Daily news

MX Names Former PayPal Exec as New CEO

MX Names Former PayPal Exec as New CEO
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, MX
  • MX has appointed Jim Magats as CEO, replacing Interim CEO Shane Evans.
  • Magats comes to MX after spending 18 years as a senior executive at PayPal, where he specialized in open finance.
  • Evans will continue to serve as a senior advisor.

Open finance fintech MX named Jim Magats CEO this week.

The news comes after company Founder and former CEO Ryan Caldwell stepped down at the beginning of the year, appointing Shane Evans as Interim CEO. After the transition, Caldwell stepped into a new role as Executive Chair to spend more time with family and focus on his daughter’s health recovery.

“Jim Magats brings a wealth of experience and knowledge about how to deliver high-impact financial solutions and products for consumers, merchants, and financial organizations, along with a vast network of partners and customers at the world’s leading financial institutions and fintechs,” said Caldwell. “We have tremendous confidence in Jim’s ability to lead the organization through the next phase of our growth in establishing our leadership in the open finance economy, helping organizations of all sizes access and act on financial data to improve customer outcomes and grow their businesses.”

Magats comes to MX after spending 18 years as a senior executive at PayPal. Most recently, he served as the company’s Senior Vice President for Omni Payments Solutions where he was charged with overseeing the company’s open banking strategy and partnership network of more than 150 financial institutions and networks.

The appointment is strategic for MX, which has spent the past few years positioning itself as a leader in the open finance space, because of Magats’ experience in open finance. While at PayPal, he worked with regulators in Europe helping to create PSD2 banking standards. He also spent time building PayPal’s open, secure API capabilities to facilitate digital payments.

“Financial data is the lifeblood of a connected economy, and nobody helps organizations access and act on financial data better than MX. Our opportunity to make financial data accessible and actionable is global, extends across verticals, and has the potential to make a positive difference in the lives of billions of people,” said Magats. “After 18 amazing years at PayPal, I’m incredibly excited to join MX, a company on a mission to build the open finance economy and empower the world to be financially strong. We are going to deepen and extend our partnerships with financial institutions and fintechs to fuel the next wave of innovation while fostering greater participation in the global economy through new products, use cases, and services.”

During his seven-month tenure as Interim CEO, Evans saw the company through the tragic passing of company Cofounder Brandon Dewitt. Evans, who joined MX in 2019 as Chief Revenue Officer, will continue to serve as a senior advisor.

Photo by Pixabay

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Collaborative Banking Innovator Asa Partners with Pyramid Federal Credit Union

Collaborative Banking Innovator Asa Partners with Pyramid Federal Credit Union
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, ASA, Daily news
  • Provo, Utah-based fintech Asa announced a partnership with Pyramid Federal Credit Union.
  • Asa will use its collaborative banking approach to enable Pyramid FCU to expand its offerings via connections with customer-facing fintechs.
  • Asa made its Finovate debut last September at FinovateFall 2021.

Pyramid Federal Credit Union, a Tucson, Arizona-based financial institution with $168 million in assets, has selected Asa to enhance the customer experience for its more than 17,000 members. Asa specializes in connecting financial institutions with customer-facing fintechs via a secure, compliant, and easy-to-implement marketplace. The company helps credit unions, as well as community and regional banks, leverage what it calls “collaborative banking” to innovate faster and provide the most modern customer experience possible.

Pyramid FCU CEO Ray Lancaster underscored the challenge that smaller financial institutions face when it comes to providing their customers and members with the kind of up-to-date digital experience they are accustomed to in other areas of their lives. “As a community institution, it can be challenging to keep up with the rapid rate that technology and member expectations change,” Lancaster explained. “Asa and the collaborative banking model help solve for this pain point, providing members with fast and easy access to the apps and tools they want to try, all without having to share any sensitive information. This allows us to nimbly innovate without being bogged down with cumbersome one-to-one vendor due diligence, carving out a strong competitive advantage.”

The partnership with Asa will enable Pyramid FCU to connect to a community of fintechs courtesy of Asa’s digital rails, which will allow Pyramid FCU to provide its customers with a range of new innovations and capabilities. The collaboration will ensure that member data is tokenized, normalized, and anonymized before being shared with any connected fintechs in order to remove both liability and risk.

“By embracing the collaborative banking model, Pyramid FCU is improving the member experience and empowering them with unprecedented choice, all while removing much of the liability and risk that has traditionally hindered credit union-fintech partnerships,” Asa founder and CEO Landon Glenn said.

Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Provo, Utah, Asa made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall 2021. At the event, we had the opportunity to talk with Asa’s Head of Fintech Relationships Ryan Ruff about the challenges of creating successful partnerships between financial institutions and fintechs and how Asa can help facilitate these partnerships.

Asa has raised $1.8 million in funding courtesy of an August 2021 seed round led by CFV Ventures.

Photo by Bilel Naili

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Socure and Middesk Forge Industry-First Integrated KYB/KYC Verification Solution

Socure and Middesk Forge Industry-First Integrated KYB/KYC Verification Solution
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Socure
  • Identity verification and fraud solution provider Socure is teaming up with business verification and identity platform Middesk.
  • The partnership is the first instance in which two Know Your Business (KYB) and Know Your Customer (KYC0 innovators have created an integrated, end-to-end business verification solution.
  • Socure, a Finovate alum since 2013, has raised more than $646 million in funding.

Digital identity verification and fraud solutions provider Socure announced an industry-first partnership this week with business verification and identity platform Middesk. The integration combines Socure’s real-time, predictive analytics identity verification and fraud prevention solution with Middesk’s business entity verification technology to enhance the ability of B2B companies to accurately verify their customers. The collaboration marks the first time that two innovators in the Know Your Business (KYB) and Know Your Customer (KYC) space have created an integrated solution for end-to-end business verification.

“With our partnership, B2B companies will achieve an incremental lift in their business due to Socure’s industry-leading accuracy and coverage of our identity verification and fraud risk prediction solutions,” Socure CEO and founder Johnny Ayers said. “This accuracy leads to the auto-approval of more good consumers and creates increased conversion rates and a higher assurance of onboarding trustworthy business customers.”

The integration will help B2B companies verify not only the details of new business customers such as name, address, and tax ID, but also the personal details for that business’ beneficial owners. The addition of Socure’s digital identity verification and fraud platform will ease and streamline the process through which Middesk customers can authenticate the associated beneficial owners of the businesses they register and onboard. The partnership could be a major boon for businesses in regulated industries – including banks, financial services companies, and insurance companies – that require a high degree of business identity verification. The collaboration also should prove helpful to entities such as B2B marketplaces that serve gig economy businesses and entrepreneurs who often have smaller or more incomplete data footprints that can make KYB more challenging.

Middesk co-founder and CEO Kyle Mack said that the partnership would help Middesk customers who are eager to tackle the issues of identity verification. “Customers can now leverage the Socure integration to validate personal attributes of beneficial owners,” Mack said. “Additionally, Socure delivers key risk insights that determine the likelihood that someone’s identity is legitimate, and applicants are who they claim to be, which provides even more value to our customers in uncertain, but growing market conditions.”

Founded in 2012 and making its Finovate debut a year later at FinovateFall, Socure has grown into a leading identity verification solution provider. With more than 1,000 financial institutions, government agencies, and enterprises using on the company’s verification technology, Socure reported in May that it had reached record customer growth of 236%, and currently includes companies such as EarnUp and fellow Finovate alum Sezzle among its financial services clients. Also in May, Socure introduced new Chief Financial Officer Krish Venkataraman.

“I’ve long had the sense that, no matter what type of business you’re in, solving for identity verification was critical to operating in the next phase of the internet,” Venkataraman said when his appointment was announced. “What’s really becoming clear is that the line of demarcation between a real identity and how that identity operates in the digital world no longer exists. A person’s identity is how they access everything they want and need to do, and today, those things almost all happen online.” Venkataraman called Socure “the identity verification layer for the Internet.”

Headquartered in New York City, Socure has raised more than $646 million in funding. The company’s investors include Accel, T. Rowe Price, and ff Venture Capital.

Photo by Pixabay

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Arkose Labs Integrates with Ping Identity to Better Defend Against Bot and Human-Led Fraud Attacks

Arkose Labs Integrates with Ping Identity to Better Defend Against Bot and Human-Led Fraud Attacks
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Arkose Labs, Daily news, Ping Identity
  • Finovate Best of Show winner Arkose Labs announced an integration with Ping Identity.
  • The partnership will combine Arkose’s Fraud Deterrence Platform with Ping Identity’s PingOne DaVinci no-code identity orchestration service.
  • Arkose Labs made its Finovate debut in 2019. Ping Identity has been a Finovate alum since its appearance at FinovateEurope in 2012.

Fraud deterrence and account security specialist Arkose Labs announced an integration with fellow Finovate alum Ping Identity. Arkose Labs will leverage Ping Identity’s no-code identity orchestration service, PingOne DaVinci, to create an additional level of protection against both bot and human-led fraud attacks.

The integration blends Ping Identity’s identity and access management (IAM) technology with the Arkose Fraud Deterrence Platform. The combined offering will enable enterprise clients to better identify authorized users sooner, reducing friction during account registration and log in. The technology also reduces emphasis on multi-factor authentication, creating an even more seamless experience for users.

“Arkose Labs is very excited to integrate our leading fraud detection and protection platform into DaVinci,” Arkose Labs Chief Product Officer Ashish Jain said. “Together with Ping we are providing a best-in-class experience to end users while helping to protect a company’s digital environment from malicious attacks.”

The Arkose Labs/Ping Identity partnership comes as the number of active fraudsters has grown by 10x since 2019 – according to the Arkose Global Network. Additionally, Arkose noted that consumer, account-based fraud still represents almost 33% of all cybercrime losses. Firms that have embraced Arkose Labs’ technology have seen their ability to improve bot detection by 90% or more and an improvement in authorized user throughput of 70% or more.

Partnering with Ping Identity should only enhance Arkose’s ability to help its customers defend themselves against cyberfraud. Companies that have teamed up to use PingIdentity’s PingOne DaVinci solutions – via Ping Identity’s Global Technology Partner Program – have been able to deliver protected user experiences in industries ranging from finance and e-commerce to gaming and consumer technology.

“Ping Identity is committed to expanding our technology partner ecosystem to deliver better, more frictionless customer experiences,” Ping Identity SVP of Product Management Loren Russon said. “Our partnership with Arkose Labs leverages PingOne DaVinci’s seamless orchestration to ensure dynamic user journeys are delivered quickly and efficiently at every stage of the user journey.”

Arkose Labs won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring 2019. The company returned to the Finovate stage two years later for FinovateFall where it demonstrated its Fraud and Abuse Prevention Platform. Headquartered in San Francisco, California and founded in 2017, Arkose Labs has raised more than $106 million in funding from investors including the SoftBank Vision Fund, the Sony Innovation Fund, and PayPal Ventures.

Photo by cottonbro

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Business Finance Solutions Qonto and Penta to Join Forces

Business Finance Solutions Qonto and Penta to Join Forces
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions
  • European business finance solution company Qonto is seeking to acquire its competitor Penta.
  • Together, the two will serve more than 300,000 small business customers across Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.
  • Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Two European business finance solution companies have agreed to join forces. In the deal, which is expected to close in the next few weeks, Paris-based Qonto is seeking to purchase Berlin-based Penta. Financial terms have not been disclosed.

“When Steve Anavi and I founded Qonto in 2016, we had the ambitious goal of simplifying everyday banking for SMEs and freelancers across Europe,” said Qonto CEO Alexandre Prot. “Today, we’re already present in four European markets and, while I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved so far, we want to go even further: the natural next step was to join forces with Penta. We are thrilled to welcome the Penta team onboard. Together we’re going to be the finance solution of choice for one million European SMEs and freelancers by 2025!”

Penta launched in 2017 and now serves 50,000 small business customers in Germany. Qonto launched the same year and currently serves more than 250,000 clients across France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The acquisition will combine Qonto’s brand strength, license, and core banking system with Penta’s local expertise.

Qonto is anticipating that Penta’s existing market presence will strengthen its operations in Germany. The combined entity will make Qonto a strong leader in the European digital business finance sector. After the acquisition is complete, the company will have more than 300,000 customers and 900 employees.

“With the combination of increasing customer numbers and rising revenues, we have gained even more substance in the past 18 months,” said Penta CEO Markus Pertlwieser. “We are very excited that we now have the chance to actively shape digital banking for business customers in Europe as a team with Qonto.”

Photo by MART PRODUCTION

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Open-Finance.ai Taps FICO’s Blaze Advisor for Real Time Credit Assessment 

Open-Finance.ai Taps FICO’s Blaze Advisor for Real Time Credit Assessment 
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Fair Isaac FICO, FICO
  • Open-Finance.ai partnered with FICO to leverage the company’s Blaze Advisor decision rules management system.
  • Israel-based Open-Finance.ai will integrate Blaze Advisor into its open banking platform to offer real-time credit assessments.
  • This news comes as “Israel is on the cusp of major banking reform with the introduction of open banking,” said FICO VP of Partner Management in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa Mark Farmer.

Analytic decisioning platform FICO and risk, finance, and compliance software company Open-Finance.ai have teamed up this week.

Under the agreement, Open-Finance.ai will integrate the FICO’s Blaze Advisor decision rules management system into its open banking platform. Using FICO’s technology, Open-Finance.ai will assist its financial services clients to save time on consumer credit assessments by leveraging real-time, analytically driven appraisals.

For Israel-based Open-Finance.ai, this comes just as open banking legislation is gaining traction. “Israel is on the cusp of major banking reform with the introduction of open banking,” said FICO VP of Partner Management in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa Mark Farmer. “Automating decisions allows lenders to increase the efficiency of the lending process without sacrificing risk management regulatory rigour. This will speed up lending, increase customer satisfaction, reduce operational costs and drive economic activity.”

Open-Finance.ai anticipates the move will help remove human bias from lending decisions, improve risk decisions, and expand access to credit to more people.

FICO’s Blaze Advisor gives businesses a solution to make smarter, more transparent business decisions by offering companies multiple methods for rule authoring, testing, deployment, and management. To make this work, Blaze Advisor provides decision trees, scorecards, decision tables, graphic decision flows, and customized templates. The technology also supports business performance monitoring.

“Manual processes, a conservative approach and significant regulation have been a drag on growth of the Israeli market,” said Open-Finance.ai Co-founder Shay Basson. “Now, we have an ability to manage risk instantly, based on multiple data sources to provide an instant, yet risk-aware decision to credit and insurance consumers.”

Founded in 1956 and headquartered in California, FICO offers decisioning tools used by more than 650 clients, including nine of the top 10 U.S. banks and eight of the top 10 EMEA banks. Last year, FICO launched a new loan origination solution called FICO Originations Solution that seeks to automate the entire customer journey.

Photo by Anna Popović on Unsplash

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DeepTarget Helps Banks and Credit Unions Personalize Customer Communications

DeepTarget Helps Banks and Credit Unions Personalize Customer Communications
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, DeepTarget
  • Financial services digital marketing innovator DeepTarget has launched its 3D Story on the Go product extension to its Digital Experience Platform (DXP).
  • The new solution enables banks and credit unions to add immersive and adaptive user experiences to email, SMS, and social media marketing campaigns.
  • Alabama-based DeepTarget made its Finovate debut at FinovateWest 2020.

DeepTarget has unveiled the new 3D Story On the Go product extension to its Digital Experience Platform (DXP). The new addition leverages consumer and business intelligence, as well as AI, to help banks and credit unions personalize customer communications and launch more effective marketing campaigns via email, SMS, and social media.

“Today’s consumers are digital users first and expect their financial institutions to deliver seamless, personalized, relevant experiences,” DeepTarget CEO Preetha Pulusani said. “As much as personalization is a growing expectation for consumers, achieving it is a growing challenge for many financial institutions, especially in understanding how and when to leverage consumer data.”

DeepTarget’s 3D Story On the Go enables banks and credit unions to boost engagement through some of the most widely-used channels by creating immersive and adaptive, prismatic user experiences. These AI-powered and insights-based, visually appealing experiences can be used for onboarding new customers, sending personalized offers and promotions, product announcements, and more. Crane Credit Union VP of Marketing Michael Hostetler highlighted the way DeepTarget’s technology has brought additional value to its email marketing efforts. “We use email extensively to communicate with our members based on DeepTarget’s AI-based predictive campaigns,” Hostetler said. “With 3D Story On the Go, it will be great to easily deliver a new, elevated level of AI-based personalized experience to our members.”

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, DeepTarget made its Finovate debut at FinovateWest in 2020. At the event, the company demoed its 3D StoryTeller solution which brings an innovative, 3D user experience to DeepTarget’s Digital Experience Platform. The new offering helps financial institutions take advantage of social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat.

The introduction of 3D Story On the Go comes weeks after DeepTarget announced that MDT Credit Union, a credit union service organization (CUSO), would offer the DeepTarget integration into the Banno Digital Platform to its credit union customers. MDT President and CEO Larry Nichols underscored the importance of the digital experience to credit unions and their members, noting that DeepTarget’s technology helps them “maintain their differentiators – human connection, empathy, and exceptional service – within the digital network.”

Photo by Maksim Goncharenok

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Proptech Firm Casavo Raises $408 Million

Proptech Firm Casavo Raises $408 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding
  • Casavo has raised $408 million in a debt and equity financing round.
  • The round is comprised of $306 million in debt and $102 million in equity, and brings Casavo’s total funding to $798 million.
  • The company will use the funds to grow its existing operations, while expanding into France.

Casavo, a France-based fintech that seeks to make it easier for users to buy and sell their homes, has raised $408 million in combined debt and equity. The round is comprised of $306 million in debt, along with $102 million in Series D equity financing, and brings Casavo’s total funding to $798 million.

The equity round was led by Exor NV, along with contributions from existing investors Greenoaks, Project A Ventures, 360 Capital, P101 SGR, Picus Capital, and Bonsai Partners; as well as new investors Neva SGR, Endeavor Catalyst, Hambro Perks, Fuse Venture Partners, and others. Casavo reports that the funds bring the company’s borrowing capacity to more than $510 million, which will be key to scaling its home-buying business.

Casavo was founded in 2017 to simplify the process of buying and selling homes. The company originally launched as a home-buying platform and has since evolved to offer a marketplace that serves both home sellers and buyers. Sellers can either receive a purchase offer from Casavo or find a buyer through the company’s partner agent network, and buyers can access Casavo’s inventory of properties and receive integrated services such as mortgages.

“The round will allow us to consolidate our leadership in Europe by growing across our existing markets in Italy, Spain and Portugal, while expanding into new ones, with France being a priority,” said Casavo Founder and CEO Giorgio Tinacci. “We’ll continue investing in our mission to simplify the way people sell and buy homes, having evolved from a pure home-buying platform to a leading next-generation European residential marketplace.”

Today’s funding comes just four months after Casavo’s last fundraise in March, when the company received a $203 million investment. Casavo currently has 4,000 homes in Italy, Spain, and Portugal listed on its platform. So far, the company has sold 3,200 properties for a total value of $1+ billion.

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People Driven Credit Union Partners with Larky to Deliver Customized Push Notifications to Members

People Driven Credit Union Partners with Larky to Deliver Customized Push Notifications to Members
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Larky
  • Customer engagement and communications innovator Larky is partnering with People Driven Credit Union (PDCU).
  • The partnership will enable the Michigan-area credit union to deploy Larky’s nudge platform to send predictive communications and customized push notifications to its members.
  • A Finovate alum since 2014, Larky also recently teamed up with Michigan State University Federal Credit Union, which will also deploy the company’s nudge solution.

People Driven Credit Union (PDCU), a full-service financial institution based in Southfield, Michigan, has teamed up with customer engagement specialist Larky. The credit union will leverage Larky’s nudge solution to send predictive communications to its target audiences. The partnership also will enable PDCU to deploy customizable push notification campaigns to market branch projects and initiatives without requiring additional staff, time, or cost.

Once integrated into a financial institution’s mobile banking app, Larky’s nudge provides lock-screen alerts and/or location-based notifications to guide account holders toward relevant and useful financial information and opportunities such as promotions for loan offers. Larky’s nudge platform enables FIs to create, edit, manage, and deploy tailored, turnkey mobile push notification campaigns based on their specific marketing priorities. The result boosts app engagement and encourages use of the FI’s mobile banking app.

“Today’s credit union member is increasingly digital-first,” People Driven Credit Union VP of Marketing Dave Sullivan said. “They check and use their mobile devices far more than they walk into the branch of a credit union.” Sullivan added that this meant ensuring that PDCU provides a quality member experience via the mobile channel that meets member needs. “Larky’s nudge makes it possible for us to share relevant, timely messages with our members regardless of their location and better support them with choice of product or service as they move throughout their daily lives,” Sullivan said.

People Driven Credit Union was founded in 1928 as Detroit Federal Employees Credit Union. The institution changed its name to Peoples Trust Credit Union in 2005 and, in 2014, merged with Community-Driven Credit Union to become People Driven Credit Union. PDCU currently has assets of more than $342 million and more than 25,000 members in Genesee, Lapeer, Livingston, Macomb, Oakland, St. Clair, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties in Michigan.

Larky’s partnership with PDCU comes just a few months after the company announced that Michigan State University Federal Credit Union would deploy Larky’s nudge platform to provide tailored messaging to its 300,000+ members. In beta testing before the launch, Michigan State University FCU has experienced an aggregate tap rate of more than 16% for its nudge messages, with the test’s most successful message – the company’s satisfaction survey – earning a 12% completion rate.

“Mobile will continue to shape the future of banking,” Larky CEO and co-founder Gregg Hammerman said. “Credit union members are accustomed to – and often prefer – leveraging the mobile channel for everything from ordering a cup of coffee to securing flights abroad. This familiarity is also seen in the usage of push notifications, keeping members abreast of a transaction in progress. With the nudge platform, credit unions and other FI leaders can now bring this experience that is widely known and encountered in the retail environment to the banking industry.”

Founded in 2012, Larky is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Photo by Uri Espinosa

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Mastercard Forges Multi-Year Strategic Alliance with Quantum Computing Company D-Wave Systems

Mastercard Forges Multi-Year Strategic Alliance with Quantum Computing Company D-Wave Systems
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, MasterCard
  • Mastercard announced a multi-year strategic alliance with quantum computing leader D-Wave.
  • The partnership will explore applications for quantum computing technology in financial services.
  • D-Wave builds both annealing and gate-model quantum computers, the only firm in the world to do so.

Will quantum computing take the place of crypto in terms of the fintech zeitgeist?

Mastercard announced this week that it has forged a multi-year strategic alliance with D-Wave Systems, a leader in quantum computing systems, software, and services. The goal of the collaboration will be to accelerate the adoption of quantum-based computing solutions.

Specifically the partnership will seek to develop “quantum-hybrid” solutions to solve problems in consumer loyalty and rewards, cross-border settlement, and fraud management. The two companies will use D-Wave’s annealing quantum computers and quantum hybrid solvers through the Leap quantum cloud service to deliver real-time access to quantum applications powered by Mastercard’s network.

“People expect hyper-personalized experiences,” Mastercard Chief Innovation Officer Ken Moore said. “Quantum computing’s unique ability to analyze huge numbers of potential combinations can deliver optimal solutions that will improve efficiency and provide choice.” Moore said that the partnership will explore applications of quantum computing technology that offer “practical, real-world” solutions in financial services.

The world’s first commercial supplier of quantum computers, D-Wave is the only firm building both annealing quantum computers and gate-model quantum computers. D-Wave’s technology has been used to solve challenges in a wide range of fields including logistics, drug discovery, cybersecurity, and financial modeling. Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, D-Wave has partnered with firms such as NEC Corporation, Volkswagen, Lockheed Martin, and the University of Southern California. PSP Investments, Goldman Sachs, and BDC Capital are among D-Wave’s investors.

“D-Wave and Mastercard have a shared vision of harnessing the power of technology to positively affect business and society,” D-Wave CEO Alan Baratz said. “This alliance supports that vision by delivering quantum innovation that will tackle increasingly complex problem sets across applications like loyalty programs, fraud management and anti-money laundering in financial services and, ultimately, unlock more value for customers.”

Photo by Antonio Friedemann

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Fundrise Launches $1 Billion Growth Equity Fund

Fundrise Launches $1 Billion Growth Equity Fund
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news
  • Fundrise is launching a $1 billion growth equity fund called the Fundrise Innovation Fund.
  • The new VC-like fund will facilitate crowdsourced investments in private technology companies.
  • The move is Fundrise’s first significant expansion outside of private real estate.

Alternative investment firm Fundrise was originally founded to give retail investors access to invest in private real estate. Today, the Washington, D.C.-based company is expanding its horizons, adding access to another area of investing with limited access for everyday investors– venture capital (VC).

The company is launching the Fundrise Innovation Fund, a $1 billion growth equity fund aimed to democratize access to investments in top private technology companies. The move is Fundrise’s first significant expansion outside of private real estate.

“The proprietary systems and technology infrastructure we created to tap into private real estate are now capable of disrupting ownership of other asset classes previously inaccessible to individuals,” Fundrise said in a blog post announcement. “…in short, Fundrise has the potential to not only open up but completely transform the entire $10 trillion private market.”

Fundrise was founded in 2010 to offer investors an alternative to stocks and bonds. In 2012, the company launched its real estate investment platform that allows users to invest as little as $10 in private real estate. Today, Fundrise has 300,000 users and has acquired more than 200 assets, collectively worth more than $5.1 billion, on behalf of its investors. The company takes a low-fee approach, charging a 0.15% annual investment advisory fee along with a 0.85% annual asset management fee for each fund.

Fundrise said it selected to expand into VC investing because it has proven to be one of the best-performing investments as well as one of the most exclusive investments, since the general public is excluded from investing in a company until after it goes public.

With the VC fund, Fundrise will enable users to invest in a diversified portfolio of high-growth private tech companies ranging from mid-to-late stage, as well as some public equities. The company’s fee model for the fund will not come with a “carried interest” profit sharing component.

Fundrise will open VC investing to current users of its real estate offerings first, though “on a limited basis.”

Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash

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Wealthtech Orion Advisor Solutions Acquires TownSquare Capital, Redtail Technology

Wealthtech Orion Advisor Solutions Acquires TownSquare Capital, Redtail Technology
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, Orion
  • Wealth management solutions provider Orion Advisor Solutions has closed two acquisitions in recent weeks.
  • The Omaha, Nebraska-based fintech closed its acquisition of CRM company Redtail Technology in June, and finished its acquisition of investment and trading platform TownSquare Capital in July. Terms were not disclosed about either transaction.
  • Orion Advisor Solutions made its Finovate debut in 2019 at FinovateFall, demonstrating its trading and rebalancing platform, Eclipse.

Wealthtech innovator Orion Advisor Solutions has recently closed a pair of acquisitions. Both deals are designed to help Orion expand its wealth management business and give financial advisors a “single-source solution to prospect, plan, invest, and achieve,” said Orion founder and CEO Eric Clarke.

At the beginning of the month, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company announced that it has completed its acquisition of investment and trading platform TownSquare Capital (TownSquare). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the acquisition will add $6 billion in turnkey asset management program (TAMP) assets to Orion’s wealth management platform.

Post-acquisition, TownSquare will continue to operate as a standalone entity, serving as an indirect subsidiary of Orion Advisor Solutions. Headquartered in Provo, Utah, and founded in 2016, TownSquare offers custom investment solutions for institutions, wealth advisors, accounting firms, high net worth individuals, and banks.

“Combining TownSquare with Orion’s wealth management and advisor technology capabilities brings tremendous value to financial advisors and their clients,” Orion Chief of OCIO Services Kurt Brown said. “With the full weight of Orion’s resources and relationships behind us, we can continue providing best-in-class investment strategies to the advisors and clients we serve.”

Orion’s TownSquare announcement comes just one month after the wealth management firm reported that it has completed the acquisition of web-based client relationship management (CRM) software company Redtail Technology. Announced this spring, the combination of the two firms will provide financial advisors with a range of technology and outsourced solutions to help them serve their clients better. Specifically, the integration of Redtail’s CRM technology into Orion’s open architecture will give advisors a foundational tech stack courtesy of an integrated “most-in-one” platform that is built around a CRM hub.

“Redtail joining Orion will greatly benefit financial advisors who seek an integrated suite of technology to grow their businesses,” Orion’s President of CRM Brian McLaughlin said. “We aim to solve some of advisors’ tech integration challenges by bringing together the technology pieces they need to be successful and freeing advisors up to spend more time engaging with their clients and prospects in meaningful ways.”

With Redtail on board, Orion gained insights into more than $3 trillion in assets under management. Before closing its deal with Redtail, the company had been serving 4.7 million technology accounts and supported more than 2,300 independent advisory firms representing $1.9 trillion in assets under administration and $60 billion of wealth management assets.

Founded in 1999, Orion Advisor Solutions made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2019. At the event, the company demoed its fully-integrated trading and rebalancing platform, Eclipse. The technology leverages ASTRO’s institutional-grade portfolio optimization engine to create custom Direct Indexing products, as well as provide advisors with client-specific overlays to strategies that feature custom ESG solutions.

Photo by Leonardo Rossatti

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