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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
AI-powered computer vision software innovator Microblinklanded $60 million in funding today. The investment marks the U.K.-based company’s first round of funding since it was founded in 2014.
Growth equity firm Silversmith Capital Partners led the round. Microblink plans to use the capital to accelerate product development, boost its go-to-market strategy, and expand its team.
“As enterprises increasingly move towards automation, we are excited to reinvest in our existing business and explore new ways our computer vision platform can solve pain points for companies across a variety of industries,” said Microblink CEO and Cofounder Darren Bassman. “We believe Silversmith is the perfect partner for us on the next leg of our journey.”
Microblink’s computer vision products help businesses and organizations across multiple sectors digitize documents, automate processes, and eliminate manual data entry. The company’s “hundreds of millions” of end customers use its technology to scan billions of documents each year to prove their digital identity by scanning their ID, make a payment online by scanning their credit card, and collect data about their purchases by scanning their receipts.
“Microblink’s world-class product and technology teams have unlocked real-world applications for artificial intelligence and machine learning,” said Silversmith General Partner, Sri Rao. “Customers leverage the platform to power experiences for millions of end users that require the ability to verify an ID, scan a receipt, or automate the capture of payment data from their device of choice. Microblink’s customer centricity and product leadership serve as a strong foundation from which to scale rapidly, and we are thrilled to support the company in this next phase of growth.”
As part of today’s deal, Rao will join Microblink’s board of directors, serving alongside Bassman and Microblink Cofounder Damir Sabol.
We recently shared the news that restrictions on the ability of banks in India to work with cryptocurrency exchanges was overturned by the country’s Supreme Court.
With this in mind, and given the growing interest in India as a fintech power, we spoke with Neeraj Khandelwal, co-founder of CoinDCX, a cryptocurrency trading platform and liquidity aggregator in India. The company, founded in 2018 and based in Singapore, recently won the Excellence in Finance – Companies award by FiNext. Last month, CoinDCX launched its cryptocurrency derivative trading platform, DCXfutures. Bain Capital Ventures is among the firm’s investors.
Finovate: The biggest news in India in terms of the cryptocurrency market has to be the Supreme Court’s overturning of the Central Bank’s ban on cryptocurrencies. What can you tell us about the impact of the ban and the effect of the ruling striking it down?
Neeraj Khandelwal: The banking ban was related to the suspension of banking relationships with individuals or businesses dealing with cryptocurrencies, but crypto businesses were still free to operate on their own. In response, CoinDCX innovated and offered peer-to-peer services for the buying and selling crypto through INR.
After the verdict, banking relations have resumed once again. CoinDCX became the first cryptocurrency platform in India to integrate bank account transfers, just six hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling. Today, we are seeing 10x growth in signups on a day-to-day basis. Our product, Insta, which allows customers to buy crypto with INR, has also seen high hits. Overall, the market is in an upswing.
Finovate: What is the potential of the cryptocurrency market in India? How widespread are cryptocurrencies now and what factors are driving growth in adoption in India?
Khandelwal: Less than five million people currently hold cryptocurrencies in India today. However, listing websites like exchangewar.info have shown that the highest volumes are coming from India, so there is indeed great potential here. With a population of over one billion, India stands to contribute significantly to a large part of the global crypto volume and the industry as a whole.
In India, there is a growing number of cryptocurrency exchanges and startups that are constantly innovating to strengthen and expand the industry. In addition, India holds many favourable advantages for cryptocurrency adoption—for instance, with an average age of 27 years, India has a huge working population with disposable income on the rise.
Finovate: Many of us outside of India are fascinated by the country’s cashless experiment. At this time, what has been learned from that experience and what is the future of cashlessness in India?
Khandelwal: The writing on the wall is crystal clear that cashlessness is the way to go. This was first witnessed on an extremely large scale during the time of demonetization in late 2016. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which is the umbrella body for retail payments and settlements in India, revealed that the value of UPI transactions for December 2019 was INR 2.02 Lakh Cr. This figure is expected to grow as cashlessness brings greater convenience and faster transactions.
As cryptocurrencies are entirely digital, it promotes greater benefits for cashlessness in comparison to fiat currencies. I believe that in the coming years, the Indian economy will be built on the foundation of a cashless society, with both digital fiat and cryptocurrencies working in parallel.
Finovate: You are part of the founding team of CoinDCX. Can you tell us a little about the company, the market it serves, and the role it plays in helping pave the way for broader adoption of cashless technologies?
Khandelwal: CoinDCX specializes in crypto-enabled fintech services. Sumit Gupta and I founded CoinDCX in 2018, with a mission to connect billions of people to global financial markets. Today, CoinDCX is reputed to be India’s most trustworthy cryptocurrency trading platform and remains one of the strongest products in our service offerings. CoinDCX has empowered its traders with a bouquet of industry-first crypto-based products to trade better using liquidity from the world’s leading exchanges like Binance, Huobi Global and OKEx.
By bringing all crypto-trading products under a single roof, our products are designed to cater to all types of traders, keeping their experience, risk tolerance, and frequency of trading into consideration.
Our users have found the platform to be simple and effortless. Anyone can trade in 500+ markets with DCXtrade, convert their INR to cryptocurrencies and vice versa on DCXInsta, earn by lending their holdings with DCXlend, and leverage their trades up to 6X in 250+ Altcoins using DCXmargin.
Here is our weekly look at fintech around the world.
Asia-Pacific
Alipay to encourage 40 million merchants and service providers to use its mini programs as competition with WeChat intensifies.
Hong Kong will soon have a new challenger bank as Standard Chartered’s Mox Bank opens for business later this year.
Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm turned super app company Grab to use Wirecard for payment processing.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Visa and Nigeria-based mobile money platform Paga forge strategic partnership to bring more security and convenience to mobile payments.
South African cloud platform builder Jini Guru teams up with product engineering firm Azilen Technologies to build fintech solutions for emerging markets.
Modern Ghana features WorldRemit Country Manager Gbenga Okejimi on the country’s fintech industry.
Central and Eastern Europe
Total Croatia News featuresMicroblink in its look at Croatian companies making the Financial Times’ 100 Fastest Growing Companies in Europe roster.
International Banker profiles Poland’s digital banking leader mBank.
Hamburg, Germany-based lender Kreditech rebrands as Monedo
Middle East and Northern Africa
Saudi Arabia Monetary Authority (SAMA) hires payments technology company HPS to provide a QR-based payments system.
Orange Money goes live in Morocco after receiving authorization from the Bank Al Maghrib.
Business Chief Middle East looks at the top 10 fintech startups in the Middle East and UAE.
Central and Southern Asia
FamPay, a Bengaluru, India-based fintech that is building a payments network for teens, picks up $4.7 million in seed funding.
Bloomberg Quint looks at the controversy over the Reserve Bank of India’s moratorium on Yes Bank and its impact on fintech companies in the country.
My Republica asks whether or not India’s cashless revolution can be extended to Nepal.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Mexican fintech Clip launches new “point of sale in the palm of your hand” solution, Clip Total.
Born2Invest look at how fintech platforms are supporting female entrepreneurs in Mexico.
Fintech-as-a-service company Rapyd partners with Brazilian payment providers Dock and Banco Rendimento.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
Finovate Global is our weekly look at fintech innovation in developing economies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.
Middle East and Northern Africa
UAE-based payments company Finablr prepares for a $200 million IPO.
Emirates NBD launches its WhatsApp Business Solution.
Awok.com, a mass market ecommerce platform based in the UAE, raised $30 million in Series A funding.
Central and South Asia
Indian fintech BharatPe secures $15.5 million in Series A round to help provide UPI QR codes to merchants.
TechCrunch: PayU’s $70 million acquisition of Wibmo signals the company’s interest in the Indian market.
Entrepreneur India takes a look at what investors like about Indian fintech.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Brazilian SME lender Weel raises $30 million courtesy of investment from Franklin Templeton.
Mexico’s Banco BASE partners with Volante Technologies for end-to-end payment processing solutions.
PaymentsJournal reviews the surge in the number of new unicorns among Latin American fintech startups.
Asia-Pacific
TurnKey Lenderreceives accreditation from the Singapore government’s IMDA, a certification that enables companies to expand into international markets easier.
WeLab, a Hong Kong based mobile lender, earns virtual banking license.
Fintech Singapore features its list of the top 10 fintech firms in Thailand for 2019.
Sub-Saharan Africa
The ecommerce marketplace known as the “African Amazon,” Jumia, begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Top African finance app Branch lands $170 million in financing led by Foundation Capital and Visa.
Nigeria-based bank agent network Kudi raises $5 million in Series A.
Central and Eastern Europe
Microblinkintroduces new document scanning app, BlinkCard.
Estonia to bid for developing national ID system, PhilSys, in the Philippines.
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateEurope on February 12 through 14, 2019 in London, U.K. Register today and save your spot.
Microblink is an R&D company that develops proprietary computer vision technology based on machine learning to automate identity and payment data input in user onboarding processes.
Features
Intelligent recognition and extraction of data from identity or credit card
Significantly improved UX to save time and reduce costs
Easy integration into existing mobile or web apps
Why it’s great
BlinkID provides intelligent scanning and data extraction of identity and credit cards in real time. Next-generation UX simplifies customer onboarding and e-commerce processes.
Presenters
Valentina Kusek, Head of Sales
Being tech savvy, Kusek has an excellent understanding of customers’ needs. She is enthusiastic about bringing computer vision technology to enterprises to enable excellent UX in their apps. LinkedIn
Jurica Cerovec, CTO
Cerovec pursues mobile tech challenges and innovation. He is dedicated to continuous advancements in computer vision with Microblink’s proprietary machine learning system. LinkedIn
London-based anti-fraud platform Fortytwo Datarebrands as Napier.
Fenergolaunches new low to no-code administration suite, Fenergo Digital Configuration Studio.
Lighter Capitalprovides $700,000 in growth capital to FitSmallBusiness.com.
Forrester namesCREALOGIX a leader in the Now Tech: Digital Banking Engagment Platforms, Q4 2018, category.
Artivestannounces expansion of its platform to include product structuring and fund distribution solutions.
TransUnionunveils its Auto Payment Shopper solution to improve the car buying process for consumers, lenders, and dealers.
ieDigitalnamed “market challenger” in latest Ovum Decision Matrix.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
If there is one theme that unites all of our FinovateEurope Best of Show winners this year, that theme may be summed up in one word: data. As Finovate senior research analyst Julie Muhn pointed out during a recent conversation, the ability to leverage data to create more meaningful, more personalized, more secure experiences for consumers of financial services underlies much of the innovation that we see not just on the Finovate stage, but across fintech writ large, as well.
In this way, financial technology is turning the old adage – it’s not what you know, it’s who you know – on its head. The connections between us and the things we do, the places we go, the transactions we make, are in many ways the Holy Grail for companies that are constantly seeking out better ways to serve us. And for those companies that do win our trust and gain access to what we know and do, the rewards could not be greater.
With this in mind, we present to you a small sample of those companies that may be best positioned to take advantage of this Golden Age of Data: the Best of Show winners of FinovateEurope 2018.
Backbase for its Customer OS, the next generation of the Backbase Digital Banking Platform, which is laser-focused on providing customer-first journeys. Video.
Be-IQ for its holistic and gamified approach to risk profiling and financial well-being that accounts for the very contradictions that make us human: our behaviors. Video.
CREALOGIX for its customer banking platform, Gravity, which is breaking new ground with its intuitive and user-friendly, self-service insights application. Video.
iProov for its liveness-protected, facial biometric authentication technology which is fully-automated for fast, easy and ultra-secure mobile and PC on-boarding. Video.
Meniga for its digital banking solution that helps banks around the world use data to personalize digital channels and drive customer engagement. Video.
Microblink for BlinkReceipt, its SDK for real-time extraction of all purchase data from retail receipts and OCR technology which eliminates typing from mobile apps. Video.
W.UP for its digital banking sales and engagement solution that uses pre-built customer insights to build relevant, personalized, and timely interactions with clients. Video.
Please join us in thanking our sponsors and partners who help us make FinovateEurope a huge success year in and year out. And be sure to stay tuned for coverage of our new extended format on Thursday and Friday as we take deep dives into some of the most pressing issues and fascinating trends in fintech today. For more information about the keynote addresses, panel discussions, and fireside chats coming up on Days Three and Four, our full agenda is available on our FinovateEurope 2018 page.
Notes on methodology:
1. Only audience members NOT associated with demoing companies were eligible to vote. Finovate employees did not vote.
2. Attendees were encouraged to note their favorites during each day. At the end of the last demo, they chose their three favorites.
3. The exact written instructions given to attendees: “Please rate (the companies) on the basis of demo quality and potential impact of the innovation demoed.”
4. The seven companies appearing on the highest percentage of submitted ballots were named “Best of Show.”
5. Go here for a list of previous Best of Show winners through 2014. Best of Show winners from our 2015 through 2018 conferences are below: FinovateEurope 2015 FinovateSpring 2015 FinovateFall 2015 FinovateEurope 2016 FinovateSpring 2016 FinovateFall 2016 FinovateAsia 2016 FinovateEurope 2017 FinovateSpring 2017 FinovateFall 2017 FinovateAsia 2017 FinovateMiddleEast 2018
A look at the companies demoing live at FinovateEurope on the 6 through 9 of March 2018 in London. Pick up your tickets today and save your spot.
Microblink’s SDK, BlinkReceipt, provides instant insight into consumer purchases on the SKU level with real-time receipt scanning. The SDK runs OCR and captures all purchase data, even from long receipts.
Features
Real-time data capture from retail receipts
Robust cataloging system for structured data extraction
High accuracy and infinite scalability
Why it’s great
BlinkReceipt is the most cost-effective way to collect consumer purchase data and can be used for purchase validation, loyalty and rewards programs, market research, PFM, and more.
Presenters
Luka Slibar, Business Product Manager
Slibar is a business product manager working with clients in the banking industry on improving the end-customer experience with new digital solutions enabled by Microblink’s technology. LinkedIn
Chad Wood, Product Manager
Wood is a serial entrepreneur and product manager for BlinkReceipt with a passion for the intersection of technology and the real world. LinkedIn
Photopay, the payment receipt scanning solution from Best of Show winner Microblink, is now available in more countries including France, Norway, Spain, and Sweden. The news is the latest step in Microblink’s European expansion – begun four years ago – and brings the company’s data extraction technology to an even wider range of SME customers.
In a blog post discussing the news, Microblink pointed to the way Photopay improved the UX for banking app users. The company cited a case study with Erste Bank that realized a 100x increase in the number of mobile banking transactions and and 30x increase in mobile banking transactions as a share of all transactions. Erste Bank also reported an increase of 160% in the number of its mobile banking users. In addition, Microblink highlighted a European bank that credited Photopay for the high marks its mobile banking app received. “More than 40 renowned European banks have recognized the value photopay provides in terms of UX,” the blog authors wrote.
Pictured: Microblink Co-Founder and SMD Izet Ždralović demonstrating BlinkReceipt at FinovateSpring 2017.
Photopay leverages optical character recognition technology (OCR) to capture data from payment slips and receipts, removing manual data entry – and the potential for error – from the process. Photopay also offers an automatic field-by-field scanning feature that makes it easy to more accurately extract data from unstructured sources including small business invoices. The real-time technology operates locally on the user’s mobile device and does not require an internet connection to work. Photopay is available as an SDK that can be easily integrated into existing banking apps and fully customized into a white-label solution that’s virtually invisible to the user.
Founded in 2013 and headquartered in London, U.K., Microblink demonstrated its BlinkReceipt solution at FinovateSpring 2017, taking home Best of Show honors. Earlier this month, Zagrebačka banka, the largest bank in Croatia, announced that its mobile app would feature portrait and document scanning technology provided by Microblink. In addition to Photopay and BlinkReceipt, Microblink offers SDKs that add ID scanning (BlinkID), barcode scanning (pdf417), and general purpose data scanning (BlinkInput) to mobile apps. The company, which launched the popular, free Photo Math app in 2014, includes Cherubic Ventures among its investors. Damir Sabol is founder and CEO.
The Silicon Review featuresVantiv Head of Product for Integrated Payments, Moin Moinuddin.
FintekNews sits down with Unison Co-CEOs Thomas Sponholtz and Jim Riccitelli to discuss shared real estate investing.
Tesobeorganizes cross-industry payments hackathon in Australia – Aug 11 thru 13th.
CRN namesVeridium on its list of 2017 Emerging Vendors.
Total and WorldlinePartner with Africa-based InTouch to help deploy Guichet Unique, a digital solution for retail networks.
This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.
Do the Best of Show winners of FinovateSpring 2017 represent our most diverse array of fintech innovations to date?
You be the judge. This year’s winners include four companies that made their Finovate debuts this year, as well as a pair of companies – Hedgeable and SaleMove – that are not only Finovate veterans, but also are previous Best of Show award winners. And when we focus on the technologies involved: artificial intelligence, automated financial advisory, OCR, machine learning, biometrics, and more, it is clear that the innovations we see on the Finovate stage are indicative of broader trends not just in fintech, but in the technology industry as a whole.
So here’s to the innovators of FinovateSpring: from those who leverage technology to solve fundamental problems in finance to others who take advantage of the “sharing economy” to introduce entirely new ways to do everything from buying a home to investing for retirement.
Alpharank for its APIs that enable FIs to turn their transaction data into predictive social graph data.
Capitali.se for its fully-automated portfolio management and trade execution technology that turns natural language into executable investment strategies.
Hedgeable AI Lab for its artificial intelligence platform, Katana, that leverages voice commands and chatbot technology to provide financial planning advice.
Microblink for its real-time, retail receipt scanner for mobile apps, turning the mobile camera into an accurate data catcher and replacing manual inputs.
Neener Analytics for its compliant social media analytics solutions that provide frictionless credit decisioning and individual risk outcome predictions.
SaleMove for its Engagement Platform and OmniBrowse solution that helps FIs meet or exceed the in-person customer experience online.
SpeechPro for its VoiceKey.FRAUD technology that uses voice biometrics to enable call centers to detect fraudsters.
Unison for its HomeBuyer and HomeOwner solutions that helps make homes more affordable and home equity easier and less expensive to access.
What a time we had this year in San Jose! Thanks to all our presenting companies, our sponsors and partners, our volunteers, temps, and presenter-acclaimed AV team, and of course, thanks to you, our attendees. We are already looking forward to our return to Silicon Valley next year for FinovateSpring 2018. So if we don’t see you this summer in London for FinDEVr or this fall in New York for our new, expanded FinovateFall conference, we hope we’ll see you again this time next year right here.
Notes on methodology:
1. Only audience members NOT associated with demoing companies were eligible to vote. Finovate employees did not vote.
2. Attendees were encouraged to note their favorites during each day. At the end of the last demo, they chose their three favorites.
3. The exact written instructions given to attendees: “Please rate (the companies) on the basis of demo quality and potential impact of the innovation demoed.”
4. The six companies appearing on the highest percentage of submitted ballots were named “Best of Show.”
5. Go here for a list of previous Best of Show winners through 2014. Best of Show winners from our 2015 and 2016 conferences are below:
BlinkReceipt SDK is a real-time retail receipt scanner for mobile apps from Microblink. The solution automatically extracts all details from consumer purchase receipts on an item level.
Features
Automatic extraction in real-time and locally on a device
High accuracy and infinitely scalable
Easy integration into any app and on all platforms
Why it’s great
BlinkReceipt is the most cost-effective way to collect consumer purchase data and can be used for purchase validation, loyalty and rewards programs, market research, PFM, etc.
Presenters
Izet Ždralović, Co-founder / SMD
Besides extensive experience in sales, marketing, and management, Ždralović has a comprehensive business view of innovative technologies. He loves solving problems with mobile technologies to improve UX. LinkedIn
Darren Bassman, Head of Product, BlinkReceipt
Bassman is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for the intersection of technology and the real world. LinkedIn
Presenters
Jurica Cerovec, CTO
Backbase
Be-IQ
CREALOGIX
iProov
Meniga
Microblink
W.UP
Presenters
Chad Wood, Product Manager
Alpharank
SaleMove
SpeechPro
Unison
Presenters
Darren Bassman, Head of Product, BlinkReceipt