Funding

TrueAccord Lands $22 Million to Humanize Debt Collection

TrueAccord Lands $22 Million to Humanize Debt Collection
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, TrueAccord

Online debt collection service TrueAccord received $22 million in funding this week. Leading the round was Arbor Ventures. A mix of existing and new investors, including Arbor, Nyca Investment Partnership, Assurant Growth Investing, Caffeinated Capital Fund, Felicis Venture, TenOneTen and Crystal Towers, also participated. The round brings the company’s total funding to almost $34.5 million.

In an announcement, the company noted this comes after a period of “sustained and rapid growth”– between 2016 and 2017 TrueAccord grew its collection accounts by 2.5x. The funds will be used to support TrueAccord’s strategic growth initiatives, including product development, compliance functionality, client acquisition and retention, and hiring. Melissa Guzy, co-founder and managing partner of Arbor Ventures, said that TrueAccord’s “unique approach” is making a “positive impact” on the debt collections industry “by empowering many of the estimated 77 million people in debt, to get on a path to better financial health.”

TrueAccord was founded in 2013 as a debt recovery platform. The company has worked with more than 2 million people in debt by creating flexible payment solutions, helping businesses recover billions of dollars in lost revenue. TrueAccord’s clients include top 10 issuers, leading creditors, and companies such as Yelp! and LendUp. Since 2014, the company has facilitated more than $1.5 billion of debt repayment on its platform.

“It was the personal experience of dealing with a debt collector that made me realize the traditional collections industry was ripe for disruption with technology innovation and a more human approach,” said Ohad Samet, Chief Executive Officer of TrueAccord. “With changing consumer preferences, strong regulatory support for innovation, and clients who understand a customer-focus collection process is good for their business, we’re experiencing tremendous demand from the market. We are seizing this opportunity to use machine learning to humanize debt collection for good.”

Ohad Samet demoed the company’s SaaS solution at FinovateSpring 2015 along with CTO, Nadav Samet. TrueAccord landed a place on CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list this spring and contributor Jim Bruene featured TrueAccord in his piece, The Great Rewiring of Financial Services: Consumer Debt Collection.

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TransferWise Raises $280 Million in Series E

TransferWise Raises $280 Million in Series E
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Funding, TransferWise

In a round led by Old Mutual Global Investors and venture capital firm IVP, TransferWise has raised $280 million in new funding. The new capital, which takes the London-based fintech’s total financing to more than $396 million, will be used to help the money transfer innovator grow its services and expand its global presence – particularly in Asia. The Series D also will enable TransferWise to build on its newly-launched service that helps SMEs reduce or even avoid conversion fees by letting them hold money in different currencies.

Also participating in the round were new investors Sapphire Ventures and World Innovation Lab, as well as existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Ballie Gifford, and Richard Branson. TransferWise now has an estimated valuation of $1.6 billion.

Quoted in Reuters, TransferWise finance director Matthew Briers noted that the company was “moving significant amounts of money on a monthly basis,” but there is still room for growth. “There are still many trillions of dollars that are moving cross-border,” he said. In addition to plans to expand into the Asia-Pacific region, TransferWise added that it will launch in India “within the next year.” An API that will enable financial institutions to readily access Transferwise’s platform is also in the cards, the company said. Bloomberg’s coverage of the news also featured company chairman and former CEO Taavet Hinrikus hinting at the “very high likelihood” of TransferWise becoming a public company, though Hinrikus added it was “still quite a number of years away.”

TransferWise demonstrated its platform at FinovateEurope 2013. Founded in 2010, the company has more than two million customers and more than 750 currency routes. Last month, TransferWise unveiled new fees for GBP transfers, a month after the company was named to the European Fintech Awards & Conference’s European Fintech 100. Bringing its Borderless Accounts solution to Canada in August, TransferWise announced in July that its customers could use ApplePay to send money globally via its platform – the same month co-founder Kristo KÀÀrmann took over as CEO of the company. With more than $1 billion in transferred funds each month, TransferWise reached profitability in May of this year.

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BondIT Closes $14 Million in Funding

BondIT Closes $14 Million in Funding
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BondIT, Funding

Advisory tools company BondIT landed $14 million in funding from China-based Fosun Group. The investment is a strategic one– Fosun is now a major shareholder of BondIT and has gained representation on the Israel-based company’s Board of Directors. When combined with an earlier seed round, this brings the company’s total funding to $14.3 million.

BondIT’s Chief Revenue Officer Adrian Gostick, said that the funds will have a “significant, positive impact” on the business. The company will use the investment to accelerate its expansion into the U.S., which, Gostick notes, is the world’s largest fixed income market. Gostick added, “…riding on Fosun’s global financial network, BondIT is committed to becoming a leader in the market to greatly improve the efficiency of the financial sector.”

Powered by machine learning algorithms, the company’s tools empower advisors to automate the optimization of fixed-income portfolio creation and management. Each individual investor selects 12 different constraint dimensions to personalize their portfolio. BondIT leverages these data points, combined with AI, to create algorithms that offer flexibility in optimizing risk and returns in non-linear, multi-dimensional portfolio selections.

Above: BondIT’s COO, Eran Nachshon, demos at FinovateFall 2016

Etai Ravid, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of BondIT said, “The long-term vision of BondIT is to bring significant efficiency to the global bond markets through the application of artificial intelligence and data science, and help our customers gain a competitive advantage through increased productivity and better client centricity.

Founded in 2012, BondIT’s COO Eran Nachshon debuted the technology at FinovateFall 2016 in New York. We featured the company, along with an interview with Ravid, in a blog post last year. BondIT was also highlighted in our round-up of top B2B wealth tech players.

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Two-Time Best of Show Winner Finn.ai Raises $3 Million in New Funding

Two-Time Best of Show Winner Finn.ai Raises $3 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finn.ai, Funding

In a round led by Yaletown Partners, Flying Fish Partners, and former CEO and Chairman of Absolute Software John Livingston, virtual banking assistant developer Finn.ai has raised $3 million in funding. The company will use the funding to add to its team – especially data scientists, engineers, and banking industry experts – as well as to support Finn.ai’s expansion in the U.S., and around the world.

“Finn.ai is built from the ground up specifically to help banks and credit unions transform the way they engage with customers,” Co-Founder and CEO Jake Tyler said. “(This) makes banking simpler, more accessible, more human, and ultimately (helps) to build trust and engagement between banks and their customers.

The funding for Finn.ai, which also featured the participation of an “experienced angel syndicate … of senior technology and banking executives,” coincides with news of the company’s partnership with ATB Financial. In this deal, announced earlier this week, Finn.ai’s technology will enable ATB Financial to provide the first, fully-featured, AI-powered virtual banking assistant on Facebook Messenger to its 700,000 customers.

In addition to the funding, Finn.ai announced that banking veteran Carrie Russell will join the company as Strategic Executive Adviser. Russell was formerly Chief Marketing Officer at D+H (now Finastra) and served as SVP for Retail Banking Products at TD Bank. Citing a need for banks to “move beyond transactional banking to build deeper, more personal relationships with customers,” Russell said, “I believe Finn.ai is the right partner to do this, acting as a proactive virtual assistant to help customers understand, plan, and take action to improve their financial lives.”

Finn.ai won Best of Show in its FinovateAsia debut last year in Hong Kong, and took home top honors again when the company demoed its virtual banking assistant last month at FinovateFall. Finn.ai has earned recognition from both Capegemini’s global InnovatorsRace and the VivaTech conference in Paris. The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

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Credit Sesame Raises More than $42 Million, Unveils Robo Advisor for Credit

Credit Sesame Raises More than $42 Million, Unveils Robo Advisor for Credit
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Credit Sesame, Funding

Credit service and financial wellness company Credit Sesame has raised more than $42 million in funding. Featuring new and existing investors such as Menlo Ventures, Inventus Capital, Globespan Capital, IA Capital, and SF Capital, the combined equity ($26.6 million) and venture debt ($15.5 million) financing will take Credit Sesame’s total capital to more than $77 million. The funding will help speed Credit Sesame’s growth, enable the company to hire more than 100 new employees over the next 12 months, and “advance its analytics, robo advisor and machine learning technologies.”

That’s right. Robo advisor. In addition to the company’s funding announcement, Credit Sesame founder and CEO Adrian Nazari introduced new robo advisory technology that enables consumers to automate the management of their credit and loans. Credit Sesame sees this as “addressing the liability side of the balance sheet” rather than the asset side typically watched over by most robo advisors.

Credit Sesame CEO and founder Adrian Nazari demonstrating the company’s credit-based PFM solution at FinovateSpring 2015.

“While many companies have spent the last few years catching up to our free credit score offering for consumers, Credit Sesame has been developing and proving robo advisor technology.” Nazari said. He added, “this technology translates consumer financial and credit information into simple and actionable steps that consumers can easily understand and utilize to improve their financial profile and leverage their credit.”

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Mountain View, California, Credit Sesame demonstrated its credit-based PFM for a co-branded environment at FinovateSpring 2015. With more than 12 million members, Credit Sesame’s mobile and online solutions give consumers free access to their credit profile, including their credit score, credit report grades and monitoring, as well as interactive tools and tips for securing better borrowing options such as low or no-balance credit card offers and debt consolidation loans.

Credit Sesame has achieved 100% annual growth for the past three years, reaching profitability earlier this year. This spring, the company launched a new service to pre-qualify members for credit cards. In February, Nazari was named to the Entrepreneur’s List of Most Inspirational Leaders in 2017, one month after earning similar recognition from Inc.com.

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SelfScore Rebrands as Deserve, Closes on $12 Million in Funding

SelfScore Rebrands as Deserve, Closes on $12 Million in Funding
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, SelfScore

Consumer analytics company SelfScore rebranded to Deserve today. The California-based company is still committed to providing underbanked Americans with access to credit, and to fuel that mission, Deserve has received $12 million in funding. Today’s round was led by Accel– with participation from Aspect Ventures, Pelion Ventures, Mission Holdings, Alumni Venture Group, and GDP Venture– and brings Deserve’s total funding to $27 million.

Deserve offers a credit card designed for Generation Z, whose members currently range in age from 6 to 21 years. This group accounts for 25% of the U.S. population and is projected to make up 40% of consumers by 2020. Because Generation Z consumers have thin-to-no credit files, they have difficulty accessing credit products at a fair rate. To combat this, Deserve uses an algorithm to predict credit potential by analyzing consumer attributes such as education, current financial health, and future employability. Sameer Gandhi of Accel described this application of machine learning as a “big opportunity to evolve past the antiquated FICO system in a technologically sophisticated way.”

The company’s Deserve Edu card is specifically focused on students, including international students. The card offers benefits such as an 18-month subscription to Amazon Prime Student, 1% cash-back on all purchases, and no fees on foreign transactions. And, for international students, there is no SSN required. To promote and encourage consumers to build their credit score, the company offers incentives for consumers to upgrade to the Deserve Pro Mastercard, which features 3% cashback on travel and entertainment, 2% cash back on restaurants, and 1% unlimited cash-back on all other purchases.

Under the SelfScore brand, the company assessed credit for more than 100,000 international students. Now, under Deserve, the company will target all 20 million college students and another 20 million young adults in the United States. “When I immigrated to America in 1995, one of the hardest parts of settling down in a new country was my lack of financial security and independence,” said Kalpesh Kapadia, founder and CEO of Deserve. “A credit card is one of many tools that was not accessible to me. This is why I wanted to implement technology that rethinks the process for offering access to fair and simple credit. Deserve represents that mission.”

Founded in 2012, Deserve demoed a consumer behavior analytics service at FinovateFall 2014 under the name SelfScore. The company’s accounts are issued by Utah-based Celtic Bank. Check out our profile of Deserve in our Finovate Debuts series in 2014.

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BLUERUSH Raises $1.3 Million in New Funding

BLUERUSH Raises $1.3 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: BLUERUSH, Funding

BLUERUSH closed a non-brokered private placement this week, raising $1.3 million in capital. Participating in the funding were Round 13 Capital Founders Fund, which was responsible for $750,000 of the financing, and newly appointed director Steve Taylor, who subscribed for $250,000.

“This financing will allow us to ramp up our sales and R&D efforts as we continue on our path toward a recurring revenue model,” BLUERUSH President and CEO Larry Lubin said. “The investors in the private placement are highly strategic and bring decades of experience in high growth technology companies. They will be a valuable asset to us going forward.”

BLUERUSH President and CEO Larry Lubin demonstrating INDIVIDEO at FinovateFall 2017.

In a blog post at the BLUERUSH website, the company noted that the funding will also boost its digital platform strategy, providing momentum for the company’s sales enablement platform DIGITALREACH and its personalized video/rich media content platform, INDIVIDEO. Rielle Ullberg, Digital Marketing and Sales Coordinator for BLUERUSH wrote, “the demand for personalized digital experiences continues to increase; specifically within the realm of financial services.” Ullberg noted that the company’s client list includes “some of the biggest and most progressive banks, brokers, and insurance companies in North America.”

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, BLUERUSH demonstrated its “advice engine” INDIVIDEO at FinovateFall 2017. The company, which also has offices in Montreal, Quebec and in Herndon, Virginia, leverages AI and big data visualization to create more engaging customer experiences for clients in financial services, healthcare, and media. From strategy development and lead generation to video marketing and interactive tools and training, BLUERUSH helps brands develop customized strategies to grow their businesses.

In financial services, BLUERUSH’s technology simplifies information and enables professionals to communicate it in a more compelling way. This makes it easier for consumers to make better decisions and helps advisors build trust with their clients. “It’s not just business,” Lubin said from the Finovate stage in September, emphasizing the importance of “advice” in the self-serve oriented, fintech experience. “It’s personal. And financial matters are really personal.”

BLUERUSH trades on the TSVX under the ticker symbol “BTV,” and has a market capitalization of $5 million (6 million CAD).

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Tink Receives $16.5 Million in Funding, Announces Expansion, New Clients

Tink Receives $16.5 Million in Funding, Announces Expansion, New Clients
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Funding, Tink

Swedish-born PFM app Tink has landed $16.5 million today for its personal financial management app and packaged APIs. The funds come from SEB, Nordea, Nordnet, ABN Amro, Creades and Sunstone and brings the company’s total funding to $30.5 million.

“This latest funding will allow us to put great focus on the European market, scale our offer, and help banks to keep pace with the expectations of their customers,” said Daniel KjellĂ©n, co-founder and CEO of Tink. “We see this need continuing to grow as customers exert their rights to access their financial information and take control of their money.”

In addition to expanding its pocketbook, the company has also broadened its horizons. Not only has Tink signed licensing agreements with Nordea, Nordnet, and Klarna, it also announced plans to further its European expansion. Today’s partnerships add to the company’s existing agreements with Sweden-based SEB and Dutch-based ABN Amro who teamed up with Tink last year. Through the partnerships, Nordea, Nordnet, and Klarna can integrate Tink’s aggregation, payment initiation technology, and PFM platform into their existing customer channels. Klarna, a bank focused on the online payment experience, demoed its flagship payment technology at FinovateSpring 2012.

KjellĂ©n announced that the company will be live in 10 European countries at the beginning of 2018. He said that Tink’s technology “transforms the industry” by assisting banks to build a customer experience that helps clients understand their finances, make smarter choices, and “ultimately brings them financial happiness.” KjellĂ©n continued, “We see today’s announcement as evidence of a new generation of bank and fintech partnerships. By working together, we are paving the way for a new era of banking in Europe – unlocking the market to create greater choice and a better deal for consumers.”

Tink is an active supporter of the European Union’s proposed PSD2 legislation and has campaigned for greater consumer access to their financial data. The company’s APIs enable banks to plug-and-play account aggregation, payment initiation, PFM, and product recommendation technology in a single platform.

Tink has 50 employees and was founded in 2012. The Tink app has more than 400,000 users in Sweden. This summer the company earned a place on CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list., KjellĂ©n, along with the company’s Commercial Director Tashi Sylten, took home a Best of Show win for their demo of Tink at FinovateEurope 2017 in London. Three years earlier, at FinovateEurope 2014, the company won Best of Show for its debut of the Tink platform.

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BlueVine Lands $130 Million in Debt Financing

BlueVine Lands $130 Million in Debt Financing
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BlueVine, Funding

Alternative lending company BlueVine received a boost today, landing a $130 million round of debt funding. The company’s overall financing now totals $273 million, which is now comprised of $205 million in debt and $68 million in equity.

Supporting BlueVine in this round are Silicon Valley Bank, SunTrust Bank, Bank Leumi, and TriplePoint Venture Growth BDC Corporation. The company will use the funds to support its invoice factoring offering and grow its overall business. Ana Sirbu, BlueVine’s Vice President of Finance and Capital Markets said the company is “building a business for the long term” and notes that more than 80% of the company’s business comes from returning customers.

Additionally, the company has launched a new credit line that allows businesses to make payments on a monthly, instead of a weekly basis over the course of a 12-month term. Last year, the company increased its maximum line of credit to $100 million. “BlueVine’s goal is to offer the optimal solution for every working capital challenge faced by business owners, and our new product is another step forward in fulfilling this vision,” says BlueVine Founder and CEO Eyal Lifshitz. “Business owners have diverse needs, and by augmenting our product offering, we are able to offer the solution that fits best.”

Founded in 2013, BlueVine is best known for Invoice Factoring, in which it issues cash to small businesses who sell their unpaid invoices at a discount, then receive up to $2 million in working capital in a matter of days to help manage operations. This summer, the company partnered with Solomoto to combine its offering with Solomoto’s digital marketing platform.

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Feedzai Secures $50 Million in New Funding

Feedzai Secures $50 Million in New Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Feedzai, Funding

In a round led by an undisclosed investor, real-time, AI-enabled risk and fraud management platform Feedzai has raised $50 million in Series C funding. The financing, which takes Feedzai’s total capital to $82 million, also featured participation from existing investor Sapphire Ventures.

“We’ve made major headway on our vision in the last year, and this new round of funding will help us accelerate our growth as we continue to invest in the top people, as well as the most advanced data science and machine learning technology, to make banking and commerce safe across the globe,” Feedzai CEO and co-founder Nuno Sebastiao said. The company plans to grow its workforce to 300 by the end of 2017, and highlighted the hiring of former Box SVP Jim Priestly as its new Chief Revenue Officer as an example of the kind of year Feedzai has enjoyed.

Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Feedzai demonstrated its Feedzai Fraud Prevention platform at FinovateEurope 2014. The company leverages artificial intelligence, big data, and machine learning to provide fraud prevention solutions for banks, payment providers, and merchants. Securing online account opening, payments, and e-commerce are among the ways that Feedzai’s omnichannel fraud prevention solutions have been deployed since the company’s founding in 2008. “Feedzai’s proprietary platform puts the power back in the hands of merchants, issuers, and payment networks to manage risk while improving topline revenue,” Sapphire Ventures partner Anders Ranum said.

This summer Israel-based consumer credit card service provider Leumi Card announced that it would use Feedzai’s platform to detect and fight fraud. A member of Planet Compliance’s RegTech 100, Feedzai partnered with Co-op Financial Services in March and teamed up with the Merchant Risk Council (MRC) in February. We featured Feedzai in our January look at AI in fintech, A Fintech Filter for Artificial Intelligence in 2017.

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BankBazaar Receives $30 Million in Funding Round Led by Experian

BankBazaar Receives $30 Million in Funding Round Led by Experian
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BankBazaar, Funding

India-based online credit processing platform BankBazaar is sure to have a happy Diwali this year. That’s because the company has landed $30 million in a Series D funding round led by Experian.

The company didn’t name other contributors to today’s round, but cited existing backers Amazon, Sequoia, Eight Roads (Fidelity Growth Partners) and Walden International, who have helped boost BankBazaar’s total funding to $110 million. “The funds from this round will be used to further strengthen our position as the leader in secure paperless access to loans, cards, and Mutual Funds,” said BankBazaar CEO Adhil Shetty. The company also noted that it will use the funds to support international expansion efforts. BankBazaar has already made inroads into Singapore and is considering further expanding into Asia, the Middle East, Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong, UAE, and the Philippines.

Founded in 2008, BankBazaar serves as a single platform where users can shop for and access a variety of financial products, including mortgages, personal loans, car loans, credit cards, fixed deposit accounts, and insurance offered by more than 75 financial institutions. The company began focusing on paperless finance last year, when it introduced paperless loan applications. Shetty expects Experian to help it “accelerate towards [its] vision of paperless access to all financial products.”

Ben Elliott, CEO of Experian Asia Pacific, said, “We believe that consumer adoption of fully digital experiences coupled with paperless access to financial products will push customer acquisition 10X by 2020. With e-commerce shoppers growing significantly over the next few years, companies with paperless technology platforms are well-positioned to leverage the latest trends in consumer technology and help millions of Indians gain access to formal banking and finance products, further enabling financial inclusion for millions of underserved consumers.”

BankBazaar demoed its real-time credit processing platform at FinovateAsia 2012 in Singapore. The company recently partnered with Experian to offer users access to view their credit score for free. Last year, BankBazaar was awarded the ‘Emerging Brand of the Year’ and ‘CEO of the Year’ awards at the 7th CMO Asia Awards in Singapore for Excellence in Branding and Marketing.

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Bill.com Discloses September Investment Round, Doubles Total Funding

Bill.com Discloses September Investment Round, Doubles Total Funding
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Bill.com, Funding

Business payments network Bill.com has updated the news regarding the $100 million in funding it landed last month. The round was lead by JPMorgan Chase and Temasek, with participation from lead investors in each of Bill.com’s earlier funding rounds. The financing doubles the company’s previous funding total to $200 million.

In a blog post titled Funding for a Better Future in Digital Payments, Bill.com CEO RenĂ© Lacerte said the company plans to do “what no other fintech company has been able to do before: eliminate checks and paper from the business operating manual.” Lacerte continued, “With this additional capital, we will cross the chasm shifting digital payments from early adoption to major, widespread market acceptance.”

Bill.com was founded in 2006 to help businesses manage accounts payables and receivables with online billpay, custom invoicing, document storage, collaboration tools, and more. Today, the company remains focused on digital, paperless payment options and offers the largest business payment network in the U.S. Bill.com’s 2.5 million members account for more than 1% of all U.S. businesses and process more than $50 billion in payments each year. The company has 100,000 customers and is partnered with four of the top 10 U.S. banks and with more than half of the top 100 accounting firms.

Bill.com’s Lacerte debuted the company’s CashView tools at FinovateSpring 2012. Last month, the company won the Accountex User Favorite Award in the Bill Pay Solution category. Most recently, Bill.com announced a partnership with JP Morgan Chase in which it will help Chase’s business customers manage their cash flow.

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