Daily news Archives - Page 110 of 140

Jumio Makes History with $150 Million Investment in Digital Identity

By David Penn Posted on March 23, 2021
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.

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Small Business Insurance Player Huckleberry Partners with Berkshire Hathaway

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 23, 2021
Categories: Daily news

Online small business insurance company Huckleberry announced a partnership with Berkshire Hathaway GUARD today.

As part of the partnership, Huckleberry joins Berkshire Hathaway GUARD’s curated network of independent agents and brokers across the U.S. For Huckleberry, it’s the largest partnership with an insurance carrier the company has inked since it was founded in 2017.

Huckleberry offers a range of coverage for U.S. small businesses in need of insurance. Coverage types include general liability, workers’ compensation, business owners’ policies, business interruption, liquor liability, and more. Five of its policies, including including cyber, automotive insurance, and umbrella insurance, were added just last year.

What’s unique about Huckleberry, which offers coverage in 45 U.S. states, is its paper-free application experience that offers an estimate in a matter of minutes. And because the startup doesn’t charge brokerage fees, it not only provides a streamlined approached, but also a more competitive rate. instant coverage

The San Francisco-based company is in the process of moving its headquarters across the country to New York and also has plans to open a second headquarters location in Columbus, Ohio. As part of this growth, Huckleberry aims to boost its workforce to 100 people by the start of next year.

Founded by Bryan O’Connell , Huckleberry has raised $22 million. Its most recent investment was a $22 million Series A round led by Tribe Capital.

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Crypto Infrastructure Specialist Fireblocks Raises $133 Million

By David Penn Posted on March 22, 2021
Categories: Daily news

Anybody else old enough to remember the argument that while blockchain technology probably had value, actual cryptocurrencies were already passé?

In a round led by Coatue, Ribbit, and Stripes, digital asset infrastructure specialist Fireblocks has secured $133 million in new capital to power its mission to make it easier for banks to get into the digital asset space.

“Fintechs and banks require not only a specialized custody and settlement infrastructure to ensure customer funds are safely managed, but (also) a platform that enables new lines of digital offerings,” Fireblocks CEO Michael Shaulov said. He noted that while the company has no plans to become an actual bank itself, “we believe our infrastructure will lend itself perfectly to power an entirely new era of financial services.”

Also participating in the round as strategic investors were The Bank of New York Mellon and SVB. A number of Fireblocks existing investors also contributed to the round, including Paradigm, Galaxy Digital, Swisscom Ventures, Tenaya Capital and Cyberstarts Ventures. The investment brings the fintech’s total capital raised to $179 million.

Founded in 2018, Fireblocks launched as a digital assets infrastructure company helping crypto-based institutions and exchanges move, store, and issue digital assets. As interest in digital assets – especially cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum – has surged, Fireblocks has begun to leverage its talent and technology in digital assets to enable banks and other financial institutions to bring cryptocurrency access to their customers. By linking to its Fireblocks’ platform, banks and fintechs will be able to deploy a wide range of solutions – from custody, tokenization, and asset management to trading, lending, and payments – on both public and private blockchain networks.

The company’s investors highlighted Fireblocks’ capacity to enable banks and other financial institutions to efficiently and securely take advantage of the opportunity of and interest in digital assets. CEO of Asset Servicing and Head of Digital for BNY Mellon Roman Regelman said that bridging the gap between traditional and digital assets is “foundational to the future of custody.” Coatue Managing Partner Kris Fredrickson concurred: “our belief (is) that a new financial ecosystem is emerging and (companies) like Fireblocks are essential.”

Last month, Fireblocks announced a partnership with digital payment- platform-as-a-service company, First. Together, the companies introduced a secure wallet and infrastructure solution to enable financial institutions to facilitate transactions via the Diem network. Fireblocks began the year collaborating with global fintech Ibanera to help its customers safely transfer crypto funds in real-time.

Since inception, Fireblocks has secured the transfer of more than $400 billion in digital assets. The company is headquartered in New York City.

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Zopa Receives $28 Million Investment

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 22, 2021
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

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 19, 2021
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

By David Penn Posted on March 18, 2021
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.

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Blend to Acquire Title365 from Mr. Cooper

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 18, 2021
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

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 17, 2021
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.

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eToro To Go Public in $10 Billion SPAC

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 16, 2021
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.

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SumUp Scores $895 Million in Debt Financing to Speed Growth

By David Penn Posted on March 16, 2021
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, SumUp

Courtesy of Goldman Sachs, Temasek, Bain Capital Credit, Crestline, and funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management, international payments company SumUp has secured a $895 million (EUR 750 million) debt facility.

“As one of the fastest growing technology companies in the world, this cash injection – in addition to having the built-in option to expand the financing – will significantly accelerate the growth of our customer base, enhance SumUp’s technology leadership position, and drive the development of new services to support our merchants globally,” SumUp co-founder Marc-Alexander Christ said.

SumUp’s funding news comes at a time when the company is adding to its product portfolio in both Europe and the U.K. Much of this growth has come through acquisitions of POS software providers like London-based Goodtill, as well as Tiller, a digital service provider for gastronomy merchants. Separately, SumUp’s recent acquisition of Paysolut, a Lithuanian cure banking system provider will enable the company to fortify the banking services that it offers to its merchants.

SumUp supports more than three million merchants around the world. In addition to its expansion in Europe – going live in Romania to bring the total number of its European markets to 29 – the company has added to its interests in the Chilean market and launched operations in Columbia – the fourth largest economy in Latin America.

At the beginning of this year, SumUp announced that it was working with Shutterstock to give merchants the ability to add high-quality visual images to enhance their online storefronts.

“It’s important now more than ever that small businesses have the means to trade in the e-commerce space in order to take on larger competition,” SumUp European EVP Alex von Schirmeister said. “This partnership with Shutterstock will do just that, giving them more visibility to grow their customer bases.”

Founded in 2011, SumUp made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in 2013. Daniel Klein is CEO.

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upSWOT Secures $4.3 Million in Seed Funding

By David Penn Posted on March 15, 2021
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, UpSwot

upSWOT, a fintech that helps bring business intel to small business owners, has raised $4.3 million in seed funding. Among Finovate’s newest alums, upSWOT offers a data aggregation and business finance management platform that leverages cash flow predictions and business insights to enable banks, insurance companies, and other institutions to better serve their small business and mid-market customers.

“Managing a portfolio of SMB clients is a challenge for every bank, lender, and servicer,” upSWOT CEO Dmitry Norenko said. “Amidst a global pandemic, the financial industry must find new and innovative ways to support this vital customer segment. Our white-label solution helps leading national and community banks gain granular insights into their SMB customers launched within six weeks, and with minimal strain on internal IT or overlap with legacy systems.”

upSWOT’s funding round was led by Common Ocean, a venture capital firm that specializes in early-stage fintechs that are innovating in the financial wellness space. Also participating in the round were CFV Ventures, ICBA, First Southern National Bank, and SpeedUp Venture Group, as well as previous investors. upSWOT said that it would use the funding to grow its business in the U.S., add talent to support “a growing list of deployments with Tier 1 and Tier 2 financial institutions,” as well as continue to add features and functionality to its data aggregation and BFM platform.

upSWOT leverages APIs to aggregate data from more than 120 widely-used business solutions such as Quickbooks, Salesforce, Amazon, and Shopify and provide business owners with predictive analysis and actionable insights. Via partnerships with financial institutions, upSWOT’s goal is to help SMEs that have been left to “fend for themselves” by giving them “modern day tools” to help support cash flow management, debt funding, financial planning and accurate cash reporting.

Founded in 2019, upSWOT demonstrated its white-label platform at FinovateWest Digital last year. A graduate of the Berkeley SkyDeck accelerator, the company includes Raiffeisen Bank International, Privat Bank, D&B, and Mastercard among its customers.

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Stripe Rakes in $600 Million in Funding, Boosting Valuation to $95 Billion

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on March 15, 2021
Categories: Daily news, Funding

Ecommerce technology company Stripe announced over the weekend that it recently raised $600 million in funding. The Series H round brings the company’s total funding to $2.2 billion and boosts its valuation to $95 billion.

Investors in this month’s funding round include Allianz X, Axa, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Sequoia Capital, and Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency.

Stripe will use the funds to expand its Global Payments and Treasury Network and invest in its European operations to support increasing demand in the region. Specifically, the California-based company aims to boost its Dublin headquarters.

“We’re investing a ton more in Europe this year, particularly in Ireland,” said Stripe President and Cofounder, John Collison. “Whether in fintech, mobility, retail, or SaaS, the growth opportunity for the European digital economy is immense.”

Stripe has clients in 42 countries, 31 of which are in Europe. Among the company’s European clients are Deliveroo, Doctolib, Glofox, Klarna, ManoMano, N26, UiPath, and Vinted.

As Stripe pointed out in a blog post, only 14% of commerce happens online. That’s why, as the company’s CFO Dhivya Suryadevara notes, Stripe is “investing in the infrastructure that will power internet commerce in 2030 and beyond.” More specifically, the company is expanding its software and services and is making its technology available to millions more businesses in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Thailand, and the UAE.

“While Stripe already processes hundreds of billions of dollars per year for millions of businesses worldwide, the opportunity ahead is much larger for Stripe than it was when the company was started 10 years ago,” added Suryadevara.

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