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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Earlier this month, 42 companies took the stage at FinovateSpring in San Diego, showcasing their latest and greatest fintech solutions. Now, it’s your turn to experience the action. The demo videos from the event are live! So, whether you joined us in person or missed the event, you can now watch every presentation on demand, for free.
The best way to dive into the 42 videos, which total nearly five hours of content, is to watch the six Best of Show videos from the conference.
Thanks to all of the demo companies for making this a fantastic event! You won’t want to miss our next event, FinovateFall, which is taking place September 8 through 10 in New York. The earlier you register, the more you save.
As I write this, Finovate’s first fintech conference in San Diego has one more day of content left. But if the first two days of FinovateSpring 2025 are any indication, it’s already a good bet that we will be back.
From the California-based fintechs that made the short trip south to innovative startups that traveled from as far away as New Zealand, FinovateSpring 2025 featured a diverse and exciting range of fintech innovations designed to solve pain points for banks, credit unions, and financial services providers, as well as for their customers and members.
Whether leveraging AI to create efficiencies and automate workflows or putting embedded finance to work improving lending for small businesses, our demoing companies continue to represent the cutting edge of what’s new, what’s novel, and what works.
With this in mind, here are the winners of Best of Show for FinovateSpring 2025.
Bits of Stock for its solution that gathers deposits and drives non-interest income by helping financial institutions stay top of mind and top of wallet with the next generation of investors.
Finalytics.ai for its technology that enables financial institutions to instantly unleash the power of AI by offering digital experiences informed by behavioral, transactional, and third-party data.
Herd Security for its technology that gives financial organizations visibility and protection from voice fraud.
Illuma for its innovations in deepfake detection that enable community financial institutions to keep their members and customers connected with their funds in a convenient and secure manner.
Penny Finance for its solution that connects the dots between an FI’s products and services and a member’s needs, all while creating efficiency for their marketing organizations.
Solda.ai for its technology that enables businesses to better engage their customers with instant scalability.
Thanks to our demoing companies, our sponsors, speakers, and delegates for making our first fintech conference in San Diego such a success.
Next up on the Finovate tour is FinovateFall 2025, September 8-10, at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, New York. Find out more about the conference at our FinovateFall hub and we look forward to seeing you in “The City That Never Sleeps”.
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 through 2025 conferences are below:
April is Financial Literacy Month. While we are all getting an education in trade policy these days, making sure we’re up to speed when it comes to financial wellness is just as important.
With that in mind—and with FinovateSpring less than one month away (May 7 – 9)—we wanted to highlight those demoing companies that have financial literacy and inclusion at the heart of their mission.
CoHome
Based in San Francisco and founded in 2025, CoHome offers a real estate co-ownership marketplace and management app that makes owning property more accessible for college students and their parents, reducing rent to zero.
How they support financial literacy: CoHome introduces parents to the concept of co-investing in student housing for their child.
Express Wages
Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, Express Wages offers Earned Wage Access (EWA) services to enable employees to receive some or all of their wages as they earn them.
How Express Wages supports financial literacy: Express Wages features a Financial Literacy blog on its website with articles and guides on budget-making, saving for a first home, and strategies to pay back student loans.
Kaian
Los Angeles, California-based Kaian provides a billpay support system that ensures that credit union members never have to worry about missing a payment due to temporary cash flow issues. The company was founded in 2022.
How Kaian supports financial literacy: Kaian’s AI-powered assistance provides personalized, on-demand financial guidance, including insights on budgeting, saving, and long-term financial planning.
Penny Finance
Founded in 2020 and based in Boston, Massachusetts, Penny Finance describes its mission as “closing the wealth gap.” The company offers an online financial planning engagement engine for credit unions and small banks.
How Penny Finance supports financial literacy: Penny Finance provides tailored education, resources, and perks to credit union members and customers of small banks.
Supermoney
Headquartered in Santa Ana, California and founded in 2013, SuperMoney offers a comprehensive financial services comparison website providing recommendations on products from personal loans and savings accounts to tax preparation firms and brokerages.
How SuperMoney supports financial literacy: SuperMoney offers financial tools and resources—as well as industry studies—to help individuals make better financial decisions.
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Diego on May 7 – 9. Register today using this link and save 20%.
Bits of Stock
Bits of Stock empowers financial institutions to offer fractional stock rewards on everyday transactions and account activity.
Features
Auto-enrollment of digital banking users into investment accounts
Free-to-premium investing and rewards account structure
Stock roundups and recurring investments
Who’s it for?
Community banks and credit unions.
Express Wages
With Express Wages on-demand pay, employees receive some or all of their wages as they are earned.
Features
The Express Wages solution offers a simple, safe dashboard where users can see wages and view financial wellness.
Who’s it for?
Banks, employers, businesses, and credit unions.
Penny Finance
Penny Finance is an online financial planning engagement engine that attracts, retains, and serves the digital generation by helping them get out of debt, get into investing, and retire with wealth.
Features
Delivers custom financial plans for members within minutes
Drives 60% digital engagement and 30% product referrals
Scales seamlessly with expanding enterprise requirements
Who’s it for?
Credit unions, community banks, and small banks.
Solda.ai
Leading fintechs and banks use Solda.ai’s AI sales representatives to automate onboarding, upsell, KYC, and retention calls with <1% AI detection at 60% cost.
Features
Automates sales with top-performing AI trained across phone, text, email, and chat
Scales instantly with multi-lingual, on-brand engagement
Reduces costs by 40% with <1% AI-detection
Who’s it for?
Consumer and commercial fintechs, banks, payment providers, and other financial services companies.
SuperMoney
SuperMoney’s personal finance super app puts money on autopilot, using real-time credit and bank data to deliver intelligent, stress-free financial decisions.
Features
Keeps spending aligned with user goals with AI-powered budgeting
Delivers tailored financial insights to put money on autopilot
Automates finding better loans and credit cards with Refi Robot
Last week, we showcased five companies—all led by female CEOs—who demonstrated their latest innovations at FinovateEurope in London in February. Part of Finovate’s annual Women’s History Month commemoration, the post not only highlighted the achievements of women in fintech, it also helped introduce five new companies to our Finovate audience.
With that last point in mind, we’re thrilled this week to introduce you to some of the women who will be leading their companies on the Finovate stage next month at FinovateSpring in San Diego, May 7 through 9.
First, meet the two companies—Cinareo Solutions and Cratoflow—that were selected to participate at FinovateSpring as part of our Female Founder Scholarship program. Second, we introduce two additional companies—Penny Finance and Instarails—both with female CEOs, and both slated to demo their latest innovation at FinovateSpring next month.
Elliott (LinkedIn) is CEO and Co-Founder of Cinareo Solutions, a SaaS platform that provides capacity planning for agents and support staff, financial management, what-if scenario modelling, and multi-skilling simulation.
Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Cinareo Solutions sets a new standard for workforce planning and decision support for multi-channel contact centers. This provides robust and pro-active resource planning and financial analysis to cost-efficiently manage front and back-office staff, as well as all support staff.
Patel (LinkedIn) is CEO of Cratoflow, a company that helps organizations to save up to 110 hours a week, reduce errors, and acclerate payments, enabling faster decision-making and driving operational efficiency and cost savings.
Based in Anaheim, California, and founded in 2021, Cratoflow offers a no-code financial workflow solution that centralizes and simplifies complex daily accounting processeas with an intuitive user interface. The platform leverages machine learning and AI to sync with third-party financial systems to systematically complete revenue, banking, and expense entries.
Sagar (LinkedIn) is founder and CEO of Instarails, a global payment network infrastructure that helps credit unions, community banks, and businesses attract and retain more clients while accelerating revenue growth,
Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Instarails leverages blockchain technology to make direct, real-time, cheap, inclusive, and transparent payments. Clients connect to Instarails’ network via SaaS API and send transactions. These transactions are routed through Instarails’ network and recipients get funds instantly through their bank, e-wallet, or via cash pickup.
Cole (LinkedIn) is CEO and Founder of Penny Finance, an online financial planning engagement engine that attracts, retains, and services the digital generation of credit unions and community banks by providing tailored education, resources, rewards, and services to their members and customers at large.
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and founded in 2020, Penny Finance connects the dots between a financial institution’s products and services and member and customer needs, all while creating efficiency for their marketing organizations.
FinovateSpring 2025 kicks off May 7 through 9 in San Diego, California. Visit our FinovateSpring hub today to learn more about our emerging speaker lineup, demoing companies, and how to plan your visit to Finovate’s first conference in SoCal!
