FinovateSpring 2025 Best of Show Winners Announced

FinovateSpring 2025 Best of Show Winners Announced

As I write this, Finovate’s first fintech conference in San Diego has one more day of content left. But if the first two days of FinovateSpring 2025 are any indication, it’s already a good bet that we will be back.

From the California-based fintechs that made the short trip south to innovative startups that traveled from as far away as New Zealand, FinovateSpring 2025 featured a diverse and exciting range of fintech innovations designed to solve pain points for banks, credit unions, and financial services providers, as well as for their customers and members.

Whether leveraging AI to create efficiencies and automate workflows or putting embedded finance to work improving lending for small businesses, our demoing companies continue to represent the cutting edge of what’s new, what’s novel, and what works.

With this in mind, here are the winners of Best of Show for FinovateSpring 2025.


Bits of Stock for its solution that gathers deposits and drives non-interest income by helping financial institutions stay top of mind and top of wallet with the next generation of investors.

Finalytics.ai for its technology that enables financial institutions to instantly unleash the power of AI by offering digital experiences informed by behavioral, transactional, and third-party data.

Herd Security for its technology that gives financial organizations visibility and protection from voice fraud.

Illuma for its innovations in deepfake detection that enable community financial institutions to keep their members and customers connected with their funds in a convenient and secure manner.

Penny Finance for its solution that connects the dots between an FI’s products and services and a member’s needs, all while creating efficiency for their marketing organizations.

Solda.ai for its technology that enables businesses to better engage their customers with instant scalability.

Thanks to our demoing companies, our sponsors, speakers, and delegates for making our first fintech conference in San Diego such a success.

Next up on the Finovate tour is FinovateFall 2025, September 8-10, at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, New York. Find out more about the conference at our FinovateFall hub and we look forward to seeing you in “The City That Never Sleeps”.


Notes on methodology:
1. Only audience members NOT associated with demoing companies were eligible to vote. Finovate employees did not vote.
2. Attendees were encouraged to note their favorites during each day. At the end of the last demo, they chose their three favorites.
3. The exact written instructions given to attendees: “Please rate (the companies) on the basis of demo quality and potential impact of the innovation demoed.”
4. The six companies appearing on the highest percentage of submitted ballots were named “Best of Show.”
5. Go here for a list of previous Best of Show winners through 2014. Best of Show winners from our 2015 through 2025 conferences are below:
FinovateEurope 2015
FinovateSpring 2015
FinovateFall 2015
FinovateEurope 2016
FinovateSpring 2016
FinovateFall 2016
FinovateAsia 2016
FinovateEurope 2017
FinovateSpring 2017
FinovateFall 2017
FinovateAsia 2017
FinovateMiddleEast 2018
FinovateEurope 2018
FinovateSpring 2018
FinovateFall 2018
FinovateAsia 2018
FinovateAfrica 2018
FinovateEurope 2019
FinovateSpring 2019
FinovateFall 2019
FinovateAsia 2019
FinovateMiddleEast 2019
FinovateEurope 2020
FinovateFall 2020
FinovateWest 2020
FinovateEurope 2021
FinovateSpring 2021
FinovateFall 2021
FinovateEurope 2022
FinovateSpring 2022
FinovateFall 2022
FinovateEurope 2023
FinovateSpring 2023
FinovateFall 2023
FinovateEurope 2024
FinovateSpring 2024
FinovateFall 2024
FinovateEurope 2025

FinovateSpring 2025 Sneak Peek Series: Part 2

FinovateSpring 2025 Sneak Peek Series: Part 2

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Diego on May 7 – 9. Register today using this link and save 20%.

Bits of Stock

Bits of Stock empowers financial institutions to offer fractional stock rewards on everyday transactions and account activity.

Features

  • Auto-enrollment of digital banking users into investment accounts
  • Free-to-premium investing and rewards account structure
  • Stock roundups and recurring investments

Who’s it for?

Community banks and credit unions.

Express Wages

With Express Wages on-demand pay, employees receive some or all of their wages as they are earned.

Features

The Express Wages solution offers a simple, safe dashboard where users can see wages and view financial wellness.

Who’s it for?

Banks, employers, businesses, and credit unions.

Penny Finance

Penny Finance is an online financial planning engagement engine that attracts, retains, and serves the digital generation by helping them get out of debt, get into investing, and retire with wealth.

Features

  • Delivers custom financial plans for members within minutes
  • Drives 60% digital engagement and 30% product referrals
  • Scales seamlessly with expanding enterprise requirements

Who’s it for?

Credit unions, community banks, and small banks.

Solda.ai

Leading fintechs and banks use Solda.ai’s AI sales representatives to automate onboarding, upsell, KYC, and retention calls with <1% AI detection at 60% cost.

Features

  • Automates sales with top-performing AI trained across phone, text, email, and chat
  • Scales instantly with multi-lingual, on-brand engagement
  • Reduces costs by 40% with <1% AI-detection

Who’s it for?

Consumer and commercial fintechs, banks, payment providers, and other financial services companies.

SuperMoney

SuperMoney’s personal finance super app puts money on autopilot, using real-time credit and bank data to deliver intelligent, stress-free financial decisions.

Features

  • Keeps spending aligned with user goals with AI-powered budgeting
  • Delivers tailored financial insights to put money on autopilot
  • Automates finding better loans and credit cards with Refi Robot

Who’s it for?

All financial service providers.

Bits of Stock Now Available in Q2’s Digital Banking Platform

Bits of Stock Now Available in Q2’s Digital Banking Platform
  • Q2 is leveraging Bits of Stock’s technology to help its financial institution clients reward their customers with fractional shares of stock.
  • The partnership was made possible through the Q2 Partner Accelerator Program, which makes it easy for fintechs to reach Q2’s financial institution clients.
  • Bits of Stock showcased its rewards platform alongside its client OMB Bank at FinovateFall last year.

Q2’s financial services clients have a new way to reward their consumers. That’s because fractional stock rewards platform Bits of Stock has teamed up with the digital banking and lending solutions company.

With Q2’s Digital Banking Platform, Q2’s financial services clients can offer their customers fractional stock when they redeem loyalty points or as a reward for certain activities like making a transaction with their debit or credit card, opening an account, applying for a loan, or making a deposit.

“We are pleased to welcome Bits of Stock to the Q2 Partner Accelerator program,” said Q2 Innovation Studio Managing Director Johnny Ola. “Financial Institutions now can offer fractional stocks as rewards on account spend and activity.”

Bits of Stock aims to help community financial institutions and credit unions engage their accountholders by rewarding them with fractional shares of their choice of stock. This enables younger users to build up their stock portfolios by microinvesting. In addition to today’s partnership with Q2, the New York-based company also has partnerships with Jack Henry, OMB Bank, Strata Credit Union, Gravy Stack, and others.

“This partnership is a value multiplier for customers, Q2, and Bits of Stock,” said Bits of Stock CEO Arash Asady. “Both companies are committed to finding innovative ways to empower financial services for consumers at scale.”

The partnership was made possible through the Q2 Partner Accelerator Program, an initiative within the Q2 Innovation Studio that allows financial services companies like Bits of Stock to leverage Q2’s SDK to integrate their technology into the Q2 Digital Banking Platform. The program not only creates an easy way for third party fintechs to integrate into Q2’s platform, but it also helps Q2’s bank clients leverage a wide range of new solutions that they can quickly deploy to their customers.

Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, Q2 claims more than 40% of the top 10 banks in the U.S. as customers. The company’s platform reaches one out of 10 digital banking customers in America. Q2 went public in 2014 and is now traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker QTWO, and has a market capitalization of more than $2.43 billion.

Bits of Stock showcased its rewards platform alongside its client OMB Bank at FinovateFall last year. The two demoed OMB Bank’s Stock Rewards Checking Account that rewards cardholders in the fractional stock of their choice every time they swipe their card. Bits of Stock was founded in 2016 and has received $5.9 million in funding.

FinovateFall 2023 Sneak Peek: Bits of Stock

FinovateFall 2023 Sneak Peek: Bits of Stock

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateFall in New York on September 11 and 12. Register today and save your spot.

Bits of Stock enables community financial institutions and credit unions to reward in fractional shares of stock. Their purpose is to empower their customers to engage and build loyalty with younger generations.

Features

  • Engage the next generation of account holders
  • Establish the easiest path to financial wellness
  • Embed directly into current digital banking experiences

Why it’s great

Bits of Stock wants users to imagine if they had the opportunity to start earning stocks as a reward in the brands they loved when they turned 16 . . .

Presenters

Arash Asady, CEO & Co-Founder
Asady is a relentless and gritty entrepreneur who holds no punches. He’s a USMC Veteran, recovering Wall Street derivatives trader, and boxing aficionado.
LinkedIn

Steve Bishop, EVP & COO (OMB Bank)
Bishop joined OMB in September 2020, overseeing its physical and digital operations. Preceding OMB, Bishop had two separate stints at Jack Henry & Associates, most recently as Director of Client Services.
LinkedIn