The Finovate Podcast: Best of Show Conversations with Bloom Credit and Kobalt Labs

The Finovate Podcast: Best of Show Conversations with Bloom Credit and Kobalt Labs

What better way to celebrate the start of summer than with some of the latest conversations from Greg Palmer and the Finovate Podcast!

The podcast has just kicked off its series of interviews with Best of Show winners from FinovateSpring. First, Greg Palmer talked with Christian Widhalm, CEO of Bloom Credit, about building credit and creating new lending opportunities. Episode 217.

“We are an infrastructure platform that’s really leading the modernization of credit data and credit data transmission,” Widhalm said in his Finovate Podcast conversation earlier this month. “There’s a significant amount of value to be uncovered within the ecosystem right now, specifically around credit data, and that’s what Bloom has set out to do.”

Headquartered in New York City and founded in 2016, Bloom Credit is a B2B credit data infrastructure platform. The company is building the next generation of rails for “all things credit data,” including transmission and compliant storage. Bloom’s technology helps facilitate the extension of affordable credit to the millions of consumers who are either subprime borrowers or have thin/no file with major credit agencies.

Watch Bloom Credit’s Best of Show winning demo from FinovateSpring 2024.


Most recently, Greg Palmer sat down with Kalyani Ramadurgam, CEO of Kobalt Labs, to discuss third-party regulations, the rise of AI, and the broader regulatory environment for fintechs, banks, and financial services companies. Episode 219.

“We automate all things third party diligence,” Ramadurgam explained. “When I say third party diligence that usually includes everything from vendor risk assessment all the way to monitoring, as well as partner and merchant risk assessment – whether you’re a partner bank or a fintech that’s looking to do business with new entities.”

New York City-based Kobalt Labs enables FIs to accelerate and fortify compliance operations. The company’s technology also provides automatic alignment with the latest regulations in privacy, lending, money movement, BSA/AML, ACH, and more. At FinovateSpring this year, Kobalt Labs demoed its AI-powered co-pilot that streamlines this process. The company was founded in 2023.

Watch Kobalt Labs’ Best of Show winning demo from FinovateSpring 2024.


Photo by cottonbro studio

FinovateSpring 2024 Best of Show Winners Announced

FinovateSpring 2024 Best of Show Winners Announced

The demos are done. The votes have been counted. And the people have spoken. After two days of live fintech demos here at FinovateSpring 2024, we are proud to introduce the winners of Best of Show.

Bloom Credit for its technology that helps banks and credit unions offer a deposit retention and credit building tool to their client base.

Cascading AI for its platform that improves efficiency in banks by 30x by automating rote tasks, enabling banks to leverage that step-change in efficiency to grow their top and bottom lines.

Kobalt Labs for its solution that helps fintechs and financial institutions accelerate and strengthen their third-party diligence, leading to faster and safer paths to revenue-generating partnerships and operational efficiency that doesn’t increase headcount.

QuickFi for its technology that enables banks and manufacturers to give their business customers a fully digital, self-service finance experience that’s fast, intuitive, and consistent with how modern business borrowers prefer to do business.

Remynt for its platform that helps creditors achieve higher recoveries and recapture defaulted consumers as customers when their financial position improves.

SAVVI AI for its solution that helps financial services companies step into the age of AI, with faster, more accurate forecasting, without changing their workflow or processes and using their existing teams.

A heartfelt thanks to all of our demoing companies for sharing their latest fintech innovations with our FinovateSpring audience. Be sure to check out the Finovate Podcast featuring Greg Palmer in the weeks to come as he interviews FinovateSpring 2024’s Best of Show winners.


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 2024 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 Sneak Peek Series: Part 7

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 21 and 22. Register today using this link and save 20%.

Ascent Platform

Ascent Platform’s next-gen Point-of-Sale platform streamlines any product application or form without disrupting existing systems and processes. It learns from each customer interaction to improve subsequent experiences.

Features

  • Includes a no-code builder for rapid deployment of any app or form
  • Does not disrupt current operational processes
  • Offers low acquisition and ownership costs
  • Delivers less friction, less abandonment, and faster growth

Who’s it for?

Banks, credit unions, and CUSOs.

Bloom Credit

Bloomplus by Bloom Credit lets the 106 million thin-file, no-file, and subprime Americans build credit by submitting payments from their DDA accounts to major credit bureaus.

Features

  • Allows consumers to build credit with bills they are already paying
  • Gives consumers access to credit products
  • Allows consumers to access mainstream credit rates

Who’s it for?

Banks, credit unions, and fintechs.

Eqvista

With $70B in assets under administration (AuA) and a user base of 17,000 companies and monthly valuations of $2B in client assets, Eqvista is in a prime position to upsell equity and financial services.

Features

  • Delivers in real-time valuation
  • Provides financing against equity
  • Offers financing for SME segment

Who’s it for?

Banks who want to enter the equity financing space and SMBs looking for alternative sources of financing.

Revelata

Revelata makes investors bionic at research and analysis. Their first product, deepKPI, automatically surfaces company KPI time series buried within the text of billions of pages of SEC filings.

Features

  • Fast: Analysts cut ~1,200 hours per year down to seconds for manual data extraction
  • Trusted: Every data point auditable with one click
  • Simple: Downloads to Excel, works offline

Who’s it for?

Analysts in investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers, PE firms, research firms, management consultancies, corporate strategy teams, as well as sophisticated retail investors.

Streetbeat

Streetbeat’s financial AI API streamlines financial operations with real-time, personalized data for each client.

Features

  • Enhances user experience with real-time, personalized financial data
  • Streamlines financial operations and integrates with existing systems
  • Supports advanced functions like backtesting and port

Who’s it for?

Banks, brokers, wealth managers, apps, websites, financial institutions, and financial publications.