Alumni News– July 29, 2014

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  • Concur partners with Uber to allow Concur users to link their accounts and automatically send Uber receipts to their expense reports.
  • The Financial Brand looks at opportunity for banks and credit unions in the Loop Visa partnership. 
  • Open Bank Project making its API available during hackathon in September.
  • TechCrunch explores Pellucid Analytics’ take on PowerPoint pitch books.
  • Seed Me! Thinknum raises $1 million in seed funding round.
  • Feature on robo-advisors highlights seven alums: Betterment, Financial Guard, FutureAdvisor, Jemstep, Personal Capital, SigFig, and Wealthfront.
  • Macwelt reviews banking app Numbrs.
  • Bank Systems & Technology points to Moven as a nontraditional financial service provider “gunning” for banks.
  • Xero partners with MarketInvoice to bring faster funding to UK businesses.
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.

Alumni News– July 25, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgFox Business News features Kabbage’s small business lending process.
  • Huffington Post describes how DemystData’s big data analytics help evaluate creditworthiness.
  • Cartera Commerce’s CFO Karen Cambray named a finalist in Boston Business Journal’s 2014 CFO of the Year Awards.
  • Bloomberg: BillGuard programmers code in bomb shelters.
  • Coinbase launches Coinbase Vault to Better Secure Your Bitcoins.
  • MoneyDesktop appoints Brandon Dewitt as its first ever CTO.
  • SecondMarket CEO Barry Silbert stepping down in order to refocus his attention solely on bitcoin.
  • InvestmentNews features roboadvisors Jemstep, FutureAdvisor, Wealthfront, and Personal Capital.
  • The Irish Times looks at Holvi’s move into Ireland.
  • CMS Wire: Actiance wants to help companies curb social media mistakes.
  • Karen Webster of Market Platform Dynamics interviews Zooz CEO Oren Levy.
  • eToro announces new version of OpenBook for iOS.
  • Mobile Entertainment talks with Adam Levene, SVP of Strategy at Monitise Create.
  • LendingTree launches personalization platform.
  • Pymnts takes a look at the partnership between Malauzai Software and Trusteer. See Malauzai at FinovateFall in September.
  • Fortune.com interviews Bill Siegel, interim CEO of SecondMarket.
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.

Personal Capital’s Financial Management App Now Available on Android Wear

Personal Capital’s Financial Management App Now Available on Android Wear

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Thanks to Personal Capital, when it comes to finance and investing, you can take it with you.

Personal Capital announced yesterday that its finance management app is now available on Android’s smart watch, Android Wear.

Personal Capital Chief Product Officer Jim Del Favero called wearable devices “the next evolution of mobile.”  When users have Personal Capital on their Android Wear device, they can access a full suite of PFM functionality with them wherever they go.
The free app is available for download in the Google Play Store. Features include:
    • YouIndex: end of the day notification feature that compares your portfolio (your “YouIndex”) to the S&P 500 and other stock market indices
    • Advice and Alerts: personalized notifications for goal-tracking
    • Actionable Information: an omni-channel experience that allows users to access the app on more than one device
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Part of a growing ecosystem of alternative investment management services, Personal Capital differs from so-called “robo-advisors” by not just relying on algorithms to make investment decisions. Technology plays a role, of course. Personal Capital CEO Bill Harris said in a June interview with CNBC that automated tools helped “discipline” the investment process, and refers to his company as “technology-assisted.” But in combining technology with what he calls “sophisticated and customized management” Personal Capital brings a wealth management model that has worked for high net worth individuals to a broader, “mass affluent” market.
Personal Capital is headquartered in Redwood City, California, and was founded in 2009. The company last demoed at the FinovateSpring conference in San Jose earlier this year. See a video of the company on stage here.

Alumni News– July 10, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgOptimal Payments announces partnership with Oink.
  • Braintree releases v.zero SDK, featuring support for Pay with PayPal.
  • Bank Innovation highlights leaders at Ripple, LoopPay, Finect, and Fiserv in its list of 30 key innovators in fintech.
  • Segmint named a Preferred Vendor of MAGNET Global Network.
  • Holvi preps to launch into Irish marketplace.
  • doxo named one of Washington State’s 100 Best Companies to Work For 2014 by Seattle Business magazine.
  • Think Advisor features the different approaches of 3 robo-advisors: Betterment, Personal Capital, and Wealthfront.
  • Cachet Financial Solutions prices Initial Public Offering.
  • DoubleBeam’s GoPago POS system is enabling Slyde, a mobile commerce beacon-enabled shopping app.
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.

Alumni News– June 23, 2014

  • CEOs and founders from eToro, BehavioSec, TransferWise, The Currency Cloud, and Nutmeg earn spots on FN’s 40 fintech leaders list.
  • Bill Harris, Personal Capital CEO, featured on CNBC to Personal Capital and how it differs from robo-advisors.
  • Investment News looks at the humans behind FutureAdvisor’s robo-advisors.
  • Betterment adds municipal bonds asset class to make client’s non-IRA portfolios more efficient.
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.

Alumni News– June 18, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgThreatMetrix integrates with Ping Identity’s PingFederate ID bridge to provide contextual employee authentication.
  • Kony brings in $50 Million in Financing Led by SoftBank Capital.
  • Eight Finovate alums earn spots on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list: Motif Investing, TransferWise, Personal Capital, Wealthfront, Lending Club, Coinbase, Bill.com, and Betterment.
  • Umpqua Bank announces plans to transition to a scalable core solution from FIS.
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.

Eight Alums Earn Spots on CNBC’s Disruptor 50

Eight Alums Earn Spots on CNBC’s Disruptor 50
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Hats off to eight Finovate alumni for winning spots on CNBC’s Disruptor 50.

2014 marks the second year of CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list. The selection credits companies for being “forward-thinking” and working to discover untapped markets en route to becoming “billion-dollar businesses.” Read more about CNBC’s selection methodology here.
CNBC’s David Spiegel wrote: 
“All of these companies entered traditional sectors and turned them upside down … It’s the power of a company to displace the established incumbents in its own industry, prompting a ripple effect throughout its economic ecosystem.”

See CNBCs inaugural Disruptor 50 here. The 2013 list included alums boku, CircleUp, Lending Club, and Wealthfront.

Finovate Alumni News– May 7, 2014

  • Finovate-F-Logo.jpgiFactor and Striata partner to offer robust push ebill solution to utilities.
  • Kingdom Trust and Bancbox partner to streamline the crowdfunding and P2P lending platform experience for the IRA investor.
  • Alternative lending pays up: Kabbage raises $50 million, Prosper pulls in $70 million.
  • Actiance extends Socialite to include Google+ & YouTube.
  • VentureBeat looks at the rise of P2P lending of many Finovate alums and predicts $1 trillion in loans by 2025.
  • App Annie now lets app developers track ads, app store optimization.
  • TradeHero launches a Chinese version, bringing the stock market game to traders in China.
  • Lend Academy speculates Prosper now valued $600 million, up from a $100 million valuation around eight months ago.
  • Personal Capital reaches 500,000+ registered users. Now is tracking over $70+ billion in & is managing $500 million in assets for clients.
  • Credit Sesame offers Target customers free ID protection, credit monitoring and credit scores without deadlines.
  • Jack Henry Banking’s Core Director processing platform deployed by Oklahoma State Bank and The Bank of Clovis in New Mexico.
  • BBVA Compass teams up with On Deck Capital to better score small business borrowers.
  • WSJ Personal Technology column recommends Dashlane as the “best way to manage online passwords.
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.

Personal Capital Launches One Click Investment Proposals to Make Advisors’ Jobs Easier

Personal Capital Launches One Click Investment Proposals to Make Advisors’ Jobs Easier
This post is part of our live coverage of FinovateSpring 2014.
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Then, Personal Capital took the stage to launch its One Click Investment Proposals:

“Traditional financial advisors have to manually collect, process, calculate, and report back on a prospect’s financial situation to generate a strategy for presentation. Personal Capital combines its award winning account aggregation and customer-facing user interface with a back office that allows our financial advisors to generate 90% of a proposal with one click, saving hundreds of advisor hours per month and allowing us to make our service both more personal and scalable. 
Once the proposal is created, the advisor can present and drive the discussion through our own remote sharing capability, viewable on any device.”
Presenting: Bill Harris (CEO) and Jim Del Favero (Chief Product Officer)
Product Launch: April 2014
Metrics: Over $50M raised to date, over 100 employees, over $4M in revenue from over $450M in AUM, growing 10% month over month, over 500,000 registered users who track over $60B of assets using our software.
Product distribution strategy: Direct to Consumer (B2C)
HQ: Redwood City, CA
Founded: July 2009
Twitter: @PersonalCapital

FinovateSpring 2014 Sneak Peek: Part 2

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This year’s return to California for FinovateSpring will feature both new and old faces, as innovative startups make their fintech debuts and established veterans continue to remind us all that they’ve still “got it.”

Maybe your interests in FinovateSpring lie in something specific like security or mobile payments. Or maybe you are just looking forward to taking in all that this year’s crop of FinovateSpring presenters has to offer. 

Whatever your fintech appetite, we think you’ll find our Sneak Peek series a helpful way to get to know the entrepreneurs that will be taking the stage next month in April.

So today we introduce you to another set of six companies: Interactions, Kreditech, Market Prophit, Personal Capital, Yseop, and ZenPayroll. And if you missed the first installment of our FinvoateSpring 2014 Sneak Peek series, click here.

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Interactions Corporation is the only truly conversational, self-service solution to move more activity to self-service and free up agents for higher order tasks.
Features:
  • Delivers a fully unstructured, open-ended conversation between businesses and their customers
  • Understands with an unrivaled 95% accuracy in both speech and text
  • Deploys in 12 to 18 weeks
Why it’s great: We put customers first by engaging them in a free form dialogue, allowing them to solve problems quicker, and with less effort.
Phil Gray
Responsible for leading business development. Phil is a successful startup executive with extensive experience in natural language understanding and contact center technologies. 
Dan Fox, Marketing Manager

Kreditech uses Big Data and complex machine-learning algorithms to enable faster, better, and more sustainable credit decisions.
Features:
  • Developing self-learning, self-calibrating Big Data scoring
  • Building the “Amazon for consumer lending”: 24/7, always and everywhere available lending platform
  • Innovative FinTech products
Why it’s great: Based on Big Data scoring, Kreditech is building a centralized and global online lending service for innovative consumer finance products.
Sebastian Diemer, Co-Founder and CEO
Started building one of the most innovative global Big Data technology companies in 2012. Today, Kreditech is innovation leader in Big Data scoring.
Alexander Graubner, Founder and CTO
Combines cloud-based big data infrastructure and machine learning to build the world’s consumer scoring technology.

Market Prophit empowers every investor with real-time intelligence into what’s moving the market by quantifying global, financial-related conversations in social media.
Features:
  • Real-time sentiment and buzz in stock-related social media chatter
  • Identify the “mavens” in the “crowd” with our quantitative blogger ranking system
  • Track stocks and bloggers you care about
Why it’s great: Klout + Morningstar for social media financial influencers
Igor Gonta, CEO
Extensive experience on Wall Street in sales and trading, and brings that to the intersection of Big Data and finance.

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Personal Capital’s One Click Investment Proposals enables our advisors to efficiently analyze prospective clients’ finances and deliver investment recommendations tailored to their unique needs.
Features:
  • Advisors generate 90% of a client’s portfolio with one click
  • Clients see their complete & up-to-date household financial data and a comparison of their existing portfolio to an optimal one
Why it’s great: We’re making it digital – while keeping it personal.
Bill Harris, CEO
Has spent his career dragging the financial industry into the 21st century. He’s developed financial technology for 25 years – including as CEO at Intuit and PayPal.
Jim Del Favero, CPO
Has spent his career designing and building consumer financial software. Before Personal Capital he was head product manager for Quicken at Intuit.

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Yseop is natural language generation software based on artificial intelligence that boosts sales productivity and turns each financial advisor into an expert without additional training.
Features:
  • Yseop automates the sales process from lead generation to the writing of pre-to-meeting reports, customer follow-up and personalized marketing communications — automatically.
Why it’s great:
Yseop turns data into text, leads into clients, and salespeople into experts. Double your sales force productivity overnight with the power of artificial intelligence.
Elizabeth Farabee
Has a background in inbound and direct marketing. She is passionate about Yseop’s personalized marketing potential in both the B2C and B2B markets.
Matt Rauscher
Is a consultant at Y
seop. He lived nine years in the United States, and graduated with a Master’s Degree in Finance.

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ZenPayroll is modern, delightful payroll. Our mission is to make payroll as simple and intuitive as possible using the principles of modern software.
Features:
  • Makes payroll as simple and intuitive as possible
  • Helps business owners build stronger teams
  • Empowers employees by enabling them to be equal stakeholders
Why it’s great: Payroll should be about people, not payments. ZenPayroll is unearthing the human side of compensation currently buried under layers of complexity and government bureaucracy.
Joshua Reeves, CEO and Co-Founder
Believes in the power of software to solve complex problems, and founded ZenPayroll to deliver delightful, modern payroll to businesses everywhere.

Stay tuned for the next edition of our Sneak Peek series coming next week.

Finovate Alumni News– March 19, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgPing Identity announces partnership with Courion.
  • Desert Schools FCU to deploy mobile banking platform from Monitise.
  • Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City to use virtual agent technology from IntelliResponse to respond to Affordable Care Act queries. See IntelliResponse demo at FinovateSpring in April.
  • ID Analytics launches new versions of its Transaction Protector and Transaction Advanced Intelligence products for eCommerce.
  • Upstart Business Journal looks at how Kathryn Petralia and Kabbage are rewriting the lending rules.
  • BlinkMobile Interactive signs first NZ Council deal.
  • Southern Alpha calls iQuantifi “a budget platform we actually like to use.”
  • Payment Source features Jason Richelson, founder of ShopKeep POS.
  • Bill Harris, Personal Capital CEO & former PayPal CEO discusses the future of PayPal on Bloomberg TV. See Harris demo Personal Capital’s latest development at FinovateSpring next month.
  • TradeKing earns four-stars in Barron’s online broker rankings for eighth consecutive year.
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 Alumni News– February 18, 2014

  • Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Finovate-F-Logo.jpgScotiabank selects Fenergo’s regulatory onboarding solution.
  • FIS announces partnership with Microsoft Cybercrime Center.
  • Azimo credits Indian expansion for surge in new cash pick-up points.
  • Betterment, Personal Capital, Wealthfront featured in Boston Globe column on personal wealth.
  • DeviceFidelity unveils RF technology behind its latest stand-alone, NFC microSD card.
  • Find Biometrics interviews Toby Rush, CEO of EyeVerify.
  • Vincent Turner, Planwise CEO, gives a closer look at the Planwise Solid Earth partnership.
  • Forbes examines how CAN Capital reinvents financing for SMBs.
  • City of Prosser launches on doxo to simplify bill pay and add mobile interaction.
  • BillGuard now offering free card monitoring for unlimited number of cards.
  • Taulia triples revenue growth in 2013.
  • BlinkMobile enters Europe, eyes U.S.
  • Xero adds a new chairman, director, and CEO of North America.
  • Matchi hires new CEO, David Milligan.
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.