Funding Archives - Page 66 of 89

DemystData Lands New $7 Million Round

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on October 27, 2016
Categories: DemystData, Funding

Data-as-a-service company DemystData this week announced it closed a $7 million Series B round led by MissionOG. Notion Capital and Singtel Innov8 also contributed to the round, which boosted the New York-based company’s total funding to $16 million.

To meet increased demand in the U.S. and Asia, DemystData will use the funds to build its team and expand data partnerships. The company leverages big data pulled from in-house and online sources to help banks make informed decisions, improve the user experience, and decrease risk. DemystData counts as customers some of the world’s largest banks and insurance companies across 10 countries.

“We provide the key to accessing valuable data 10 times faster while adhering to increasing privacy constraints,” CEO Mark Hookey is quoted in a press release. He noted the company helps clients “cut risk by up to 60% and increase acceptance and straight-through processing rates to convert more customers.”

DemystData also this week released the Atlantic Platform, an API that aims to “assess consumer and small-business risk on the back of massive streams of data, text, images, and log files, while improving compliance with emerging privacy law.”

At FinovateAsia 2012, DemystData debuted Credit-in-a-Box, a suite of tools that help banks leverage big data to make better lending decisions. The API aggregates publicly sourced consumer data in real-time to help lenders measure risk and assess customer value. Founded in 2010, the company recently earned a spot in the FinTech20 Hong Kong. In April 2015, DemystData was recognized as a top 100 private company in AlwaysOn’s OnFinance Top 100.

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Nanopay Raises $10 Million Series A

By David Penn Posted on October 26, 2016
Categories: Funding, Fundings, nanoPay

With support from Goldman Sachs, Canadian payments innovator nanoPay has raised $10 million in new funding. The Series A also featured the participation of APAGM Services, Jarnac Capital Management, and Rohatton. nanoPay said the investment will help it develop business partnerships in advance of a larger rollout of its MintChip digital currency technology. The funding will also help nanoPay build additional complimentary services for both the B2B and B2C markets.

nanoPay CEO Laurence Cooke elaborated on this point, saying that in the wake of MintChip’s successful deployment in Canada this summer “our focus is now on expanding the platform beyond digital cash to a broad range of B2B uses-cases that have global applications.” Cooke referred to both B2C disbursements and cross-border payments as examples.

Laurence Cooke, nanoPay founder and CEO, demonstrated MintChip at FinovateFall 2016 in New York.

Developed by the Royal Canadian Mint and purchased by nanoPay in 2015, MintChip is a cloud-based currency that can be used to securely store and transfer digital value instantly, without third-party intervention. The technology provides for final, irrevocable transactions in real-time that are cryptographically secured. For consumers, MintChip provides a faster checkout process that combines both loyalty programs and payments, and works online as well as in-person. With its open API platform, MintChip has potential applications beyond commerce, including in telecommunications, central bank operations, and for acquirers.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, nanoPay demonstrated MintChip at FinovateFall 2016. Earlier this month, the company announced that Liberty Village would serve as a “working lab” for its digital currency. In July, nanoPay added Tracy Molino as general counsel and chief compliance officer and, in June, the company partnered with Ingenico Group to enable merchants to accept MintChip via their Ingenico Group smart terminals.

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Lendio Closes $20 Million Funding Round

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on October 25, 2016
Categories: Funding, Lendio

Small-business loan-marketplace Lendio today reeled in $20 million in Series D funding. Leading the round were Comcast Ventures and Stereo Capital. Existing investors Napier Park, Blumberg Capital, Tribeca Venture Partners and North Hill Ventures also contributed, bringing Lendio’s total funding to $31 million.

The Utah-based company will use the funds to boost Lendio’s growth via marketing, sales, and brand awareness, which should augment its YOY growth, which already sits at 100%. Other growth figures include:

In Q3, Lendio funded $63+ million in loans, up 14% from Q2 2016
In Q3, Lendio funded more than 2,900 businesses, up 22% from Q2 2016
Lendio saw a record number of repeat customers in Q3, up 33% over Q2 2016

Regarding the company’s growth, Lendio founder and CEO Brock Blake said, “Even though we’ve helped facilitate funding for more than 13,000 small business owners, we’re just scratching the surface as to the number of business owners that we can help; our goal is to help fuel the American Dream for the millions of SMBs that make up the backbone of our U.S. economy.”

Lendio seeks to decrease the time it takes for small businesses to secure loans. The company works on behalf of small business borrowers to match them with the right loan, helping the 75 lenders on its platform reach qualified borrowers. Lendio partnered with American Express in April to power its merchant-financing offering. In 2015, the company facilitated $128+ million in financing to more than 5,100 businesses. Lendio debuted at FinovateSpring 2011.

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PaySimple Pulls in $115 Million

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on October 24, 2016
Categories: Funding, PaySimple

Colorado-based service commerce solution PaySimple just closed its second round of funding since its founding in 2006. The $115 million round amounts to 7X more than the first round the company closed in 2011. PaySimple’s funding now totals $131 million.

The company anticipates the investment from Providence Strategic Growth will fuel efforts to market services online, automate payment acceptance, and deliver the solution to its customers. Mark Hastings, managing director and head of Providence Strategic Growth, will join PaySimple’s board of directors.

At FinovateFall 2012, PaySimple CEO Eric Remer (pictured right) demonstrated how the company uses early payment incentives to help small businesses get paid faster. Earlier this month, PaySimple began focusing on helping service-based businesses improve the customer experience by offering tools such as online appointment scheduling, payment and registration forms, and an online store, as well as a variety of ways to collect payment, such as in-person, online, over the phone, via invoice, and by recurring billing. Remer said, “The service-business model is centered around customers.” He added, “Business owners have to build trust and create lasting and ongoing relationships with people. Our service-commerce platform connects business owners and their staff to the people they do business with, instead of just the transactions or products sold.”

The company serves 17,000 clients in a range of industries, from fitness to professional services. In May, PaySimple partnered with small business loan marketplace Fundera to offer its clients a new way to procure working capital via the Fundera-empowered Loan Center.

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SecureKey Raises $20 Million in New Funding

By David Penn Posted on October 18, 2016
Categories: Funding, Fundings, SecureKey

Q. If you are Toronto-based identity and authentication specialist, SecureKey Technologies, what’s a nine-letter word for Canadian FIs commited to improving online security?

A. Investors.

SecureKey announced this week that it picked up $20.6 million ($27 million CAD) in new capital from BMO Bank of Montreal, Bank of Nova Scotia, CIBC, Desjardins, Royal Bank of Canada, and TD. The investment brings SecureKey’s total funding to $89 million and serves as growth capital to support the introduction of SecureKey’s digital identity network.

Greg Wolfond, SecureKey founder and chairman, said the support from “Canada’s largest financial institutions” would help his firm “develop and deliver a national ecosystem that puts consumers first.” Rizwan Khalfan, EVP and chief digital officer for TD, echoed this point and credited SecureKey for leading the way in making it easier for customers to manage their digital assets, as well as for the company’s willingness to work with and receive “substantial input from TD and other banks.” Khalfan added that TD was “uniquely positioned to help shape [SecureKey’s] offering” due to TD’s commitment to security and privacy.

Along with its collaborators, SecureKey anticipates launching its digital identity network in 2017. And with Wolfhound’s return as CEO, the company plans to further drive development of its SecureKey Concierge service, as well. “We want to help put the consumer back in the middle and let them take control of their digital assets, to share what they want, with whom they want, and always with informed consent,” Wolfond said.

Founded in 2008, SecureKey last demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2012. A Best of Show winner from its demo at FinovateFall 2010, SecureKey announced in September that CBIC had joined its authentication service, SecureKey Concierge. In 2015, SecureKey was named to KPMG and H2 Ventures’ Fintech 100.

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Financeit’s Fresh $17 Million to Fund TD Financing Acquisition

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on October 6, 2016
Categories: FinanceIt, Funding

Today, Financeit pulled in a $17 million venture funding round that was led by new investors Pritzker family business interests advised by The Pritzker Organization and DNS Capital. Existing investors also contributed. The new installment boosts the Canada-based company’s total funding to more than $38 million since it was established in 2011.

This comes less than a month after Financeit announced the acquisition of TD Bank Group’s indirect home improvement financing assets. Today’s installment will be used to fund the $339 million transaction, which included the purchase of more than 800 merchant dealer agreements. Once things have settled from the deal, Financeit will be servicing 45,000 existing TD consumer loans.

The secondary purpose of today’s round will be to “support the ongoing needs of the company as it continues its rapid growth.” In a press release, Michael Garrity, founder and CEO of Financeit, said, “As more merchants embrace the benefits of offering cloud and mobile-based financing options to their customers, Financeit expects to increase its sizable signature in this market. We continue to focus on innovation for our merchant partners and market growth through both organic tactics and acquisition.” The company has already increased its lending activity in the home improvement industry by almost 2X since 2015.

Last month, Financeit made headlines when it recruited Ian Hanning, the CFO from Capital One Canada. Earlier this fall the company 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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Payoneer Closes $180 Million Series E Round

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on October 5, 2016
Categories: Funding, Payoneer

Global mass payout services provider Payoneer announced a $180 million round of funding today. The Series E round is from Technology Crossover Ventures, the same firm that has backed Facebook, Netflix, and Spotify.

This new round doubles the New York-based company’s previous funding amount, bringing its new total to $270 million. Payoneer CEO Scott Galit said the company will use the funds for further expansion, as Payoneer receives 250,000 business applications per month. While Galit would not comment on Payoneer’s valuation, Business Insider estimates that it is “likely in the billions.”

Payoneer has 800 employees across the globe; it recently opened offices in India, Japan, and the Philippines. According to TechCrunch, today’s round is the company’s last before it will begin seeking an IPO.

At FinovateAsia 2013, Payoneer launched a commercial account that offers businesses the ability to receive funds from a global network. Payoneer’s money-transfer solutions process “many billions of dollars a year” in 150 currencies for small businesses and professionals. The money-transfer solutions enable clients to withdraw the money at their local bank account in their own currency. The company also facilitates mass payouts for businesses looking to transfer money internationally, a service that supports companies such as Newegg, Airbnb, and Fiverr.

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Aire Raises $2 Million, Receives Regulation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on October 3, 2016
Categories: Aire, Funding

Alternative credit-scoring company Aire is a London-based startup that shows no sign of “Brexiting” any time soon. The company just closed an additional $2 million in funding, adding to the funding round it closed in April.

Today’s round was led by White Star Capital alongside Sunstone Capital and Accion Venture Lab and brings Aire’s total funding to $7 million. The company plans to use the new funds to expand its platform into new markets.

Aire announced it is now authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the financial regulator in the U.K. If you’re not familiar with the FCA, this is a pretty big deal for a startup. Receiving FCA authorization brings Aire onto a level playing field with the big-three credit bureaus.

In a statement, Aire co-founder and CEO Aneesh Varma said:

It’s a huge step for us and also for credit scoring. We strongly believe that lenders and their customers need a fairer and more accurate way to assess creditworthiness […]. As things stand, genuine hard-working people are being penalized by the way credit scores are created, and that’s not good for growth, innovation or well-being. We believe we have a solution to address this issue, balancing the numerous forces at play across data, ethics, regulation and technology.

Aire seeks to democratize access to credit by gathering meaningful data about potentially credit-worthy clients via an online interview and other reliable sources. By using artificial intelligence, the company processes the data to qualify users for credit. The company also helps lenders by expanding the pool of qualified applicants. Although Aire is currently focused on working with personal loan and credit card lenders, it plans to broaden its range of financial products.

Founded in 2014, Aire launched its API at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. In April the company was recognized in the European Fintech Top 100 list at the 2016 European Fintech Awards. Most recently, the company was featured in Tech City News magazine for its use of artificial intelligence.

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WealthForge to Raise $2.5 Million in New Convertible Note Offering

By David Penn Posted on September 29, 2016
Categories: Funding, Fundings, WealthForge

WealthForge will raise $2.5 million in new capital using the same convertible note strategy the company used last year to raise $2.2 million. Bill Robbins, who took the helm as CEO at WealthForge last December, said the funding will help WealthForge build its core business, as well as make investments in “sales, marketing, and support.” Characterizing the initial response to the convertible note offering as “extremely positive,” Robbins expects to complete the fundraising by the end of the year.

WealthForge has raised more than $5 million in total equity funding, and includes CIT GAP Funds, NRV, and SenaHill Partners among its investors. The current convertible note investment is structured as debt that can be converted into equity. Reporting on WealthForge’s SEC filing, Richmond Biz Sense noted that WealthForge is looking for minimum investments of $25,000 from outside investors.

C0-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Mat Dellorso demonstrated the WealthForge Network at FinovateSpring 2016.

A pioneer in bringing financial technology to the process of raising private capital, WealthForge connects issuers, investors, and their intermediaries within an online platform that provides a new level of transparency and efficiency for all parties. Issuers can present their offerings to registered intermediaries in an online showcase, while giving intermediaries the ability to provide investors with a branded investment experience. The company’s innovations include their “invest button technology” that enables anyone seeking to raise private capital to allow their investors to invest with a simple click, as well as the Dynamic Tombstones of its WealthForge Network that make it easy for anyone raising capital to market and advertise their offerings online in a safe and compliant way.

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, WealthForge demonstrated the WealthForge Network at FinovateSpring 2016. More than $240 million and more than 5,500 investments have been transacted on its platform. WealthForge is a UBS Future of Finance Challenge winner, a runner-up in the Benzinga Fintech Awards for 2016, and was named the fourth most active broker-dealer in U.S. private placements in 2015.

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Trunomi Closes $3 Million Seed Round

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on September 28, 2016
Categories: Funding, Trunomi

Consumer data provisioning company Trunomi pulled in its third round of funding today. The $3 million seed-round brings the company’s total funding to $8.3 million.

The round was co-led by existing investor Saturn Partners and newcomer Fintonia, whose chairman and CEO Adrian Chng has joined Trunomi’s board. Several other existing investors also contributed.

The California-based company aims to give consumers control of how their own Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is used by banks, while offering banks a way to safely create, manage, and share consumer information in a cost-efficient manner. At FinovateEurope 2015 in London, the company’s CEO and founder Stuart Lacey launched TruMobile, a customer-focused “consent engine” that creates privacy policies to allow the sharing of consumer PII data across platforms. In today’s press release Lacey said:

Consumers globally are becoming increasingly aware of the value of their own data. They are also living through a period of intense digitization in financial services. Together with our investors, we recognize that the pressure is truly on financial services providers, not only to meet these market pressures but to operate in full compliance with a raft of new, global data-privacy regulations.

Founded in 2013, Trunomi has offices in Bermuda, Dublin, and Silicon Valley. In April, Trunomi partnered with InAuth to help financial services companies manage consumer data during mobile onboarding. In June, the company took home two awards at the Benzinga Fintech Awards.

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SocietyOne Strikes Up Partnership with Beyond Bank, Reeling in $1.5 Million

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on September 26, 2016
Categories: Funding, SocietyOne

Australia-based P2P lender SocietyOne announced a new bank partner today. The company has teamed up with Beyond Bank Australia, a $4.8 billion customer-owned financial institution.

Beyond Bank Australia has contributed $1.5 million for an equity stake in SocietyOne and has increased its funding commitment in personal loans on the site to $10 million. The bank anticipates the investment will expand its footing in the fintech sector; CEO Wayne Matters describes the partnership as a “perfect example of our approach to innovation, customer service and new product opportunities.”

This isn’t the first time SocietyOne has received funding from a bank. In 2014, the company received $5 million from Reinventure, a VC management company funded by Westpac Bank. Westpac was believed to be the first bank to take an equity stake in a P2P lending organization.

SocietyOne’s online platform uses risk-based pricing to connect borrowers and investors to loans using its ClearMatch technology, which it launched at FinovateAsia 2012 (Finovate returns to Asia this year: Hong Kong on November 8). ClearMatch allows investors to bid together at different interest rates and amounts against a single loan.

In August, SocietyOne announced it had facilitated $38 million in personal loans in 2016. Since the company was founded in 2013, it has facilitated $150 million total. In April, SocietyOne announced it brought on a new CEO, Jason Yetton, and a new CFO, Anna Harper. The company has raised almost $55 million from eight investors.

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OurCrowd Pulls in $72 Million

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on September 21, 2016
Categories: Funding, OurCrowd

OurCrowd, an equity crowdfunding platform that boasts a network of 15,000 investors to fund U.S. and Israeli startups, raised $72 million. Financial institutions, family offices, and private investors from five continents participated in the Series C round, though most of the investors remain unnamed.

Singapore bank UOB Group, however, has come out as a strategic investor to help OurCrowd expand globally beyond the U.S. and Israel. Janet Young, managing director of group channels and digitalization at UOB Group, said, “We look forward to working closely with OurCrowd to further develop their platform to support the startup ecosystem both in Singapore and the broader Asian market. Our investment into this Series C funding for OurCrowd reinforces our commitment to support startups and small businesses.”

According to OurCrowd CEO Jon Medved, the company will use half of the funds to fuel global expansion and build out the product. The other half will be used to match investments made on the platform. This, as Medved explained, will “make sure that each and every company which raises funding on our platform receives participating investment from the General Partner on the same terms as the crowd.” He added the new capital will help achieve their goal of investing $1 billion annually by 2020.

OurCrowd’s funding now totals just north of $100 million. The Jerusalem-based company has facilitated $300 million in funding for the 100 companies in its portfolio. Notable client successes include nine exits, including seven sales and two IPOs.

OurCrowd’s Chief Product Officer Shai Ben-Tovim and VP of Engineering Oshrat Kfir launched the company’s mobile app at FinovateSpring 2016. The app helps investors discover new opportunities and empowers them with information to make better investment decisions.

In June the company partnered with Bayer, Dupont, and FinistereAG to launch an agriculture-focused investment fund, Radicle. That same month, OurCrowd earned a spot on the RedHerring 2016 Europe Top 100 list.

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