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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Nine Finovate alums raised more than $113 million in Q1 of 2024. The relatively low fundraising results for the first three months of the year do reflect larger trends in fintech funding. But the fact that nearly half of the alums that raised funds in Q1 did not disclose the amounts raised tells us that the quarterly funding haul for Finovate alums was higher than the $113 million we have been able to confirm.
The biggest fundraising month of Q1 was likely January, which featured the $58 million investment secured by Digital Onboarding. Again, the high number of “amount undisclosed” investments makes comparison difficult.
Top Equity Investments from Q1 2024
Digital Onboarding: $58 million
Argyle: $30 million
Amplify Life Insurance: $16.3 million
Altro: $4 million
As noted above, Digital Onboarding pulled in the biggest investment of any Finovate alum in the first three months of the year. Also noteworthy was the $30 million raised by Argyle, a real-time income data platform that made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in 2022.
Here is our detail alum funding report for Q1 2024.
January: More than $58 million raised by three alums
If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the first quarter of 2024 and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.
Digital Onboarding announced a $58 million growth round, boosting its total funding to $62.6 million.
Today’s funds come from Boston-based private equity firm Volition Capital.
Digital Onboarding will use today’s investment to accelerate its product roadmap, improve support for existing customers, drive awareness in new markets, and increase its headcount.
Digital Onboarding, a financial services onboarding service provider, announced a $58 million growth investment today. The funds come from Boston-based private equity firm Volition Capital and boost Digital Onboarding’s total funding to $62.6 million.
Digital Onboarding will use today’s investment to accelerate its product roadmap, improve support for existing customers, and drive awareness in new markets. The company also notes it plans to double its headcount by the end of this year.
Digital Onboarding offers a SaaS tool to help banks remove friction during the onboarding process. The company’s digital engagement platform helps financial services companies deliver compelling services that keep customers around for the long-term. The company is especially effective in helping motivate accountholders to take action because it aggregates data across banks with similar business objectives.
“Banks and credit unions are pushing further into digital maturity, with many providing online banking and developing robust campaigns for customer acquisition. However, digital transformation often stalls at the onboarding stage of the new customer or member lifecycle,” said Digital Onboarding CEO Ted Brown. “Financial institutions have a significant opportunity to make enrolling in and setting up deposit, payment, and other services simple and seamless. Making these as accessible and easy to complete as possible has a measurable positive impact on customer retention and loyalty.”
Brown founded Digital Onboarding, originally known as SalesBrief, in 2015, along with his co-founder Jonathan Crossman. The company pivoted to the financial services realm in 2017 after participating in a credit union’s fintech accelerator.
Last November, East Cambridge Savings Bank selected Digital Onboarding to increase its checking account activation rates, and Buckeye State CU tapped the Boston-based company to better inform its members and cross-sell product offers. Earlier in 2023, Digital Onboarding also signed Jack Henry, Legacy CU, and others.
Today’s announcement is part of a wave of fintech funding that has surged in the past couple of weeks.
Digital Onboarding, a company that offers solutions to enable banks and credit unions to better engage their customers, has announced a partnership with Small Business Resources (SBR). The company, which helps banks acquire small business deposits, and provides treasury management and lending services, will use Digital Onboarding’s platform to help its client banks boost engagement and increase revenue.
Specifically, the collaboration will enable Small Business Resources to offer a new branded solution, SBR FullWallet, to better serve the 42% of SMEs that, according to research from Accenture, believe that alternative providers can do a better job than traditional banks when it comes to serving small and medium-sized businesses.
“For banks, small businesses are significantly more profitable than consumers, but a large percentage of small business customers are unengaged and at risk,” Digital Onboarding CEO Ted Brown explained. “I am thrilled to partner with Small Business Resources to help regional and community banks deepen their business relationships and better compete in today’s marketplace.”
The challenge of new rivals was top of mind for Small Business Resources CEO Robert Boorin, as well. “Banks are facing stiff competition from fintechs and Neobank providers that are investing heavily to attract small and medium-sized business banking customers,” Boorin said. “Business banking relationship managers struggle to build deep relationships with all of the customers in their portfolios. SBR FullWallet will enable our Partner Banks to deliver timely and highly personalized communications that make it easier for small businesses to adopt additional products and digital banking services.”
Launched in 1998, SBR was founded to bring small business marketing solutions to institutions in financial services, insurance, and other strategic industries. With services ranging from customer acquisition and engagement to cross-selling and onboarding, SBR blends traditional and digital media services to ensure that financial institutions have multi-channel access to SMEs.
Digital Onboarding most recently demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall in 2018. At the event, the company showed how its platform gives banks and credit unions the email and marketing automation resources to create personalized digital journeys that educate and engage their customers. More recently, Digital Onboarding has announced partnerships with a sizable number of regional banks and credit unions including American Bank of Commerce, New York University FCU, Pacific Service Credit Union, Spirit FCU, and Southwest Financial FCU – all in the first quarter of 2021.
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Digital Onboarding was founded in 2015. The company has raised more than four million dollars in funding from investors including FINTOP Capital, Detroit Venture Partners, and Jack Henry & Associates. Digital Onboarding’s most recent financing came in August of last year; the amount of the investment was not disclosed.
In a world of rebrands, reintroductions, and redirections, it is always impressive to see a pivot that sticks.
Moven, which announced its transition toward financial wellness and distributed smart banking a year ago this month, has teamed up with fellow Finovate alum Digital Onboarding. Together, the two fintechs will support user adoption of a turn-key digital bank-in-a-box, making it easier for banks and financial institutions to improve customer engagement on digital platforms.
“The pace of digital disruption in the banking industry is only going to quicken, and financial institutions have to rethink how they leverage digital channels,” Moven founder and Executive Chairman Brett King said. “Providing a new channel is one thing; getting existing and new customers to embrace that channel is an entirely different challenge, and frankly a tremendous opportunity for bankers.”
The partnership brings together Moven’s ability to provide users with data-driven, actionable insights into their financial health with Digital Onboarding’s digital messaging, personalized microsites, and proprietary action widgets to make account-related services more accessible and streamlined. The collaboration recognizes the challenge that digital banks represent to traditional banks and credit unions, and seeks to give them the tools to keep their own customers and better engage new, more digitally-demanding, ones.
“Neobanks are raising billions of dollars and investing heavily in advertising to lure U.S, consumers away from traditional financial institutions,” Digital Onboarding CEO Ted Brown said. “Now is the time for banks and credit unions to double down on investing in their existing customer and member bases. I am excited to collaborate with Moven to help banks and credit unions build long-lasting relationships by motivating financially health behaviors.”
The collaboration between Moven and Digital Onboarding is the most recent, big partnership Moven has entered into since its pivot. Late last year, the company announced that it was working on a turnkey digital bank-in-a-box project with another Finovate alum, Q2. Picking up its second patent for its financial wellness technology in January, Moven also has worked recently with New York-based digital asset manager NYDIG and Japan-based Kyushu Financial Group.
Speaking of NYDIG, the company secured $200 million in funding earlier this week in a round led by Stone Ridge Holdings Group and other strategic partners.
Moven will leverage its relationship with NYDIG to offer banks plugins that will enable them to offer bitcoin-related products. Moven CEO and CRO Kesh Talwar put the NYDIG partnership in the broader context of fintech and cryptocurrency’s parallel, but distinct paths toward prominence. “The growth of fintech platforms and of cryptocurrencies have both been striking, but the two worlds have largely been separate.” And because consumers are most likely to try new technologies when they are introduced by institutions they trust, Talwar sees a clear path to boosting cryptocurrency adoption by enabling banks to play a bigger part.
NYDIG Head of Bank Solutions Patrick Sells concurred. “Many banks have felt left behind with the rise of fintech, but today, banks have the opportunity to capitalize on the fact that their customers strongly prefer them to be in the lead when it comes to Bitcoin.”
Customer engagement specialist Digital Onboardingannounced its Series A round today. The amount of funding was undisclosed and adds to the company’s existing $4.3 million in seed funds. Contributors include Detroit Venture Partners and other institutional and individual investors.
Along with today’s investment, FINTOP Capital Partner John Philpott, Jack Henry Senior Managing Director Shawn Ward, and a founding member of S1 Corporation joined the Board of Directors.
The company plans to use the funds, along with the fresh influx of expertise on its board, to begin “accelerating the execution of [its] product roadmap, scaling account management, and expanding sales.”
Digital Onboarding’s SaaS offering helps banks deliver compelling services that keep customers around for the long-term. The company is especially effective in helping motivate accountholders to take action because it aggregates data across banks with similar business objectives.
“Banks have myopically focused on getting new accounts opened to meet aggressive sales targets and are now being forced to contend with the reality that new accounts are worthless if they’re not converted into engaged relationships,” said Digital Onboarding CEO Ted Brown. “The Digital Onboarding platform has been proven to drive the adoption of additional products and services like digital banking, direct deposit, and automatic payments which drive long-term profitability.”
The funding comes at a time of increased demand for digital services of all kinds. Since many non-digital native customers are now needing to conduct much of their banking activities remotely, maintaining connection with them through digital channels is more essential than ever.
Digital Onboarding was founded in 2015 and is partnered with 40+ financial institutions that together represent $160+ billion in assets. The company most recently demoed at FinovateFall 2018. You can catch an all-new round of demos at FinovateFall Digital next month. Stream the event from anywhere on the globe September 14 through September 18.
How’s $7 billion for good karma? One of Finovate’s earliest alumsCredit Karma is reportedly the target of what would be Intuit’s biggest acquisition to date. According to The Wall Street Journal, the cash and stock deal could be announced as early as Monday.
Credit Karma will continue to function as an independent company with founder and CEO Kenneth Lin at the helm. The acquisition gives Intuit, maker of online tax filing service TurboTax, another contact point with the online personal finance world. Credit Karma provides its members with access to their credit scores and borrowing histories, helps them monitor their accounts for security breaches and, perhaps most relevantly, has offered a free online tax preparation service since 2017.
If the deal holds up, Intuit will be paying a significant premium for Credit Karma. The personal financial wellness company was last valued at $4 billion, based on a 2018 private market transaction.
With another Finovate conference in the books, our Finovate Best of Show ranks has a new set of members. Congratulations to Dorsum, Glia, Horizn, iProov, Sonect, and W.UP for taking home top honors earlier this month at FinovateEurope!
The victory may have been especially sweet for Sonect, whose Best of Show award-winning demo was also the company’s Finovate debut. The Switzerland-based start-up offers what it calls “the world’s first social cash network” that enables consumers to access cash without having to visit a bank branch or ATM. Sonect offers merchants the ability to grow their business via increased traffic and gives financial institutions a way to extend their ATM networks without the cost of additional hardware.
The Best of Show win was also a first for Horizn. The company, which made its Finovate debut three years ago at FinovateEurope, offers a platform that helps employees and customers maximize the opportunities of digitized financial services. Horizn uses simulator microlearning, as well as gamification and advanced analytics, to promote digital adoption across channels.
And last but not least, a special tip of the hat to Dorsum, Glia, iProov, and W.UP, all of whom won Best of Show honors at FinovateEurope for a second year in a row.
Here’s a round up of recent news from our Finovate alumni.
Larkyenters reseller agreement with Access Softek.
Bison Bank in Lisbon, Portugal selects PSD2-ready software from ndigit.
OurCrowdexpands focus on growing early stage tech companies.
Finovate Alum Features and Profiles
eToro’s Evolution – Social trading and investment platform eToro has never been one to stand still for very long. The company’s development cycle is fast enough to make even the most sprightly fintech jealous.
Lending Club Snaps Up Radius Bank for $185 Million – When Lending Club was founded in 2007, the startup aimed to serve as a place to help borrowers avoid dealing with banks. In a somewhat ironic move today, that same startup is becoming a bank itself.
NestReady to Enhance the Homebuying Experience at West Community Credit Union.
Around the web
Tearsheet interviewsFlybits CEO Hossein Rahnama on the challenge of digital transformation.
Facebook partners with HackerOne to launch bug bounty for its Libra Project.
Crowdfund Insider quotesUnison CEO Thomas Sponholtz and Lending Club CEO Scott Sanborn on the trend of fintechs considering a move from the San Francisco area.
Hanscom Federal Credit Union selectsDigital Onboarding to facilitate account activation.
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.
InCommpartners with LA Metro to expand locations where customers can purchase and reload TAP cards.
Jack Henry & Associatesnamed one of the best places to work in Alabama by Business Alabama.
Bpm’online CEO and Managing Partner Katherine Kostereva recognized in The Software Report’s Top 50 SaaS CEOs of 2019 feature.
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.
PassTime partners with masterQueue to help locate and contact customers for debt collection.
Five Degrees is selected to join the Kickstart innovation program.
Voleo, Neener Analytics, Gremln Social, and Digital Onboarding all successfully complete 2019 FIS Fintech Accelerator program.
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.
Manatee County, Florida’s only chartered credit union is teaming up with FinovateFall alum Digital Onboarding to improve new customer engagement. Manatee Community FCU, founded in 1958 and headquartered in Bradenton, Florida, will leverage Digital Onboarding’s fully-automated new account activation technology to boost membership and improve the overall banking experience for new and existing customers.
“Building member engagement is challenging, especially when members live outside of the primary branch service area,” Digital Onboarding CEO Ted Brown explained. “With the Digital Onboarding platform, Manatee Community Federal Credit Union can deliver an exceptional banking experience to all of its members. We’re thrilled to be partnering with the credit union on this important growth initiative.”
Digital Onboarding enables banks and credit unions to move beyond traditional marketing techniques involving phone calls, emails, direct mail, and print brochures when it comes to attracting and engaging new potential customers. Guided journeys help new customers quickly navigate the onboarding and activation process, and institutions can add features such as gamified incentives to customize the process further. The platform can be used to generate automated, intelligent email and text campaigns to keep customers engaged and aware of new service and product offerings. FIs running the platform benefit from summary analytics and reports that provide transparency into the account activation process, enabling community banks and credit unions to optimize their strategies to secure the best responses.
“At Manatee Community Federal Credit Union, we recently expanded our charter to serve members in Sarasota County, various employment groups, and associations,” Manatee Community FCU CEO Sherod Halliburton said. “(We) want to ensure that we deliver a best-in-class banking experience, no matter where our members reside.” He added that his team reviewed a variety of different digital platforms before choosing Digital Onboarding’s solution, which he called “the best option in the market.”
Boston, Massachusetts-based Digital Onboarding demonstrated its platform at FinovateFall 2018. Last month, the company announced that it would join the Venture Center FinTech Accelerator sponsored by Fidelity Information Services. This spring, we featured Digital Onboarding in a profile on how banks can compete with Apple’s new credit card.
Digital Onboarding to Boost Customer Engagement for Manatee Community FCU.
Finovate Global: Settle Launches Mobile App in Croatia; Sr. Pago Partners with American Express.
Around the web
Mastercardacquires global payments firm Transfast.
Chatbots.Studiopartners with Digital Flex Solution to become their first technical partner and adviser. Check out Chatbots.Studio at FinovateFall in September!
CREALOGIXwinsBest Wealth Management User Interface at the 2019 Systems in the City Financial Technology Awards.
Sports Business Daily interviewsEverfi Head of Global Partnerships Jon Chapman.
Gartner’s 2019 Market Guide for In-App Protection recognizesJscrambler for its client-side security technology.
Ping IdentityearnsBest Identity Management Solution honors at the 2019 SC Awards Europe.
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.
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.
