Funding Archives - Page 64 of 89

Behavioral Biometrics Startup Zighra Lands $1 Million in Seed Funding

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 16, 2016
Categories: Funding, Zighra

Behavioral biometrics and fraud prevention company Zighra closed $1 million in seed funding recently. The round was led by the Investment Accelerator Fund, Export Development Canada, and the Business Development Bank of Canada.

This is the Ottawa-based company’s third round of funding. The amounts of the first two rounds were undisclosed, but Zighra’s funding total is now greater than $1 million. Zighra CEO Deepak Dutt said he plans to use the funds “to go into acceleration mode.” Specifically, he plans to bolster sales and marketing efforts to reach more mobile banking and mobile commerce clients.

Zighra, an Invest Ottawa portfolio company, offers security software that analyzes users’ behavioral patterns to validate their identify and prevent fraud. At FinovateFall 2013, Zighra debuted KineticID, a mobile authentication solution that evaluates the user’s unique, kinetic interaction with their mobile device. Earlier this year, the company graduated from Barclays Techstars Accelerator, which led to Zighra taking on a pilot project for the banking giant. The accelerator program also offered Zighra exposure to the U.K. market, a new geography for the company, which has previously focused on North America, the Middle East, and India.

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Canada, Zighra has six employees and anticipates it will double its workforce by the end of 2017. Earlier this month, the company won Best Tech at the C100 48Hrs in the Valley program and last year was featured in the Wall Street Journal for its behavioral authentication efforts.

Behavioral biometrics has been a hot topic in 2016, and we expect it to be a star topic of 2017, as well. Finovate alums such as BehavioSec, BioCatch, NuData Security, and Trusteer (acquired by IBM in 2013) each offer unique solutions to combat fraud using behavioral biometrics.

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Personal Capital’s Growth Leads to Additional $25 Million in Funding

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 15, 2016
Categories: Funding, Personal Capital

Digital advisory service and wealth management firm Personal Capital is closing out 2016 by adding another $25 million to the $75 million in equity investment the company took home from IGM Financial in May. Today’s funding was part of a contingency from investor IGM Financial that stated Personal Capital had to reach a certain growth milestone by Q2 of 2017. Since the California-based company exceeded the specified growth target, the funds were distributed early, just in time for the new year. This closes Personal Capital’s Series E round and increases its 2016 funding to $100 million and boosts its total funding to just over $175 million.

“IGM Financial has been a great investor,” said Bill Harris, CEO of Personal Capital. “Over the past six months, we’ve been able to grow marketing, staffing, and offerings to our users and clients. With the final $25 million in investment secured, we look forward to seeing even more growth as we help more families manage their financial lives.” The company used the initial $75 million to increase its marketing efforts and hire new staff across its offices in San Carlos, San Francisco, and Denver.

Personal Capital’s CEO Bill Harris and CPO Jim Del Favero demoed at FinovateSpring 2014.

The new investment lifts Personal Capital’s valuation to around $500 million. That’s double what the company’s valuation was after its Series D funding round closed in 2014—$200 million shy of competitors’ valuations. Betterment and Wealthfront (pure robo advisory plays), as well as SigFig (a hybrid robo advisor) each have valuations of $700 million.

In addition to the funding from IGM Financial, Personal Capital has received a $25 million line of credit from Silicon Valley Bank. With regard to the credit, Mike Armsby, CFO of Personal Capital, says it will help the company “spur rapid growth in the New Year.”

Personal Capital delivers financial planning and investment portfolio management services. The company blends high tech and high touch by combining unbiased, algorithmic investing approaches and conversations via video chat—with real, human advisers. Personal Capital has added $1.5 billion in AUM in 2016. This represents 80% growth in less than 12 months and brings the company’s total AUM to $3.4 billion. In addition, Personal Capital offers a free, account-aggregation tool to help its 1.3 million registered users view all of their accounts in one place.

Personal Capital most recently presented at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016, where Ehsan Lavassani, the company’s founding engineer and chief engineering officer, talked about data-driven account opening. At FinovateSpring 2014, CEO Bill Harris and Chief Product Officer Jim Del Favero debuted One Click Investment Proposals.

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Investment from Rakuten Boosts Kreditech’s Total Capital By More than $10 Million

By David Penn Posted on December 15, 2016
Categories: Funding, Fundings, Kreditech

Germany consumer finance innovator Kreditech has just picked up a $10.4 million (€10 million) investment from Japan’s Rakuten. The new funds, which will be used to develop Kreditech’s partnership business, take the company’s total capital to more than $160 million. According to TechCrunch, the investment gives Kreditech a valuation of $313 million (€300 million).

In a statement accompanying the announcement, Kreditech founder and CEO Alexander Grabner-Müller emphasized how the capital will help drive the company’s partnership business. He also praised Rakuten’s investment in his company’s “mission to improve financial freedom for the underbanked through technology.” Kreditech CFO Rene Griemens added that Rakuten’s “strong market position in Asia” could be a “door opener” for the company which already has a presence in Russia, Poland, Romania, Spain, and Mexico, as well as its home country of Germany.

Kreditech is not the only fintech, nor the only Finovate alum, that Rakuten has invested in. The firm invested $15 million in Azimo this spring, and contributed to Currency Cloud’s $18 million Series C round last summer. Speaking of Kreditech, Rakuten Fintech Fund managing partner Oskar Mielczarek de la Miel highlighted the company’s “distinctive big-data-driven credit model and tech expertise” and complimented Kreditech’s “unique model of individual empowerment through access to credit.”

Founded in 2012, Kreditech demonstrated its technology at FinovateSpring 2014. The company’s solutions leverage non-traditional data and machine learning to provide financing options such as loans, PFM, and digital wallets to underbanked communities. In October, Kreditech was named to the 2016 Fintech 100 sponsored by H2 Ventures and KPMG—the same month the company announced that former mBank veteran Michal Panowicz was joining it as chief product and information officer. Kreditech launched its online POS financing solution, Monedo Now, in June, providing online consumers with instant financing of as much as $5,500.

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Socure Raises $13 Million In New Capital

By David Penn Posted on December 15, 2016
Categories: Funding, Fundings, Socure

In a round led by Flint Capital, digital identity verification technology specialist Socure has raised $13 million in funding. Featuring participation from ff Venture Capital, Santander InnoVentures, and Two Sigma Ventures, this week’s investment takes Socure’s total financing to more than $17 million.

“Security, compliance, and fraud prevention are key issues for investors, consumers, regulators, and employees in the financial services industry,” Socure CEO and co-founder Sunil Madhu said. “As a year when major breaches made headline news now draws to a close, we are thrilled to be able to provide them with a technologically advanced and proven solution.” The company says it will use the funding to fuel innovation on its platform and scale operations—including Socure’s 300% growth in 2016.

Sunil Madhu, Socure CEO and co-founder, demonstrated Perceive at FinovateFall 2015 in New York.

Socure specializes in providing identity verification for unbanked/underbanked, thin-file customers, making the solution ideal for younger populations as well as for those in developing regions. Sergey Gribov, a partner at Flint Capital, in his praise of Socure, says the firm “supplements market deficiencies in which current identity verification solutions fall short—including millennials, who largely avoid the use of credit, or [for those] abroad, where credit systems don’t exist at all.” Socure provides a suite of RESTful APIs delivering over a secure, scalable cloud-based system that operates in real-time. Stash CEO and co-founder Brandon Krieg called the technology “a key element in our identity verification stack.” He added, “Socure … has enabled us to substantially increase acceptance of new customers.”

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in New York City, Socure develops online identity-verification solutions. The company’s Social Biometrics Platform is designed to provide ID verification and increased acceptance rates by leveraging both social behavior data from major social networks as well as online and offline GLB and DLPA data. Socure demonstrated Perceive, its remote facial biometrics solution at FinovateFall 2015. Last month, Socure unveiled a “momentous redesign” of its digital ID verification solution, and in May, the company announced expanded coverage for KYC, CDD, CIP, and AML compliance.

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BlueVine’s $49 Million to Fuel Product Expansion

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 14, 2016
Categories: BlueVine, Funding

Alternative lending company BlueVine landed $49 million in a Series D funding round this week. Contributors include existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, 83North, Citi Ventures, Rakuten Fintech Fund, and Silicon Valley Bank.

BlueVine’s funding now totals $113 million. In a press release, the company notes the new funds will “support BlueVine’s rapid growth as it expands its team and range of offerings.” Since launching in 2014, BlueVine has funded more than $200 million in working capital for thousands of small businesses. The company projects it will fund more than $500 million in 2017.

BlueVine offers a straightforward line of credit to help small businesses get the working capital they need. The company is best known for Invoice Factoring, in which it issues cash to small businesses who sell their unpaid invoices at a discount, then receive working capital in a matter of days to help manage operations. Unlike BlueVine’s traditional line-of-credit offering, the term of the financing is short, usually 60 to 90 days.

Along with the funding news, BlueVine also announced it has once again increased its line of credit. The invoice factoring limit has lifted to $2 million, and its business line of credit has been bumped to $100,000. The company’s last increase occurred in July, when the maximum credit line for invoice factoring increased to $500,000 and its Flex Credit line, which launched in April, increased to $50,000.

Recently, BlueVine was dubbed Best B2B Factoring Service by Business News Daily. The company’s CEO Eyal Lifshitz, along with CTO Nir Klar, CRO Moti Shatner, and VP of Operations Edward Castaño debuted BlueVine at FinovateFall 2014 in New York.

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Hip Pocket Closes $150k Round of Funding

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on December 12, 2016
Categories: Funding, Hip Pocket

Mortgage rate comparison site Hip Pocket announced last week it has padded its own hip pockets after closing a recent $150,000 funding round. The convertible note round brings the Nebraska-based company’s total funding to $180,000.

Hip Pocket founder and CEO Mark Zmarzly says the funds will be used to expand into the employer financial wellness market and to further build out Hip Money, Hip Pocket’s latest product. Hip Money is a savings-focused PFM app that leverages Swipe to Save, a Tinder-like UX to encourage users to save for their personalized savings goals by swiping. Hip Money does not have a launch date but is launching “soon” and is taking requests for early access.

“Hip Pocket engages your mobile and website visitors by using social influence and personalized consultation to drive new, engaged mortgage and retirement leads,” CEO Zmarzly said at the start of the company’s FinovateSpring 2015 demo. Hip Pocket’s white-labeled web app helps banks increase consumer engagement by comparing the borrower’s current mortgage rate not only to that of their peer group, but also to the bank’s own rates. By offering this transparency, banks foster consumer trust and encourage borrowers to increase engagement.

Founded in 2013, Hip Pocket was featured in Inc.’s overview of the Silicon Prairie and was featured as one of three finalists for Techli’s Startup Voodoo competition in the Most Promising Startup category.

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Finicity Scores $42 Million Series B in Round Led by Experian

By David Penn Posted on December 8, 2016
Categories: Experian, Finicity, Funding, Fundings

Real-time financial data-aggregation provider Finicity will use $42 million in new capital to drive new product development, especially financial management and payment solutions for the credit decisioning market. The Series B round was led by Experian (F12), included a venture debt facility from Bridge Bank, and featured participation from Finicity’s existing investors.

Finicity CEO and co-founder Steve Smith said the funding represented a belief in his company’s vision of transforming the financial data services market. “The emergence of the open financial web, and our ability to access and analyze account data, is enabling new thinking in financial services,” Smith said. “This will improve existing processes and lead to better financial decisions for individuals and the institutions that serve them.”

From left:

Finicity Data Services President Nick Thomas and CTO Chip Whitmer demonstrated TxPUSH API at FinovateSpring 2015.

Finicity’s recent certification as a credit-reporting agency was a hint that the financial data-aggregation services veteran might add credit decisioning to its set of solutions. To start, Finicity will focus on making the loan origination process more efficient, in part by “digitiz(ing) the legacy pen-and-paper process of asset and income verification.”

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, Finicity demonstrated its TxPUSH API for fintech apps at FinovateSpring 2015, and presented “The Launch of Real-time Transaction Push” at FinDEVr New York 2016. In September, the company unveiled its ACH Account Verification API and, in August, Finicity won the Finance API of the Year award from API World.

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Western Union Takes Strategic Stake in Walletron

By David Penn Posted on December 7, 2016
Categories: Funding, Fundings, Walletron

Walletron, the company that hopes to make accessing your mobile wallets as easy as using your digital boarding pass at the airport, has just won a strategic investment from Western Union. Khalid Fellahi, SVP and GM for Western Union Digital, said his firm’s partnership with Walletron helps reinforce Western Union’s commitment to the mobile channel, which he calls “our priority customer-engagement channel” for both money transfer and payments.

Walletron’s technology is an SaaS platform that manages the content and appearance of digital cards in a mobile wallet such as Wallet and Android Pay. The company’s moBills solution enables billers to put a payment and presentment channel on customers’ smartphones to provide for faster payment, important reminders and notifications, and more.

Walletron CEO Garrett Baird demonstrated moBills at FinovateFall 2015.

The strategic investment—amount undisclosed—comes just a few months after the two companies announced a commercial alliance between Walletron and Western Union’s billpay service, Speedway. The alliance enables Western Union biller clients to add Walletron’s moBills solution to take advantage of personalized notifications, bill information, and other features using their smartphones.

Nasdaq.com reported that Western Union’s investment in Walletron is part of an effort to expand its presence in the mobile payments space. The company’s own research indicates that 27% of all consumers and 48% of Gen Y consumers expect to pay more bills by a mobile device. Mobile World Live compared the Walletron investment to Western Union’s partnership with messaging app WeChat back in November 2015, and noted the company’s competition from mobile remittance/money transfer startups such as Azimo and Xendpay.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Walletron demonstrated its moBills solution at FinovateFall 2015. Check out our Finovate Debut profile of the company from this summer.

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Tradeshift Earns Undisclosed Investment from Santander

By David Penn Posted on December 6, 2016
Categories: Funding, Fundings, Tradeshift

Tradeshift is the latest company to pick up an investment from Santander InnoVentures, the fintech-based venture capital fund run by Santander Group. The new capital will help Tradeshift develop its supply-chain finance platform and add to the company’s B2B marketplace.

Terms of the investment were not disclosed. Tradeshift had raised more than $190 million in total capital ahead of this week’s investment, with its latest infusion of capital a $75 million funding round led by Data Collective from this summer.

Calling Santander “a natural fit,” Tradeshift CEO and Chairman Christian Lanng praised the Spanish bank for its history of collaborating and partnering with its portfolio companies. “We are excited by the opportunities this investment will create to explore new offerings and different geographies around the world,” Lanng said. Santander InnoVentures’ managing partner Mariano Belinky said Tradeshift is “at the forefront of tackling a very real business need” and using innovative technology to do so.

“Tradeshift has built an open business network on a scalable cloud-first platform that is extensible by third-party applications,” Belinky explained. “This architecture is a key differentiator. As a result, the potential to provide complimentary and added-value services around the Tradeshift platform is particularly powerful.

The investment news comes just days after Tradeshift announced the launch of a pair of new joint ventures in China. The initiatives are designed to help meet the country’s growing demand for supply-chain digitalization and feature partnerships with Shenzhen XunLian Technology Development Company in Chongqing, and Chinese tax-related services provider, Baiwang. “Our platform vision puts both buyers and their suppliers at the center of our value proposition,” Tradeshift SVP of Asia Pacific, Mikkel Hippe Brun said during the joint venture announcement. “(It) is proving to be a natural fit in China’s trade ecosystem as it is everywhere else,” Brun said. Earlier this fall, the company announced expansion to Australia and New Zealand, and was named to Battery Ventures/Glassdoor’s 50 Highest Rated Private Cloud Companies to Work For. In June, Tradeshift introduced its B2B virtual assistant for managing business and travel expenses, Go.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in San Francisco, Tradeshift demonstrated the Instant Payments feature of its platform at FinovateEurope 2012. Tradeshift’s platform links 800,000 companies across 190 countries.

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Seattle-based Finagraph Completes $5 Million Financing

By David Penn Posted on November 30, 2016
Categories: Finagraph, Funding, Fundings

In a round led by Moody’s Corporation, financial business data specialist Finagraph has raised $5 million in funding. The company, which demoed at FinovateSpring 2013 as BBC Easy, will use the fresh capital for both product development as well as increasing its market reach in North America.

“Finagraph streamlines the data collection process by replacing weeks of back-and-forth emails and phone calls with the click of a button, instantly transferring financial and credit information,” Finagraph CEO James Walter explained. “Harnessing the power of technology to automate the exchange of financial information between parties is transformative,” he said.

From left: Finagraph co-founders James Walter, CEO, and Corey Ross, VP sales, demonstrated BBC Easy at FinovateSpring 2013.

This is not the first time Moody’s has expressed interest in the company. Earlier this year, we reported that Moody’s had taken a minority stake in Finagraph, though the amount of the investment was not disclosed. At the time, Mark Almeida, president of Moody’s Analytics, said Finagraph’s technology would help “bankers make better, faster lending decisions for the growing SME market.” The current $5 million investment from Moody’s includes that funding from this spring, as well as recent contributions from other investors.

Finagraph’s flagship technology is its Finagraph Engine, which gathers, processes, and analyzes SME financial data quickly with 100% accuracy. Lenders can add the Finagraph Engine to their loan-origination system or app to better collect key business data as well as compare performance against various benchmarks as well as varying time periods. Finagraph also provides its BBC Easy solution, which automates the borrowing base certificate process for lenders and SMEs, and Finagraph Academy, a collection of webinars and seminars for bankers and business owners that provide guidance on building client relationships, managing business finances, and more.

Founded in 2010 as BBC Easy and rebranding as Finagraph in 2013, the Seattle-based company demonstrated its Base Borrowing Certificate technology at FinovateSpring. In September, Finagraph’s technology was leveraged by Moody’s Analytics to build its MARQ portal, which automates the exchange of financial data between borrowers and lenders, generating the MARQ small business score in the process.

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Five Degrees Raises $10 Million in New Funding

By David Penn Posted on November 29, 2016
Categories: Five Degrees, Funding, Fundings

A new investment of more than $10 million (€10 million) will help core banking technology provider Five Degrees focus on both product development and global expansion. The funding comes courtesy of new investor Karmijn Kapitaal and existing investors, 5Square and Velocity Capital.

Calling Karmijn Kapitaal “more than just a new shareholder,” Five Degrees CEO Martijn Hohmann said the investment was a “sign of trust in our belief that delivering top technology is about people and creating an environment that is about unconventional thinking brought to perfection.” Karmijn Kapitaal partner Hadewych Cels added that the investment in Five Degrees represented a “unique opportunity to broaden” his firm’s portfolio. “We see Five Degrees as a winner in FinTech,” Cels said.

Five Degrees’ Matrix digital banking platform provides retail and private banks with a fully automated solution that supports any product or channel via a web-based, mid-office environment connected to either the client’s legacy back-office or Matrix’s. The technology can be deployed in a variety of pre-set configurations ranging from retail and SME banking to micro finance. The Matrix platform was recently deployed by LeasePlan Bank.

Five Degrees demonstrated its back-office solution, Matrix Accounts, at FinovateEurope 2016. This past spring, Five Degrees was named to FintechCity’s Fintech50 2016 and won the Banking & IT category at the Dutch Fintech Awards. Last summer, Five Degrees announced the addition of new chief commercial officer, Peter-Jan van de Venn. Five degrees was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Breukelen, The Netherlands.

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Germany’s figo Picks Up $7 Million in Series B Funding

By David Penn Posted on November 23, 2016
Categories: Figo, Funding, Fundings

Banking service provider figo has picked up an investment from strategic partner DB1 Ventures, the VC wing of Deutsche Börse Group. The “seven digit” investment gives Deutsche Börse a sizable minority stake in figo, and is designed to help fuel the company’s international expansion. Also participating in the round were “reputable business angels from Germany.” With the completed series B, figo raised more than $7 million (€ 6.8 million), and now has total capital of more than $12 million.

“In a changing financial landscape, figo has established itself as a reliable partner and has built up a fantastic fintech ecosystem around itself,” Deutsche Börse Managing Director Ankur Kamalia said. “We look forward to supporting their growth and also learning from the innovation they are driving.” Calling Deutsche Börse a “perfect partner” for his company, figo CEO André M. Bajorat (pictured) said the investment and strategic partnership will enable figo to “gain new enhanced visibility in the industry.”

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Germany, figo demonstrated its cloud banking API at FinovateEurope 2013. Europe’s first banking service provider, figo provides a banking API that enables third parties to connect apps and services to more than 3,000 FIs and financial service organizations. Operating in Germany and Austria, figo specializes in solutions to help companies with their Payments Services Directive strategies (PSD2). This, according to some, has been key to renewed investment interest in the company and was highlighted by Deutsche Börse’s Kamalia. “The figo team led by André Bajorat has made clear the opportunities that exist for virtually every player in the financial sector and the enormous potential that PSD2 implementation offers to European industry,” Kamalia said.

Last month, figo organized Hamburg FinTech Week, bringing together 85 programmers and product developers to focus on the latest innovations and trends in the German fintech scene. The event also featured a hackathon called Bankathon 2016 designed to promote development and create solutions based on PSD2 and XS2A (“access to account”). Access to account is a key component of PSD2, which encourages third parties to participate more directly in financial services, specifically in the areas of enabling financial data to be read and deployed in third-party services and solutions, as well as bank transfers using third-party apps. Writing about figo—the company’s recent funding and PSD2—Finance Magnates noted that figo’s embrace of PSD2 has “strategically placed itself at a key point in the payments realm, helping build a new banking infrastructure in a world hamstrung by open APIs.”

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