Funding

BioCatch Secures $20 Million to Drive Innovation in Behavioral Biometrics

BioCatch Secures $20 Million to Drive Innovation in Behavioral Biometrics
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BioCatch, Funding

A new investment of $20 million takes the total capital raised by behavioral biometrics innovator BioCatch to more than $213 million. Participating in this week’s funding were a quartet of major global banks: Barclays, Citi, HSBC, and National Australia Bank (NAB). The funds add to BioCatch’s Series C round, which brought $145 million to the company’s coffers in April.

In addition to its funding announcement, BioCatch also unveiled a new BioCatch Client Innovation Board. The Board is a collaborative, invitation-only forum where members can discuss and develop new approaches to leveraging what the company called in a statement “the unique attributes of behavior.” BioCatch’s signature innovation in behavioral biometrics is a cognitive behavioral approach that focuses on the way a user interacts with their device, as well as online and mobile applications in order to combat fraud. The company’s Invisible Challenges mechanism operates without the user even being aware of it, enabling BioCatch to provide strong authentication with minimal friction for the user.

As part of the funding, each of this week’s investing banks, as will existing BioCatch investor, American Express Ventures, will have two seats on the Innovation Board.

“We have already seen the power of collaboration in solving difficult problems in other areas of the financial services industry, such as clearing corps, transaction networks, post-trade processing, margin calculation, and collateral management, when banks work together and share knowledge, workflow, and data in the common interest,” Edelstein said. “We are extremely excited that five of the largest and most important global financial institutions are working with BioCatch to jointly address today’s most pressing problems in the areas of online fraud, account authentication and digital identity.” 

Founded in 2011 and based in both New York City and Israel, BioCatch was named to CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list of the fastest-growing fintechs earlier this month. Over the summer, the company announced that it had created anonymous behavioral profiles for more than 150 million individual online banking users, and now analyzes more than one billion digital sessions a month in real-time.

Learn more about BioCatch in our June profile, COVID-19 and the Fight Against Cyberfraud.

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Digital Banking Platform Alkami Raises $140 Million

Digital Banking Platform Alkami Raises $140 Million
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alkami Technology, Funding

In a round led by D1 Capital Partners, cloud-based digital banking technology platform Alkami has secured $140 million in new funding. The investment takes the company’s total capital to more than $378 million and comes as the firm reaches nearly 10 million digital users under contract.

“We are proud to add world class crossover investors to our strong existing investor base, supporting Alkami’s mission,” company CEO Mike Hansen said. “We inspire and power the digital strategies of financial institutions as they seek to grow confidently and build thriving digital communities.”

Also participating in the venture round were Fidelity Management & Research Company, Franklin Templeton, and Stockbridge Investors.

The financing also comes just a few weeks after the company learned it had made CB Insights roster of top 250 fastest-growing fintechs. This year’s cohort was selected out of a pool of 16,000 companies. Also this month, Alkami topped $130 million in annual recurring revenue under contract, as the company onboarded its 165th digital banking platform client.

“Our clients are among the best performing and fastest growing FIs in the country, in part due to the strength and velocity of our platform, solutions, and ecosystem,” Hansen added. “Together we are creating and delivering winning digital solutions to our clients’ customers, members, and businesses.”

Last month, Alkami announced that it had teamed up with fellow Finovate, multiple Best of Show winner Glia, integrating its Digital Customer Service platform as part of Alkami’s suite of online offerings. “With Glia, banks and credit unions can break down the walls of traditional customer support by meeting customers online and guiding them to quick and satisfying resolutions,” Glia co-founder and CEO Daniel Michaeli said. “By partnering with Alkami, we are making digital-first customer service more easily accessible to premier financial institutions and their users.”

Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Alkami is among Finovate’s oldest alums, demonstrating its technology as iThryv back in 2009.

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ClickSWITCH Secures Strategic Investment from USAA

ClickSWITCH Secures Strategic Investment from USAA
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ClickSWITCH, Funding

Digital account switching company ClickSWITCH has locked in an investment of $2 million from a subsidiary of USAA. The funding, which takes the company’s total to more than $21 million, will be used to help the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based firm “build additional momentum around the ClickSWITCH solution and its features,” according to founder and CEO Cale Johnston.

ClickSWITCH offers an automated account management solution that enhances the onboarding process for financial institutions by enabling them to quickly and efficiently switch all direct deposits and recurring payments from old accounts to new ones. The solution helps banks and credit unions gain higher account holder acquisition and activation rates, capture more deposits, and increase profitability.

“The financial investment from USAA is encouraging during these uncertain times and we are excited to support USAA’s mission of supporting the U.S. military community,” Johnston added.

USAA Head of Corporate Development Nathan McKinley praised ClickSWITCH for its “commitment to solving a persistent consumer problem” and put the investment in the context of USAA’s goal of providing military families with “the best value in financial services.” Based in San Antonio, Texas, USAA is a leading financial services provider, offering insurance, banking, and investment solutions to nearly 13 million members of the U.S. military, veterans, and their families.

With more than 500 financial institution customers in North America, ClickSWITCH sees this week’s investment as helping drive further innovation on its technology and enabling the six-year old company maintain its status as a leader in the account switching space. This spring, as the COVID-19 crisis took hold in the U.S., ClickSWITCH forged a partnership with fellow Finovate alum Finastra. The company said it would leverage ClickSWITCH for its Fusion Phoenix and Fusion UltraData core clients to help them increase both deposits and customer engagement.

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Bitpanda Raises $52 Million in Round Led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures

Bitpanda Raises $52 Million in Round Led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding

Digital asset platform Bitpanda announced a round of venture funding today. The $52 million Series A round marks the largest Series A round in Europe so far this year.

The round was led by Valar Ventures, a VC firm backed by Peter Thiel. Today’s investment, combined with Bitpanda’s $51 million ICO last year and undisclosed venture round last year, brings its total funding to over $103 million.

As part of the agreement, Andrew McCormack and James Fitzgerald from Valar Ventures will join Bitpanda’s board. “With their extensive track record in growing digital champions like PayPal in its early years and supporting Peter Thiel during its IPO and eventual sale to eBay in 2002, we are more than confident in the choice,” Bitpanda CEO and Co-founder Eric Demuth said.

The company will use the funds to promote geographical expansion. Specifically, after its successful launches in France, Spain, and Turkey this year, Bitpanda plans to expand to more European countries before year-end.

The investment will also be used to “bring the Bitpanda platform and all our services to a new level.” The company has already slated new products for launch, including a new stock trading tool which will launch in 2021.

Much of Bitpanda’s focus is on financial empowerment and the democratization of investment. “Bitpanda will become an investment platform for asset classes for everyone,” Demuth said. “We will provide education, empower our users to take their future into their own hands and remove all those barriers that prevent people from taking part.”

Founded in 2014, Bitpanda has seen significant growth this year, boosting its client base to more than 1.3 million. Additionally, the company has brought on more than 70 new employees this year and plans to boost its total workforce to more than 300 by the end of this year.

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New Funding Takes Robinhood’s Series G Round to $660 Million

New Funding Takes Robinhood’s Series G Round to $660 Million
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding

A little over a month after announcing a $200 million investment from D1 Capital Partners as part of its Series G round, the Millennially-targeted stock trading app Robinhood is back in the fintech funding headlines with another $460 million in new capital raised. The investment gives the company a valuation of $11.7 billion, and brings the Series G’s total to $660 million.

The company’s total funding stands at $2.2 billion.

The financing comes from a quintet of investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, DST Global, Ribbit Capital and 9Yards Capital. A Robinhood spokesperson said that the funds will be used to support Robinhood’s core product as well as “new offerings like cash management and recurring investments.”

Robinhood has been on an impressive fundraising pace this year, locking in more than $1 billion in 2020 alone as a rapidly advancing stock market – and the blunting of sports gambling due to pandemic restrictions – have brought new investors and traders to the platform. Robinhood offers commission-free trading in stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and options via Robinhood Financial, as well as the ability to buy and sell cryptocurrencies with its Robinhood Crypto platform.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, Robinhood has more than 13 million users. Earlier this month, the company announced a set of updates on its options trading offering, giving investors and traders greater control over exercising options, and adding improvements to the early assignment process, as well as enhancing both education and eligibility criteria for options trading. In August, Robinhood introduced a pair of new Chief Compliance Officers – Norm Askhenas for Robinhood Financial and Kelly Zigaitis for Robinhood Securities – who are veterans of Fidelity and Wells Fargo Advisors, respectively.

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Digital Identity Specialist Alloy Raises $40 Million in Series B

Digital Identity Specialist Alloy Raises $40 Million in Series B
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alloy, Funding

In a round led by Canapi Ventures, digital identity management innovator Alloy raised $40 million in Series B funding last week. The round featured participation from Avid Ventures, Felicis Ventures, as well as a trio of existing investors: Bessemer Ventures, Primary Venture Partners, and Eniac Ventures. The investment takes the New York-based company’s total capital to more than $55 million.

“Our mission is to help our customers deploy safe and seamless digital customer experiences,” company CEO Tommy Nicholas wrote on the company blog. “This investment will help us continue to support our growing customer base, while expanding our product offerings and scaling marketing, sales, and customer efforts.”

More specifically, Nicholas noted that the investment will help the company bring new products to market in the areas of transaction and credit decisioning, as well as document verification. He added that Alloy will also continue to invest in its onboarding decisioning system and build a new learning portal to help users maximize their use of Alloy’s technology.

Alloy’s platform enables financial institutions to increase the number of customers they can safely and quickly onboard, automate manual processes to reduce error and manual review burden, and reduce fraud and financial risk. The technology allows FIs to access more than 60 KYC and identity vendors via API, and leverages data from a variety of sources in order to provide real-time risk decisioning. The company includes Ally Bank, Evolve Bank & Trust, and Brex among its partners.

In a blog post titled “Why Canapi is Leading Alloy’s $40M Series B Financing,” the Series B’s lead investor makes a strong case for investment not only in Alloy, but also for investment in digital identity innovation in general. The post discusses the challenge that financial services companies face in meeting compliance and regulatory standards that “were not designed for a digital-first world,” and points out that the arrival of the public health crisis has only made this challenge more acute. “What was costly and ineffective in the past has become unsustainable in the COVID-19 era,” the authors write.

Founded in 2015, Alloy presented “KYC: The Customer Killer – Solved!” at our developer’s conference, FinDEVR Silicon Valley, later that same year. At the event, Nicholas and company CTO Charles Hearn showed how Alloy’s technology enabled businesses to create fully-customizable APIs for customer identification and compliance.

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More Fuel for the BNPL Fire: Affirm Raises $500 Million

More Fuel for the BNPL Fire: Affirm Raises $500 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding

In a series G round, buy-now, pay-later company (BNPL) Affirm brought in $500 million, bringing the company’s total raised to $1.3 billion.

Leading the round were Durable Capital Partners LP and existing investor GIC. Other returning investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Wellington Management Company, Baillie Gifford, Spark Capital, Founders Fund, and Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC also contributed.

Affirm Founder and CEO Max Levchin referred to the new round as a “vote of confidence” that will help the company advance its mission “to build honest financial products that improve lives.”

Along with the funding announcement, Affirm also unveiled an interest-free and fee-free bi-weekly payment product for transactions over $50. The new product aims to help Affirm’s tools compete with credit cards. “Affirm is now an even more attractive payment option for everyday wants and needs,” Levchin added. “We can also now better support merchants who offer smaller ticket items and bring their customers a more transparent, flexible way to pay.”

Affirm’s BNPL tools reach 6.5 million shoppers across the U.S. and Canada. The company has 6,000+ merchant partners in the U.S., including brands such as Walmart, Peloton, Oscar de la Renta, Audi, and Expedia.

Affirm’s funding comes days after Klarna unveiled its $650 million raise, which brought its total funding to $1.4 billion and boosted its valuation to $10.6 billion.

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Klarna’s $650 Million Funding Round Boosts Valuation to $10.6 Billion

Klarna’s $650 Million Funding Round Boosts Valuation to $10.6 Billion
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding, Klarna

As the buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) craze explodes, some fintechs are in just the right place to catch the sparks. Payment services company Klarna is one of these players, and it has just landed $650 million in funding.

Today’s round adds to the company’s $1.4 billion in previously raised funds, bringing its total to just over $2 billion. The investment also boosts Klarna’s valuation to $10.6 billion, ranking the company as the highest-valued private fintech in Europe and the fourth highest worldwide.

The round was led by Silver Lake, GIC (Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund), and accounts managed by BlackRock and HMI Capital. Additional funds came from Merian Chrysalis, TCV, Northzone, and Bonnier, which have acquired shares from existing shareholders.

Klarna will use the funds to invest in product development, fuel global expansion, and build on its growth.

“We are at a true inflection point in both retail and finance,” said Klarna CEO and Co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski. “The shift to online retail is now truly supercharged and there is a very tangible change in the behavior of consumers who are now actively seeking services which offer convenience, flexibility and control in how they pay and an overall superior shopping experience. Klarna’s unique proposition, consumer preference and global retailer network will prove an excellent platform for further growth.”

As consumers seek alternative methods to finance their purchases, Klarna’s BNPL tool that enables users to pay in interest-free installments has gained impressive traction. The company’s shopping app has more than 12 million monthly active users worldwide, with 55,000 daily downloads.

And Klarna’s game is also strong on the merchant side of things, as many retailers have sought to increase online sales during stay-at-home orders. During the first half of 2020, the company added more than 35,000 new retailers to its existing merchant base of more than 200,000 partners including Sephora, The North Face, Timberland, and Ralph Lauren.

As a result of this growth, the company’s volume grew 44% over the first half of this year to more than $22 billion and its revenue increased 36% year-on-year to $466 million over the same period.

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Identity Verification Innovator Sumsub Secures $6 Million in New Funding

Identity Verification Innovator Sumsub Secures $6 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding

London-based identity verification platform Sumsub (which stands for “Sum & Substance”) raised $6 million in Series A funding this week. The round brings the company’s total funding to more than $7.5 million. With the additional capital, the company plans to intensify its product development initiatives, expand into new markets, and pursue its goal of more than 1,000 new SME and enterprise customers by the end of next year.

Sumsub co-founder and CEO Andrew Sever highlighted the compliance and risk management questions that global businesses face when operating in multiple jurisdictions, and pointed to his company’s technology as an answer. “We solve the issue by presenting teams with a single solution to drive customers and enhanced due diligence from one place, customizing the onboarding flow to any jurisdiction or requirement.”

Sumsub provides a single, AI-powered identity verification and compliance risk management toolkit that automates the identity verification process and boosts conversion rates to as high as 97%. The company’s technology offers accelerated ID verification, digital fraud detection, and compliance for businesses in more than 200 markets around the world such as the U.K., North America, Germany, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and has verified “tens of millions of users” since launch in 2015.

The Series A was led by MetaQuotes, a financial trading software development company. The round featured the participation of several existing investors, as well as individual investor Ilia Perekopsky, VP of Telegram messenger.

Earlier this year, Sumsub announced that it and another ID verification company Veriff, had partnered with international money transfer firm TransferGo. TransferGo Compliance Manager Milda Mačiulaitytė said Sumsub’s platform would enable TransferGo to not only deliver a “tailored money transfer experience” but also to make sure that experience provided in a compliant and secure way across all regions.

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Socure Secures Funding from Citi and Wells Fargo

Socure Secures Funding from Citi and Wells Fargo
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Socure

In a round led by Sorenson Ventures, identity verification innovator Socure has locked in $35 million in new funding. The investment, which takes the company’s total capital to $96 million, featured the participation of three new funders: Citi Ventures, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, and MVB Financial Corp, as well as existing investors Commerce Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, and Flint Capital. Socure said the additional funding will support the firm’s growth objectives and enable the company to add to its platform’s machine learning capabilities.

“We are grateful to have had significant investor interest despite the current economic environment, and are proud to have taken less money than was on the table,” Socure CEO Tom Thimot said. “As we continue to build on our position as the leader in Day Zero identity, we are prioritizing investment in new verticals, talent, products, and capabilities.”

The investment reflects a growing importance on identity verification at a time when more and more individuals and businesses are relying on digital channels. Companies with identity verification solutions that can quickly – i.e., in real-time – establish that individuals are who they say they are and do so with as few mistakes as possible will become increasingly valuable partners for businesses looking to maximize engagement and commerce via digital channels.

Socure’s funding news comes just a few months after the company unveiled its latest digital identity verification solution, Intelligent KYC. The company’s technology accelerates customer acquisition and boosts auto-approval rates by leveraging advanced graph analysis and machine learning to verify identity in real-time. With partners ranging from banks and lenders to telecommunications firms and insurance companies, Socure enables its clients to achieve 85% fraud capture rates, a 90% increase in auto enrollments, and up to 10x reduction in false positives.

Most recently demonstrating its technology at FinovateFall in 2017, Socure was founded five years earlier by Sunil Madhu and Johnny Ayers (SVP). Named one of Forbes’ Top 25 Machine Learning Startups to Watch, and recognized by Gartner as a Cool Vendor in AI for Banking and Investment Services this spring, the company added a document verification module, DocV, to its Socure ID+ platform earlier this month.

Socure is headquartered in New York, and maintains offices in San Diego, San Jose, and Chennai, India.

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Digital Onboarding Raises Series A

Digital Onboarding Raises Series A
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Digital Onboarding, Funding

Customer engagement specialist Digital Onboarding announced 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.

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BlockFI Raises $50 Million for Crypto-Based Bank Services

BlockFI Raises $50 Million for Crypto-Based Bank Services
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding

Crypto asset-backed lender BlockFI just landed $50 million in funding, marking the company’s third investment in just 12 months.

The round was led by Morgan Creek Digital with participation from Valar Ventures, CMT Digital, Castle Island Ventures, Winklevoss Capital, SCB 10X, Avon Ventures, Purple Arch Ventures, Kenetic Capital, HashKey, and others.

BlockFI will use the cash to hire more employees and boost its business offerings. Specifically, BlockFI plans to add support for additional assets and currencies and is working on the launch of a bitcoin rewards-based credit card.

Flori Marquez, SVP of Operations and Co-Founder of BlockFi, described the company as “a driving force in bringing cryptocurrencies mainstream.” And that summarizes BlockFI’s goal with this new growth round. Not only does the company hope to improve the customer experience, it also wants to broaden the appeal of crypto-based investment.

Founded in 2017, BlockFI offers some of the same services customers are used to seeing at their traditional bank, only for cryptocurrencies. In addition to providing trading and institutional services, the company allows users to earn compound interest in a range of different cryptocurrencies. BlockFI also helps clients leverage their cryptocurrency as collateral towards a loan, paid in U.S. dollars, and receive their cryptocurrency back after the loan is paid off.

“With the support from our partners, we’re creating a platform for investors where they aren’t investing in just digital assets anymore—they’re investing in the future, greater financial empowerment and accessibility,” said Zac Prince, CEO and Founder of BlockFi.

BlockFi, which currently has $1.5 billion in assets on its platform, has seen impressive growth in recent months. The company ballooned its revenue 10x over the past year, with plans to reach $100 million in revenue over the next 12 months.

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