More Than 30 Alums Make Hot Topics 100 Most Influential People in Fintech

More Than 30 Alums Make Hot Topics 100 Most Influential People in Fintech

HotTopics_Fintech100_2015

If you drew up a list of the 100 most influential men and women in fintech, how many of them would be alumni of our Finovate/FinDEVr conferences?

The answer is about a third, according to Hot Topics, which released its list of the top 100 fintech influencers this week.

“More transactions taking place online mean more opportunities to help consumers manage their money in digital form: enter the fintech platforms,” wrote Joel Watson for Hot Topics. “Whether it be securing mortgagees, getting a loan, transferring money abroad, spending money in an ecommerce store, or one of a thousand other applications, the marketplace is fiercely competitive and growing all the time.”

See if you agree with who made the cut, who was overlooked, and who deserves at least an honorable mention.

Hot Topics is an online community of more than 300 entrepreneurs, corporate executives, venture capitalists, journalists, bloggers and other professionals interested and involved with technology.

 

Four Finovate Alums Land on Inc. Magazine Top 100

Four Finovate Alums Land on Inc. Magazine Top 100

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Last week, Inc. Magazine published its annual ranking of private American companies based on 3-year revenue growth.

Four out of the top 100 companies are Finovate alums:

KabbageLogo2015Kabbage, provides working capital to small businesses online:

WePayLogoWePay, payment technology provider for online platforms and marketplaces:

ProsperLogoProsper, online P2P lending platform:

CardlyticsLogoNewCardlytics, a card-linked offers platform that provides big-data insights to financial institutions

Further down this year’s list are Payoneer, ranked 1976; CAN Capital, ranked 3206; Forte Payment Systems, ranked 4,466.

Having four alums among the 100 fastest-growing companies is a testament to fintech’s recent growth spurt. Last year, only two—Lending Club (ranked 248) and OnDeck (ranked 726)—made the top 1,000. Since both went public in late 2014, neither qualified for this year’s list.

The increasing number of Inc.’s 500 fintech companies is partially fueled by the swell in funding over the past few years. Inc. Magazine noted this trend in its recent article, Why Fintech Is One of the Most Promising Industries of 2015. It primarily focuses on WePay’s achievements but also highlights growth and success stories throughout the industry.

Finovate Alumni News

Around the web

  • Zopa CEO Giles Andrews quoted in The Financial Times column on the growth of P2P lending in Asia.
  • Daily Fintech looks at SigFig and its turn toward a B2B business model in the wake of the Yodlee acquisition.
  • Consumer Reports calls Betterment a “top 5” in customer service.
  • Top Image Systems announces “multiyear, multimillion” deal with a “top 5 U.S. bank”
  • Hot Topic names multiple Finovate and FinDEVr alum leaders in its list of top 100 in the industry.
  • Blockchain achieves 4 million bitcoin wallets.
  • Prosper moves into new headquarters after growing from 88 to 500 employees since 2013.
  • PayPal ranks in the top 5 of payments companies based on market cap.

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

On Finovate.com

Around the web

  • FIDO Alliance now certifies security products from Entersekt and MicroStrategy.
  • Prosper updates credit model to PMI 6.
  • Boku acquires Mobileview Italia, offering it access to all four of the major mobile carriers in Italy.
  • NAFCU chooses Geezeo as PFM Preferred Partner.
  • Cloud Lending Solutions unveils CL Originate, its next generation, cloud-based loan-origination platform.
  • PYMNTS.com takes a look at Tradeshift’s acquisition of Merchantry.
  • BlackBerry and PayPal team up to beta test P2P payments via BBM in Canada.
  • Albawaba profiles Zooz and its unique approach to hiring developer talent.
  • Partnership with DigitalMailer to enable Primadata to provide its clients with the ability to send digital statements.
  • The Tennessean names ProfitStars a 2015 Top Workplace.

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

On Finovate.com

  • “FinDEVr San Francisco Very-Early-Bird Ticket Discount Ends Friday
  • “Finovate Debuts: 3E Software’s Teslar is a Toolbox for Credit Management”
  • “New Investment in Tyfone Takes Total Capital to $12 Million”

Around the web

  • FIS to purchase SunGard for $9.1 billion.
  • Lending Club launches its Open Integration program, unveiling a suite of APIs for online advisers and broker-dealers.
  • In Gartner’s latest report, Backbase scores twice in the top 5 for the B2C Informational and B2C Transactional use cases.
  • Bluefin Payment Systems partners with EchoSat to protect point-of-sale systems from security breaches.
  • Inc. ranks Kabbage as 36, WePay as 62, Prosper as 86, and Cardlytics as 88 in a list of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in America.
  • Column in Stars and Stripes highlights CrowdFlower in discussion on micro-work.
  • TradeShift to acquire Merchantry for $30 million.
  • Dwolla adds two-factor authentication for full account holders.

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

On Finovate.com

  • “Santander UK Launches Cash Kitty PFM App Developed with Kalixa, Monitise”

Around the web

  • Lend Academy podcast features Kathryn Petralia, Kabbage co-founder. Come see Kabbage at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco.
  • GMC Software releases GMC Inspire R10 customer communications management software.
  • DevNetwork profiles WePay at the API World 2015 conference.
  • DriveWealth joins with World Merit to promote the first Financial Literacy Challenge.
  • Sonavation unveils technology that puts fingerprint sensors under Gorilla Glass.
  • Top Image Systems inks deal with Bahrainian Xerox distributor, Business International all.
  • Dallas Business Journal interviews Chris Camillo, TickerTags founder.
  • Prosper begins debt-sale recovery strategy; charged-off loans will be packaged together for a debt sale.
  • AlwaysOn selects Taulia as an AlwaysOn Global 250 winner.
  • Beehive Startups takes a peek at MX’s culture. Check out MX’s presentation for developers at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco.
  • GROWMARK selects Avalara AvaTax Excise & Returns Excise Enterprise. Avalara will present at FinDEVr 2015, 6/7 October.
  • Forbes column on top fintech trends highlights MaxMyInterest, Prosper, Lending Club, Betterment, Vanguard, CUneXus, Patch of Land, and DarcMatter.

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

On Finovate.com

  • “Finovate Debuts: Dream Payments Solves Your Payment-acceptance Nightmare”
  • “Bill.com Unveils its iOS App for Small Business Owners”
  • “Malauzai Software Raises $11 Million in Venture Funding”

Around the web

  • Bloomberg: Barclays’s Michael Rake to Become WorldPay Chairman in September. See WorldPay at FinDEVr this October.
  • PaySimple introduces BookSimple, its cloud-based scheduling software.
  • Check Point partners with Vmware partner to bolster security in data centers.
  • Boston Business Journal: peerTransfer to open office in Shanghai, China, this year.
  • Bank Innovation reviews Narrative Science and its plans to enter the robot-advisor market.
  • Let’s Talk Payments interviews Ron Suber, Prosper President.
  • Credit Union Times features Rippleshot CEO and co-founder Canh Tran in its column on fraud detection for CUs.
  • Sang Lee, CEO of DarcMatter, quoted in RIA Biz column on robo-advisors.
  • PYMTNs.com profiles Kreditech as the company pursues Series C investment.
  • Belvoir FCU launches Belvoir Buck$ loyalty program courtesy of partnership with Larky.

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

On Finovate.com

  • “Redesigning the Value Chain: Q&A with Michiel Schipper of Topicus”

Around the web

  • Trustly appoints CCO from Société Générale and director of sales from Klarna Group.
  • Swiss Re partners with Backbase to develop a new digital platform for selling and servicing life and health products online. Come see Backbase at FinDEVr on 6/7 October in San Francisco.
  • PayItSimple launches in the United Kingdom.
  • Greater Nevada, $550 million in assets, hires Insuritas to launch insurance agency.
  • Paybefore: “How the Ripple Protocol Could Change Payments”
  • PayPal’s Braintree supports Apple Pay in the U.K. with its v.zero SDK. Come see Braintree at FinDEVr this fall.
  • Billhighway adopts SnapApp platform to develop and publish interactive content that increases market engagement.
  • ReadyForZero lists Prosper and Lending Club as 2 of the top 3 debt-consolidation loan companies.
  • Betterment launches SmartDeposit feature.
  • Market Prophit licenses its platform to Nasdaq’s Market Intelligence Desk.
  • The Flying Merchant to use digital eKYC solution from iSignthis to meet AML requirements.
  • The Economic Times India features ArthaYantra, Betterment, FutureAdvisor, and Wealthfront in a review of robo-advisors.

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.

Prosper’s Growth History: $4 Billion in Loan Originations Since Launch

Prosper’s Growth History: $4 Billion in Loan Originations Since Launch

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What’s the most efficient way to understand the growth of a company? Look at the data, of course!

P2P lending granddaddy, Prosper, recently published some facts and stats about its history, performance, and future plans. We dissected the key pieces:

  • Prosper launched in 2006, and six years later, in 2012, the company had closed $150 million in loans.
  • In 2014, Prosper closed $1.6 billion in loans, a record at that time, and brought in 3.5 times more loan volume than 2013.
  • In Q1 2015, Prosper closed its largest quarter so far with $912 million in loan originations on the platform—an increase of almost 12x over two years before.
  • This week, Prosper announced it has originated more than $4 billion in loans since its 2006 launch.

LendItGraph

Graph source: Prosper blog (http://bit.ly/1JWswZO)

The industry is taking notice. So far this year, Prosper has been named one of Forbes Magazine’s Most Promising Companies of 2015, an AlwaysOn OnFinance Company of the Year, and was listed as a Global 250 Top Private Company.

In 2012, Prosper employed 85 people. The company now has 457+ employees and, in 2015 alone, has doubled the size of its engineering team.

Prosper debuted at the first Finovate event in 2007 in New York City. Check out the demo video below.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • “Prosper’s Growth History: $4 Billion in Loan Originations Since Launch”

Around the web

  • American Banker covers Realty Mogul and Patch of Land (paywall).
  • PYMNTS looks at how Currency Cloud plans to use its recent round of funding. Come see their presentation at FinDEVr 2015.
  • Tradeshift partners with supply-chain management solutions company Quyntess, which has built three apps on Tradeshift’s open platform.
  • TechCrunch rumors Kreditech is three months out from closing a $110 million round with contribution from Peter Thiel.

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

On Finovate.com

  • Social Money Teams Up with Sallie Mae to Provide Goal-based Savings Accounts
  • Finovate Debuts: Shoeboxed’s Features Help Banks Dig Into Level 3 Data
  • Personal Capital Launches Retirement Planner to Give You a Reality Check

Around the web

  • Trustly creates double-digit increase in conversion rate after launching with Logitravel, now constitutes 40%+ of all transactions.
  • PYMNTS interviews Vishal Patel, senior marketing leader at Tradeshift on how the company makes the supply chain run smoothly.
  • Personal Capital launches retirement-planning tool.
  • Finance Magnates features Tradier in today’s Fintech Spotlight.
  • NICE Actimize, a division of NICE Systems, launches its Customer Due Diligence suite.
  • Mobile Syrup features FinanceIt, “the money lender for the smartphone age.”
  • InvestorIntel for Investors highlights Lending Club, Prosper, and FundAmerica in its look at startups in the crowdfunding industry.
  • Upstart Business Journal talks about how Malauzai Software is enabling “wearable banking.”
  • Let’s Talk Payments interviews Jingit CEO Kate Bolster.
  • BuzFeed lists TradeHero among its “13 apps that’ll teach you something new every day.”
  • Business Insider examines how LoopPay could help Samsung take the “early lead” in mobile payments.
  • PaymentsSource quotes Prairie Cloudware CRO Doug Parr in a column on Apple Pay adoption (sub req).
  • Payments Source features BehavioSec’s biometric security solution (paywall).
  • Emitac Enterprise Solutions partners with Kony to speed the delivery of enterprise mobile apps.
  • Cartera Commerce launches Splender, a new eCommerce and cash-back shopping website.

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

On Finovate.com

  • SumUp Unveils New Financing of Undisclosed Amount
  • FinDEVr 2015: First Round of Presenting Companies Revealed
  • Ixaris Launches Initial Phase of Open Payment Ecosystem (OPE) Project

Around the web

  • Prosper to charge fee for investors who bundle loans into bonds.
  • Spreedly now supports third-party tokens.
  • US Bank signs five-year renewal for Fiserv digital payment suite, including CheckFree RXP, Popmoney, and TransferNow solutions.
  • LendingTree announces new CFO, COO, CTO, and CRO.
  • PYMNTS.com interviews Jonathan Hancock, TSYS director of fraud-management solutions.
  • Lending Robot launches new, default ‘fully automated’ mode, that allows users to set a risk profile on a slider bar.
  • Lending Club partners with nonprofit Opportunity Fund to feed loans rejected by Lending Club.
  • Backbase set to launch its first hackathon, 19/20 June 2015.
  • EuroNews features Kabbage, Lending Club, and On Deck.
  • Actiance launches Actiance Trusted Communities to enable companies to communicate with counterparts while meeting regulations.
  • Blackhawk Network to acquire Achievers Corp.
  • Global Debt Registry makes Account Extinguishment Reports (AERs) available free to consumers using its Debt Lookup service.
  • Top Image Systems Achieves Certification with PaperStream IP Image Enhancement Solution.

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.