Funding

CrowdFlower Raises $20 Million to Bloom AI Adoption

CrowdFlower Raises $20 Million to Bloom AI Adoption
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: CrowdFlower, Funding

AI data enrichment platform, CrowdFlower, has pulled in $20 million in funding today. This is the California-based company’s sixth round of funding since it was founded in 2009 and brings its total raised to $58 million.

Leading today’s round is Industry Ventures. A new investor, Salesforce Ventures, is also participating along with existing investors Canvas Ventures, Microsoft Ventures and Trinity Ventures. CrowdFlower will use the funding to expand the functionality of its platform, integrate with other machine learning technologies, and hire new talent. The company’s CEO, Robin Bordoli, said, “With this funding, we can accelerate our reach and help data science and machine learning teams everywhere produce the training data they need within the scale, cost and quality parameters that matter to them.”

CrowdFlower creates human-in-the-loop technology that offers quality control for data scientists. The company leverages an on-demand workforce to collect, label, and clean data that requires human intelligence. According to Bordoli, we are just starting to scratch the surface of AI. He described AI apps for the enterprise as being “at the beginning of a Cambrian explosion” and said that the bottleneck for mass adoption of machine learning is “the availability of high quality training data and human-in-the-loop workflows to handle the failure states of the algorithm.” Bordoli went on to explain that an algorithm without human input is like “a rocket ship with a large engine but no fuel and no navigation system.”

CrowdFlower’s Tatiana Josephy (VP Product) and Seth Teicher (Head of Content & Business Development) at FinovateFall 2014

At FinovateFall 2014, CrowdFlower won Best of Show in a demo that showed how the on-demand workforce uses its platform to collect, clean, and label financial transaction data. Last month, the company launched a set of dedicated tools for computer vision to enhance its Pixel Labeling Tool.

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Cardlytics Closes $12 Million Round

Cardlytics Closes $12 Million Round
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Cardlytics, Funding

Card-linked offers company Cardlytics has raised $12 million, according to an SEC filing and a report from BizJournals, which reported the round was led by a new, strategic investor with contributions from existing investors. The name of the strategic investor was not disclosed. This round brings Cardlytics’ total funding to $200 million.

Atlanta-based Cardlytics was founded in 2008. The company’s first product was a card-linked offers solution, Cardlytics Direct. This flagship product allows financial institutions to provide merchant-funded rewards within its online or mobile banking application to boost customer loyalty. Almost 10 years later, big-name financial institutions such as Bank of America, PNC, MasterCard, and Fiserv use Cardlytics Direct.

The hype of card-linked offers peaked around 2012, and Cardlytics appears to have undergone a bit of restructuring since then. In April of 2016, the company laid off 15 percent of its workforce and while there is still demand for consumer rewards, the company’s attention has expanded to capitalizing on the data gathered from consumer interactions. In 2016, Cardlytics began leveraging the wealth of consumer spend data, launching Platform Solutions for retailers and marketers to gain insights on consumer spending behavior and optimize marketing strategies.

Cardlytics demoed its geolocation application at FinovateFall 2013. Scott Grimes is CEO and cofounder.

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Financeit Receives New Funding Capacity of $85 Million

Financeit Receives New Funding Capacity of $85 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: FinanceIt, Funding

Point-of-sale consumer financing company Financeit announced $85 million in new funding capacity this week. The funds are made available to the Canada-based company through a $75 million renewable securitization facility and $10 million warehouse line of credit.

The warehouse line of credit comes from a major Canadian life insurance company. While Financeit declined to name the specific contributor, the company said it is a “major” player in the space. Financeit COO Casper Wong said, “We have a history of managing successful securitization programs, and we’re thrilled to be launching this new partnership.” He added, “We see this as the natural evolution of our growth and a major milestone. The company is a known leader in this space and we’re proud to be working with them.”

Financeit will use the new funds to “execute on its growth strategy.” Since acquiring TD Bank’s home improvement financing assets in September 2016, Financeit has experienced notable growth. The company’s founder Michael Garrity said last December that the deal had “transformed the business” and doubled its loan value and revenue. Because of this success, Garrity went on to state that he is open to considering more acquisitions.

In October 2016, Financeit closed on $17 million in venture funding from the Pritzker Organization and DNS Capital to fund the $339 million purchase of TD Bank’s home improvement financing assets and to fuel the company’s growth. Earlier in 2016, Financeit debuted its direct-to-consumer financing platform, Financeit Direct, which enables consumers to apply for funds via their mobile device. At FinovateFall 2014, Financeit made its U.S. debut in conjunction with FIS.

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Stratumn Lands $7.8 Million, Forms Strategic Partnership with NASDAQ

Stratumn Lands $7.8 Million, Forms Strategic Partnership with NASDAQ
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Stratumn

Regtech blockchain startup Stratumn just landed $7.8 million in Series A financing. This sum brings the company’s total funding to just over $8 million when combined with the $670k seed money it received in March of 2016.

The round was led by CNP Ventures, with contributions from Otium Venture, Nasdaq and Digital Currency Group. Stratumn will use the funds to accelerate development by focusing on research, product design, and business development. The company will also address human resources, with a plan to double its 15-person workforce by the end of next year. While Stratumn has already developed 10 projects with NASDAQ, along with a handful of France-based corporations– including CNP Assurances, Allianz France, Thales, Bureau Veritas and Bouygues Immobilier.

Stratum also announced today that it is deepening its collaboration with the Nasdaq via a new, strategic partnership. The co-research and development partnership aims to leverage Proof of Process Technology “to enhance the software solutions and products for the capital markets, particularly in Nasdaq’s Market Technology business and its own enterprise technology unit.”

In a press release, Stratumn CEO Richard Caetano said:

“We are very confident about Stratumn’s development prospects in the upcoming months and years. The successful closing of this round, as well as our investor’s commitment as strategic partners, is rocket fuel which will power the development and launch of Proof of Process Technology.”

Above: Stratumn CEO Richard Caetano presenting at FinDEVr New York 2016

Founded in 2015, Paris-based Stratumn’s Proof of Process technology helps streamline and secure the exchange of data among partners, customers, and regulators by leveraging the blockchain. At FinDEVr New York 2016, Caetano, gave a presentation titled Building and Securing Smart Workflow Using Chainscript and the Stratumn Blockchain Development Platform.

Want to see more fintech aimed at developers? FinDEVr London is happening next week on 12 & 13 June. Register today to save your spot.

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Klarna Receives Investment from Brightfolk

Klarna Receives Investment from Brightfolk
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Klarna

Online payments company Klarna announced a major new strategic investor this week. Brightfolk has reportedly become a qualified owner of Klarna, meaning it has purchased at least 10% of the company. Brightfolk is held by Anders Holch Povlsen, owner of European fashion company, BESTSELLER. Povlsen will acquire shares from existing shareholders General Atlantic, DST Global and Niklas Adalberth, all of whom will retain a stake in Klarna.

Specific terms of the deal were undisclosed, but based on Klarna’s most recent valuation of $2.25 billion we can extrapolate that Brightfolk contributed $225 million or more in equity funds. TechCrunch reported that today’s deal is an up round, meaning Klarna is now valued at more than $2.25 billion.

Writing in the press release announcing the investment, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna co-founder and CEO said, “Klarna has successfully been partnering with BESTSELLER for a number of years. This has given him a firsthand insight into the strengths of our offerings and therefore a unique ability to strategically support the future development of the company. I am delighted to welcome such a strong partner into Klarna.”

Klarna helps 70,000 merchants offer payment solutions to 60+ million users in Europe and North America. Founded in 2005 in Stockholm, Klarna is active in 18 countries. The company is now headquartered in Ohio with 1,500 employees working in offices in Columbus, Ohio; San Francisco; New York; Tel Aviv; and throughout Europe.

Klarna demonstrated its online payment-processing service at FinovateSpring 2012. In 2016, the company experienced a 50% increase in transaction volumes YOY. Also in 2016, 12 million users tried Klarna’s services for the first time. Earlier this year, the company acquired online payment provider BillPay from Wonga for $75 million.

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Zopa Receives $41 Million Investment to Support Challenger Bank Launch

Zopa Receives $41 Million Investment to Support Challenger Bank Launch
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Zopa

P2P lending pioneer Zopa just picked up $41 million (£32 million) in new funding that will go a long way toward helping the company prepare for the roll-out of its challenger bank later this year. “This investment gives us additional resources to continue our growth, support the launch of our next generation bank, and bring our award-winning products to even more people in the U.K.,” Zopa CEO Jaidev Janardana said. The round was led by Wadhawan Global Capital of India and European venture capital fund, Northzone. Zopa’s total funding stands at more than $111 million.

The investment arrives less than a month after Zopa earned full authorization for P2P lending from the FCA. This authorization was a necessary step for the company to launch its Innovative Finance ISAs, a new investment product with target returns of 6.1% that is scheduled to be available by mid-June. In May, Zopa also previewed Zopa Core, a P2P investment product with target returns of 3.9%. The solution is slated to debut in December and replace some of the company’s other offerings.

One small step toward offering IFISAs is also one giant leap toward Zopa’s goal of building a challenger bank. Last fall Zopa announced plans to launch a challenger bank that would complement the company’s P2P lending business by providing a broader range of financial services products – including FSCS-protected savings accounts and IFISAs. “We believe we are uniquely placed to re-define what people should be able to expect from personal finance products in the 21st century,” Janardana wrote, announcing the news of “next generation bank” at the Zopa blog in November.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Zopa made its Finovate debut in 2008. Over the past year, the company has enabled more than $1 billion (£800m) in personal loans in the U.K. In January, Zopa became the first P2P lender in Europe to top £2 billion ($2.5 billion) in loans facilitated.

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NetGuardians Raises More than $8 Million in Series C

NetGuardians Raises More than $8 Million in Series C
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, NetGuardians

With an infusion of $8.7 (CHF 8.5) million in new capital, Swiss anti-fraud specialist NetGuardians now has more than $14 million in total funding. The Series C round was led by Swisscom Ventures and Freemont Management, and the company says the financing will help fuel the company’s “continued global expansion,” support additional investment in its anti-fraud platform, and add talent to the NetGuardians team.

“This collaboration with Swisscom represents recognition from a leader in this Swiss market,” NetGuardians’ Chief Operating Officer Raffael Maio said. “We are thrilled that they are recognizing our success and our potential. The investment will help us double the headcount in the coming 18 months.” Andreas Pages of Swisscom’s Business Unit Fintech highlighted NetGuardians’ technology as the kind of “agile and compelling software” that will improve risk mitigation for FIs. “Their highly innovative technology is changing the way to fight financial crime,” Pages said.

Pictured (left to right): NetGuardians Digital Marketing Manager Mine Fornerod and Regional Director for Asia, Eric Margaryan demonstrating FraudGuardian at FinovateAsia 2016.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, NetGuardians made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia in Hong Kong last fall.  At the conference, Digital Marketing Manager Mine Fornerod and Regional Director for Asia Eric Margaryan demonstrated FraudGuardian, a solution that leverages dynamic profiling, pattern-based intelligence, and predictive analytics to provide real-time fraud detection. For the demonstration, Fornerod and Margaryan set the scene of a risk manager who had received a violation alert from FraudGuardian via SMS, and then showed how the technology was able to track down the source of a series of fraudulent transactions. “Thanks to our ground-breaking, unique, holistic approach, you can actually correlate all these user behaviors and really identify the fraudsters with 100% reliability and prevent fraud in real-time,” Fornerod said.

Named to Planet Compliance’s inaugural RegTech Top 100 Power list this spring, NetGuardians partnered with Swiss academic institution, HEIG-VD to use machine learning and AI to build new, fraud-fighting technologies in February and, in January, announced that Keystone Bank in Nigeria would deploy its FraudGuardian technology. With FIs in more than 14 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, NetGuardians has gained 20 new clients and opened offices in Singapore and Kenya in the past year and a half.

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Additiv Lands $25.5 Million Investment

Additiv Lands $25.5 Million Investment
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: additiv, Funding

Digital financial solutions company additiv has scored $25.5 million (CHF21 million) this week. The investment, which comes from BZ Bank and Patinex, marks the company’s first round of funding.

The investment will help additiv meet demand for its products across Europe and Asia. In the press release, the company’s founder and CEO, Michael Stemmle said, “This funding will finance our international expansion and help strengthen our management team. It will also fuel our production of cutting-edge SaaS/cloud-based products that ensure our clients are ahead of the curve. It really is crunch time for the sector and this funding allows us to be at our best when our clients need us most.”

Founded in 1998, additiv offers a digital financial suite, robo advisor and advisor services, as well as digital mortgage tools. At FinovateEurope 2016, the company’s CEO and founder, Michael Stemmle, along with Adriano Lucatelli and Marc Sauter from Descartes Finance, demoed how Descartes Finance built a digital private banking platform on top of additiv’s digital finance suite. The technology enables self-directed investors to implement portfolios based on allocation and optimization methods.

additiv’s Digital Finance Suite (DFS) recently began powering Natwest’s new robo-advice offering, which launched for the U.K. savings and investment market. This comes after the company piloted similar projects with Coutts, a private bank, and RBS Group. We featured the company earlier this year in our roundup of top business-to-business wealth tech players.

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PayU Investment in Kreditech Marks Largest Funding for a German Fintech

PayU Investment in Kreditech Marks Largest Funding for a German Fintech
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Fundings, Kreditech

In a funding round led by online payment service provider, PayU, Germany’s Kreditech has raised $120 million (€110 million). The investment is the largest equity investment in a German fintech company to date. Kreditech CEO Alexander Graubner-Müller said his company was looking forward to bringing “point-of-sale finance” to markets where “reliable credit risk assessment” is lacking. Graubner-Müller added “Teaming up with PayU provides underbanked customers new possibilities and supports our mission of providing financial freedom through technology.”

In addition the record-setting nature of the funding, the partnership between Kreditech and PayU also represents what the company called in a press release: “the first such strategic cooperation pact between a payment service provider and a technology driven consumer finance company.” Pointing to its commitment to bring credit and financial services to the underbanked, PayU CEO Laurent le Moal said his company’s “substantial investment” in Kreditech will “help to bring pioneering machine learning and AI technology to the many high growth markets around the world that need better access to financial services.”

Pictured (left to right): Co-founders Sebastian Diemer and Alexander Graubner-Müller demonstrating Kreditech’s platform at FinovateSpring 2014.

This week’s funding adds to the $10.4 million Kreditech raised in a round led by Japan-based Rakuten last December. With total capital of more than $280 million, the Hamburg-based online lender has earned a valuation of between $325 million and $540 million, according to an estimate in TechCrunch.

Kreditech has processed more than four million loan applications via its subsidiaries, leveraging its API-driven, lending-as-a-service approach to make it easy for partners to integrate and custom-fit a variety of consumer finance solutions. These include loan application and credit risk management products, e-signature and customer service, loan refinancing, processing, and collections. The company is active in more than five markets around the world – including Russia, Mexico, Spain, and Poland, where Kreditech and PayU recently completed an $11 million (€10 million), 12-month pilot program.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, Kreditech demonstrated its technology at FinovateSpring 2014. Named to H2 Ventures and KPMG’s Fintech 100 in 2016, the company added a pair of new board members last month: former Vanquis Bank CEO Michael Lenora and OneSavings Bank CEO Andy Golding.

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Bitbond Gains $5.4 Million Debt Commitment and Undisclosed Equity Investment

Bitbond Gains $5.4 Million Debt Commitment and Undisclosed Equity Investment
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Bitbond, Funding

Peer-to-peer small business financing platform Bitbond announced today it has received a debt commitment from Obotritia Capital, which has agreed to fund $5.4 million worth of loans on its platform. Obotritia has also invested an undisclosed amount of equity in Bitbond, whose current funding now totals more than $2.14 million.

Headquartered in Germany, Bitbond offers small businesses across the globe fast access to working capital. It does so by connecting small business owners with individual and institutional investors. Because it leverages the blockchain, Bitbond sends cross-border payments to merchants quickly and inexpensively. Since it was founded in 2013, Bitbond has originated 1,700 loans to small businesses in 120 countries.

Above: Bitbond’s Radko Albrecht (CEO & Founder) and Jarek Nowotka (CTO) debut the company’s automated SME scoring engine at FinovateFall 2016

At FinovateFall 2016, the company launched an automated SME scoring engine. “The main challenge about creating an international lending platform is credit scoring because data is different from one country to another,” said Bitbond CEO and founder Radko Albrecht in his recent FinovateFall demo. He added, “At Bitbond we have solved this and created the most international and most scalable SME scoring mechanism.” The tool offers a universal, automated scoring method that offers borrowers instant funding after their application is accepted. Because Bitbond requires less manual involvement than traditional underwriting methods, it also has the advantage of scalability.

Earlier this year, Bitbond partnered with blockchain remittance service Bitpesa to improve access to working capital for small businesses in Africa. Last fall, the company received its BaFin license, a certification that allows it to conduct asset brokerage on its platform independent of banks.

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FinDEVr Alum Symbiont Scores Funding from China’s Hundsun Technologies

FinDEVr Alum Symbiont Scores Funding from China’s Hundsun Technologies
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Fundings, Symbiont

The amount of the investment was undisclosed. But blockchain startup and smart contracts specialist, Symbiont has picked up funding from China-based Hundsun Technologies. The investment in Symbiont is the first in the U.S. for the financial services software provider and the company, which is partly-owned by Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, will also add an observer to Symbiont’s board of directors. Symbiont CEO Mark Smith referred to the investment as a “clear vote of confidence for Symbiont” and called Hundsun Technologies a “strong partner in Asia.”

Symbiont’s innovation is a smart contracts platform that enables FIs to develop applications based on distributed ledger technology. Current use cases enabling the issuance, trading, and processing of corporate bonds, syndicated loans, and other low-liquidity financial instruments. Guan Xiaolan, executive president of Hundsun highlighted the company’s “superior, mature, and highly differentiated DLT stack,” as well as the technology’s high level of security. “Its smart contracts have a proven ability to automate complex business logic, such as highly tailored employee compensation waterfalls for private companies,” he added.

Pictured: Symbiont CTO and co-founder Adam Krellenstein during his presentation at FinDEVr New York 2016.

It has been almost a year since the State of Delaware partnered with Symbiont in a project called The Delaware Block Initiative designed to make it easier for state government and businesses to leverage blockchain technology. In an update published as part of the Delaware law series last month, Andrea Tinianow of the Delaware Blockchain Initiative and Caitlin Long of Symbiont noted that the “first milestone of DBI’s roadmap” – deploying distributed ledger technology at the state’s public archives – had been achieved. Underscoring the relevance of this initial effort, the two wrote: “By being the first to adopt the technology, the State will maintain its leadership in corporate registry services.”

Also this spring, Symbiont added Yale University computer science professor, Dr. Zhong Shao, to its Technical Advisory Board, and partnered with commodity services specialist, Orebits, who will use Symbiont’s smart contract technology to further develop their eponymous commodity-backed digital assets. The first digital assets, called “orebits,” were made available on Symbiont’s platform in March.

Symbiont was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in New York. Adam Krellenstein, CTO and co-founder of the company, presented “Distributed Ledgers and Smart Contracts” at FinDEVr New York 2016.

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Vera Announces $15 Million Strategic Investment from Hasso Plattner

Vera Announces $15 Million Strategic Investment from Hasso Plattner
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, Fundings, Vera

Data security specialist  Vera announced a strategic investment of $15 million today. The funding was led by Hasso Plattner Ventures (HP-Ventures), and featured the participation of Amplify Partners, Battery Ventures, Clear Venture Partners, Leslie Ventures, and Sutter Hill Ventures. The company’s total capital is now more than $50 million. Ajay Arora, CEO and co-founder of Vera said the investment will help fuel expansion particularly in Europe where new regulations on data security, specifically the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), are pending.

GDPR was enacted just over a year ago by the European Parliament and Council in an effort to improve data security for individuals in the EU. The scheduled implementation date of the GDPR is less than a month away on May 25th and observers like Gartner are warning that less than half of companies are will be fully compliant by the end of 2018, much less the end of May. “The GDPR will affect not only EU-based organizations, but many data controllers and processors outside the EU as well,” Gartner research director, Bart Willemsen said. He added that both the threat of “hefty fines” and what he called “the increasingly empowered position of individual data subjects” are pressuring companies to do a better job of protecting personal data.

Pictured: Vera CEO and co-founder Ajay Arora demonstrating Vera Security at FinovateSpring 2016.

And this is where companies like Vera come in. Vera’s technology innovates by securing the data itself. From files and Word documents to images and video, Vera enables companies to control access and the ability to manipulate data after it has left its traditional perimeter of control. During the company’s live demonstration at FinovateSpring, Vera’s Grant Shirk used a single click to secure a word document and an Excel spreadsheet after attaching them to an email. In addition to quickly establishing a variety of access permissions, Vera’s technology also enables digital watermarking, restrictions on the ability to edit (including cut and paste), and provides auditing and tracking.

Underscoring Vera’s uniqueness as its first cybersecurity investment, HP-Ventures General Partner, Yair Re’em credited the company’s “incredible momentum and hypergrowth in markets large and small” as well as Vera’s ability to “help protect and control data after a breach has happened.” He said: “The crumbling state of enterprise security has clearly demonstrated the need for a fundamental paradigm shift in cybersecurity.” Chris Rust, Clear Venture Partners co-founder and General Partner, added that Vera was “the driving force behind a positive and profound shift away from perimeter-based security and towards a more flexible and reliable data-centric model.” Rust will join Vera’s board of directors as part of the strategic investment.

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Vera demonstrated its technology at FinovateSpring 2016. Earlier this year, the company launched its enterprise communications security solution, Vera for Mail. Last fall, Vera announced that Logica Capital Advisors had selected them to manage business information and internal collaboration files. The company has produced more than 4x revenue growth since launching publicly in 2015 and grown its Fortune 100 customer base by 5x. Vera won the 2017 SC Trust Award Winner for Best Cloud Computing Security in February and, in March, the company was named to CRN’s annual Security 100 list.

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