Canada, opening offices in Toronto and Montreal.
  • Figlo expands partnership with Yellowtail Consulting to enable stronger focus on South Africa.
  • Wipit partners with Sprint/ Boost Mobile to bring mobile payment capability to cash-preferred consumers.
  • Virtual Piggy signs first UK partners, Toy Galaxy and Toadstool.
  • eToro granted UK financial regulation approval from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
  • Tyfone releases Connected Smart Card solution to allow FIs to enhance user ID info used to access sensitive data.
  • Tradeshift partners with Invoiceware International to deliver compliant e-invoice validation in Latin America.
  • BillGuard to integrate with Google Wallet for transaction monitoring.
  • SigFig Portfolio adds support for Windows Phone.
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.

Finovate Alumni News– March 1, 2013

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgMetaforic’s self-defending software immune system named the Gold winner by Info Security Products Guide’s 2013 Global Excellence Awards.
  • Worldwide Insure names Expensify the February Travel App of the Month.
  • TIO Networks expands Services with First Data’s Money Network Prepaid Services.
  • Bloomberg Television interviews Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski.
  • CashStar co-founder, CEO David Stone to lead panel on mobile shopping and gifting at Prepaid Expo.
  • AEGON Turkey insurance sales processes go mobile with Figlo tablet solution.
  • Lending Club appoints former Visa President as Director.
  • Apps from BBVA Compass, Pageonce, and Simple highlighted in American Banker’s list of the top ten, most progressive mobile banking apps.
  • My Money Blog reviews Jemstep Portfolio Manager.
  • Co-founder and CEO of Birdback, Nicolai Watzenig named guest speaker at eDeal Summit.
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.

Birdback Unveils Card-linking API Technology

This post is a part of our live coverage of FinovateEurope 2013.

Taking the stage next is Birdback.

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“Our technology platform enables features such as loyalty programs, offers and automatic receipts to run on consumer’s existing payment cards. This is made possible through a simple, plug & play API that retailers and advertisers can easily use to link their applications to payment cards.
Birdback’s API handles security, compliance and privacy aspects of card-linking. Card-linking applications range from traditional cash-back schemes to virtual gaming currency redemption. Birdback is demoing a use-case of its REST API.”

Product Launched: February 2013

HQ Location: London, UK
Company Founded: 2012
Metrics: $0.5 million in capital raised; 8 employees
Website: birdback.com
Twitter: @birdback
Presenting Halim Madi (Business Development Director), Ben Brown (CEO, Vouchacha)
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FinovateEurope 2013 Sneak Peek: Part 3

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With just a few weeks to go before FinovateEurope, here’s the third and final part of our Sneak Peek preview of the companies demoing in London (click here for part 1, here for part 2).

There still time to get your ticket and be a part of the conference in London on February 12 & 13 at Old Billingsgate Market Hall. For more information or to register, visit our FinovateEurope page here.

Each presenting company supplied a few teasers about the innovations they will be showcasing at the event.

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In a unique demonstration, Akamai will command agents and attack servers across the Internet to launch attacks commonly directed at financial services sites (including SQL injection, slow HTTP post, and DDoS attacks) at a pair of live demonstration banking sites on the public Internet. One site in the clear, and one protected by Kona Site Defender.

The demonstration will show how these attacks can compromise an unprotected site, and how Kona Site Defender is able to detect and mitigate these attacks automatically, live, in real-time. The demonstration will feature innovative adaptive rate control and real-time Web security monitoring security technologies.

Innovation type: Security

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Birdback

A lot is happening on the front-end of payments: Mobile POS, mobile wallets, NFC payments … The back-end of payments, however, remains untouched. A card transaction is nothing more than a money transfer.  Meanwhile, developers dread the prospect of having to develop native applications for each of these new, front-end payment platforms.

So why not an API that sits at the very heart of the transaction network, on top of the most widespread means of payment: the payment card? What if one could link applications to payment cards, essentially turning what’s already in consumers’ pockets into a loyalty card, a discount voucher or a means of sending them digital receipts?

Innovation type: Rewards, cards, back office

Device Ident

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Device Ident will showcase its new solution to prevent online fraud in real time. Our product identifies and evaluates any device interacting with our customers’ online services, and analyzes history and behavior of the visiting device to prevent fraud and misuse for all our customers.
It is easily integrated into our customers’ online services and it fully complies with European privacy laws.

Innovation type: Security, identity

Five Degrees

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Watch a fully automated model bank with an unparalleled level of self-service giving both customer and bank imminent insight and control in the process.

Through our Web-based, mid-office portal, Five Degrees offers the potential of enormous business benefits in terms of efficiency in adapting new business processes on the go. As today’s market demands, our open services hub integrates with external services like KYC checks, Passport Validation, and PFM.

Come and view the fast and instant response for the next banking generation: rapid deployment, rich customer experience, instant and transparent insight for bank and client alike.

Innovation type: Back office, banking, communications, sales

FreeAgent

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FreeAgent is the UK’s market leader in SME cloud accounting software. The FreeAgent platform’s capabilities extend far beyond traditional accounting software, and are developing toward performance and health measurement tools, providing vital information for both the businesses themselves and current or prospective lenders.

We will demonstrate how cloud accounting and the associated data creation, aggregation and interpretation functions can provide financial institutions with real-time insights into the underlying fundamentals and risk trends existing within a single business or across a base of clients.

Innovation type: Back office, lending, small business

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GMC Inspire Dynamic Statement is an interactive and engaging way to present your customers’ statements, online or offline.

Instead of the standard online statements, GMC Inspire can generate thousands of dynamic statements in minutes, presenting your customers’ data through attractive charts and graphs that are fully clickable.

Areas that require attention and action can be highlighted and customers can even drill down to granular level detail, providing a fully intuitive service. GMC Inspire also allows you to track usage of every statement and use this data to populate relevant offers and marketing messages for every customer.

Innovation type: Mobile, PFM

Meniga

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“To Buy or Not to Buy” is a white-label module for mobile banking applications that uses PFM functionality to empower and infl
uence consumers at the point of sale or when considering buying something.

It allows users to check if they can afford what they are about to purchase or see how much closer to their savings goals they would be if they saved the money and used it to feed their goal instead.

One unique aspect of this innovation is allowing the users to leverage their social networks and direct messages to crowd-source the decision and instantly collect feedback before making the purchase. This fun and simple feature uses gamification to engage users and their network of friends.

Innovation type: Mobile, online, PFM, rewards

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PhotoPay provides the easiest and fastest way to pay paper and PDF bills using mobile devices.

Paying bills on a mobile phone is often difficult. Manual data entry is cumbersome and frustrating for smartphone users. PhotoPay has developed an advanced technology that significantly improves the mobile bill payment experience for both paper and electronic bills.

Banks and payment providers love PhotoPay because it can dramatically improve user experience and increase bill payments transactions. Our first bank customer has seen a 2,000% increase in mobile bill payments after implementing PhotoPay.

Innovation type: Payments, cards

FinovateEurope 2013 Sneak Peek: Part 2

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Here’s part 2 of the sneak peek of the companies that will demo at FinovateEurope on February 12 and 13 in London. 

Each company provided a short summary of the innovation they will debut on stage. We published 27 last week and we will complete the preview next week.

Don’t miss the opportunity to experience the hottest innovations in financial technology. Get your FinovateEurope ticket here.

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Backbase

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Digital Marketing professionals can use Backbase purely for digital marketing purposes: e.g. collecting user behavior and running campaigns in specific sections of existing websites and platforms, then assigning certain areas where Backbase collects data and shows campaigns.

With Backbase you can now start small. Just embed in your existing site and expand from there, creating a full cross-device user experience platform.

Innovation type: Marketing, mobile, online

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Heckyl FIND (Financial In News & Data) is real time news and data analytics platform for retail traders and brokerages.

FIND is integrated with trading terminals to provide high quality information, visuals, heat maps of sentiment and market data to help traders find trading opportunities in this fast moving market.

FIND helps you explore new ideas and keep pulse on current business events/issues.  Whether you are a short term trader, investor, or fund manager – whether you prefer equities, futures and options, forex or commodities – you will find a wealth of information that matters to you streaming at your fingertips.

Innovation type: Investing & asset management, online

Holvi

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Holvi is the long tail of retail banking. It changes the whole concept of the bank account from a passive utility to an active enabler of any activity. Out-of-the-box Holvi comes with built-in payment acceptance, tools for financial understanding and the ability to share it with a group. We bring in building blocks from our banking and payments partners that our customers can add to their Holvi accounts.
Holvi is used by small businesses, non-profit organisations, projects and individuals. Holvi is regulated by the FIN-FSA and is located in Finland. Holvi is launching Europe-wide in 2013.

Innovation type: Online, payments small business

Kalypton

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Point solutions for payments? Why limit yourself? Proven at scale in Africa, Tereon is a complete payments ecosystem and toolkit designed to support rapid innovation.

With Tereon, you can implement any number of innovative products and payment services, be they point solutions or new networks. You can support any business logic, and you can use existing core systems and settlement processes to provide secure, inter-operable, account-to-account, payments that meet stringent regulatory standards.

We will demonstrate a four-party deployment that supports payments from phone to phone, phone to card terminal, card to terminal and on-line in multiple currencies.

Innovation type: Banking

Metaforic

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Metaforic has a product that protects mobile applications from unauthorized changes and subversion of the existing code. In effect, by using our solution, the financial institution has control over what the application does if it is compromised. It can quit, display a message, send a silent security alert to bank servers or any other behavior the developer cares to define.

For financial institutions that have a lot of mobile developments underway, Metaforic technology can be integrated with existing developments at the end of the software development lifecycle. This technology is an automatic process not requiring significant developer time or security expertise.

Innovation type: Security

Pockets United

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Pockets United occupies a hot space: carriers see their business threatened by all-encompasing data flats, while traditional banks and credit card companies see payment shifting to mobile devices – whose users are owned by the carriers, ultimately leaving both seeking for differentiators.

BAM! ‘Social’ is the next big thing in mobile payments, yet it is not easy to implement for existing PSPs or banks. A category killer in this field must be social by design.

Think of us as Paypal, just with a lot more pal – and get excited about a cutting-edge user experience that is fun to use day after day! Because, after all, dividing expenses should lower the burden for all, not cause additional effort for some.

Innovation type: Mobile, payments, PFM

rplan

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Investing can be time-consuming. rplan has created a simple, easy-to-use tool to create your own personal investment portfolio from over 2,400 available investments to find the ones best suited to you.
rplan is for customers who want choice, but who don’t want to become finance specialists just to manage their investments – because there are better things to do in life than researching mutual funds.

Innovation
type: Investing & asset management, online, PFM

SumUp

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SumUp’s vision is to change commerce on a global scale starting with a real and existing payments problem.

Today, millions of small businesses are missing out on customers because they cannot accept card payments due to high fees and long contract durations. SumUp offers the easiest way for small businesses to accept card payments. 

Using only a portable card reader and an app for iOS and Android, merchants can accept card payments on their mobile device, with a transparent fee of only 2.75% per transaction.

SumUp will demo a new cashless point-of-sale solution that will radically simplify the way people pay in every day life.

Innovation type: Cards, mobile, payments, rewards