Last Chance for FinovateEurope 2013 Early-Bird Tickets — Register Before Friday to Reserve Your Seat and Save £100!

btn1_ov.png

FinovateEurope 2013 is only 4 weeks away and it is already clear that the conference is going to be our biggest and best European event yet.

With the expansion to two days this year we’ve been able to select a ton of new fintech innovations (check out the presenter list) to debut live on stage. The latest ideas in security, marketing, mobile, online banking, PFM, payments, FX, investing, UX and much more will be showcased via our signature 7-minute demo format.

In addition to the great roster of presenters, the room is filling up fast with senior leaders from companies like:

  • ABN Amro
  • Accel Partners
  • AEGON
  • AIB
  • Aktif Investment Bank
  • Alfa-Bank
  • Alior Bank
  • Balderton Capital
  • Bank Hapoalim
  • Barclays Bank
  • BNP Paribas
  • BRE BANK
  • Capital One Europe
  • Celent
  • Cortal Consors
  • Datamonitor
  • Efma
  • Ernst & Young
  • Fidelity Investments
  • Gartner
  • IBM
  • IDC Financial Insights
  • ING
  • Jack Henry
  • KPMG
  • Liberty Bank
  • Lloyds Banking Group
  • MasterCard
  • Microsoft
  • Old Mutual
  • Ovum
  • PayPal
  • PostFinance
  • Rabobank
  • RBS
  • SKAGEN
  • Skandiabanken
  • Standard Life
  • Toyota Financial Svcs
  • UBS
  • Unicredit
  • Volksbank Bühl

If you’d like to join this group of leading executives and watch the cutting-edge of European fintech
debut, early-bird tickets are still available at
the discounted price of £1,095.00 (£100 off) through this Friday January 11th.

Tickets are limited (and we’re projecting a sell out at this point) so please lock in your seat today to guarantee your ability to attend (and these savings). We’ll see you in London in February!

FinovateEurope 2013 is sponsored by: Bluerock Consulting, Financial Technology Partners The Bancorp & Yodlee

FinovateEurope 2013 is partners with: BankersHub, Celent, Finance On Windows, Financial Services Innovation Centre, The Financial Services Club, and Hotwire PR 

SecondMarket and AngelList Team Up to Enable Micro-Venture Investing for Members

SecondMarketLogo3.jpg

Yesterday the secondary trading market for private companies, SecondMarket, announced it partnered with AngelList to allow qualified investors to participate in micro-venture investing, or investing small amounts in early stage startups.

According to Barry Silbert, SecondMarket CEO, accredited investors will be able to invest in early stage technology startups in fields such as:

    • Finance
    • Education
    • Science
    • Advertising

The diverse range of startups, combined with the small dollar amount that the platforms require, will enable investors to better diversify their portfolio.

SecondMarket and AngelList will dual-list the companies, which are vetted and handpicked for the following qualities:

    • Easy-to-understand business model
    • Already backed by well-known investors
    • Have great advisors
    • Willing to be transparent with numbers

Five undisclosed startups are already on the platform and receiving investments, two of which have already filled their rounds.

SecondMarket demonstrated at FinovateStartup 2009 in San Francisco.

A Special Sneak Peek of FinovateEurope 2013 Presenters

btn1_ov.png

With FinovateEurope 2013 less than 2 months away, we’ve finally finished handpicking the cutting-edge companies that will be demoing their latest and greatest financial tech innovations at the conference.

The selection process this year was particularly competitive due to the tremendous amount of innovation going in Europe right now. Fortunately, with our expanded two-day format, we’re excited to be able to showcase significantly more innovations this year.

Before you head off for the holiday break, check out the small sneak peek below of the companies that we’ve selected. And we’ll be announcing a number of additional innovative presenting companies that are currently in “stealth mode” closer to the event.

A Sneak Peek of the FinovateEurope 2013 Presenting Company Roster:

  • Acuity Systems
  • Akamai
  • Azimo
  • Backbase
  • BBVA
  • Biletu
  • BörseGo
  • Cardlytics
  • Comarch
  • CR2
  • CurrencyFair
  • Dashlane
  • DEVICE IDENT
  • ERN
  • ETRONIKA
  • eWise
  • EZBOB
  • Fiserv
  • FreeAgent
  • GMC Software Technology
  • Heckyl
  • IND Group
  • ITSector
  • Kabbage
  • Kalixa Group
  • Kantox
  • LeanBanking
  • Liqpay​
  • Luminous
  • Meniga
  • Movenbank
  • PhotoPay
  • Pockets United
  • QuantConnect
  • rplan
  • SumUp
  • Temenos
  • The Currency Cloud
  • TransferWise
  • True Office
  • Trustly
  • TSYS
  • Virtual Piggy
  • VoiceTrust
  • Willstream
  • Xendpay
  • Yseop
  • And more to be announced!

If you’d like to attend and watch the cutting-edge of European fintech
debut via our fast-paced, demo-only format, early-bird tickets are still available at
the discounted price of £1,095.00 (£100 off). Tickets are limited so please lock in your seat today to guarantee your ability to attend (and these savings). We’ll see you in London in February!

FinovateEurope 2013 is sponsored by: Bluerock Consulting, Financial Technology Partners & The Bancorp

FinovateEurope 2013 is partners with: BankersHub, Celent, Financial Services Innovation Centre, The Financial Services Club, and Hotwire PR 

Apply to Demo Your Latest FinTech Innovation at FinovateSpring 2013

btn2_ov.png

With 2012 winding down and our awesome lineup for FinovateEurope soon to be announced, we’ve officially begun accepting applications to demo at FinovateSpring 2013 next May in San Francisco.

There is a tremendous amount of innovation going in the fintech space in Silicon Valley and we’re incredibly excited to be headed back to San Francisco to showcase the best of it. Based on early trends, we expect FinovateSpring 2013 to be our largest event ever — beating last year’s record attendance of 1,200. 

If you’re interested in debuting your latest financial or banking technology innovation at the event, please email us at spring@finovate.com to get more details.

If you want to attend and watch the future of fintech debut live, tickets for the event are now on sale at our lowest “presale” price of $995 ($400 off list price) — but only through this Friday December 14. Please lock in your seat now to guarantee your ability to attend (and these savings)!

We’ll see you in San Francisco in May (or London in February)!

FinovateSpring 2013 is sponsored by: The Bancorp and Financial Technology Partners

FinovateSpring 2013 partners include: BankersHub and Celent

Apply to Demo Your Latest FinTech Innovation at FinovateSpring 2013

btn2_ov.png

With 2012 winding down and our awesome lineup for FinovateEurope soon to be announced, we’ve officially begun accepting applications to demo at FinovateSpring 2013 next May in San Francisco.

There is a tremendous amount of innovation going in the fintech space in Silicon Valley and we’re incredibly excited to be headed back to San Francisco to showcase the best of it. Based on early trends, we expect FinovateSpring 2013 to be our largest event ever — beating last year’s record attendance of 1,200. 

If you’re interested in debuting your latest financial or banking technology innovation at the event, please email us at spring@finovate.com to get more details.

If you want to attend and watch the future of fintech debut live, tickets for the event are now on sale at our lowest “presale” price of $995 ($400 off list price) — but only through this Friday December 14. Please lock in your seat now to guarantee your ability to attend (and these savings)!

We’ll see you in San Francisco in May (or London in February)!

FinovateSpring 2013 is sponsored by: The Bancorp and Financial Technology Partners

FinovateSpring 2013 partners include: BankersHub and Celent

FinovateAsia 2012 Demo Videos Now Available

FinovateAsiaLogo.png

We’re excited to announce the demo videos from FinovateAsia 2012 are now available for your viewing enjoyment. If you missed out on our inaugural Singapore conference this year, this is your chance to see the newest Asian fintech innovations from the 35 cutting-edge companies that were on stage. 

The videos are part of the Finovate Archives, where you can watch (for free) every demo of new technology since our first conference in the fall of 2007. It’s an inspiring place to hang out online for a couple of hours.

If these videos have made you hungry for more, tickets for FinovateEurope (February 12-13, 2013 in London) are available at the early-bird discounted rate for a few more weeks. Our third annual London conference has been expanded to two days in order to showcase even more innovations and we hope you’ll join us to watch the future of European fintech debut live! 

FinovateAsia 2012 was sponsored by: The Bancorp Inc., Citi Ventures, Financial Technology Partners, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, Standard Chartered, & Visa

FinovateAsia 2012 was partners with: Asian Banking & Finance, BankInnovation, BankerStuff, BeSuccess, Celent, Finance on Windows, PYMNTS.com, The Asian Banker & The Emerging Finance

FinovateAsia 2012 Demo Videos Now Available

FinovateAsiaLogo.png

We’re excited to announce the demo videos from FinovateAsia 2012 are now available for your viewing enjoyment. If you missed out on our inaugural Singapore conference this year, this is your chance to see the newest Asian fintech innovations from the 35 cutting-edge companies that were on stage. 

The videos are part of the Finovate Archives, where you can watch (for free) every demo of new technology since our first conference in the fall of 2007. It’s an inspiring place to hang out online for a couple of hours.

If these videos have made you hungry for more, tickets for FinovateEurope (February 12-13, 2013 in London) are available at the early-bird discounted rate for a few more weeks. Our third annual London conference has been expanded to two days in order to showcase even more innovations and we hope you’ll join us to watch the future of European fintech debut live! 

FinovateAsia 2012 was sponsored by: The Bancorp Inc., Citi Ventures, Financial Technology Partners, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, Standard Chartered, & Visa

FinovateAsia 2012 was partners with: Asian Banking & Finance, BankInnovation, BankerStuff, BeSuccess, Celent, Finance on Windows, PYMNTS.com, The Asian Banker & The Emerging Finance

Don’t Miss Your Last Chance to Save £200 via a FinovateEurope 2013 Very-Early Bird Ticket

btn1_ov.png

With FinovateEurope 2013 a little less than 3 months away, we’ve begun sorting through the THICK stack of applications we’ve received from hot startups and leading established players with new fintech innovations to debut.

It’s already an incredible list and it is growing every day as the final application deadline of Friday November 30 draws near (please email us at europe@finovate.com ASAP if you still need info on applying).

There is so much innovation going on in Europe in everything from mobile to security to lending to PFM to payments to wealth management — and much more. Based on the quality and number of applications we’ve seen so far, next year’s FinovateEurope is going to be our biggest and best yet. And, with the expansion to a two-day format, it’s your chance to see even more new ideas in a single show.

If you’d like to attend and watch the cutting-edge of European fintech
debut via our fast-paced, demo-only format, very early-bird tickets are still available at
the discounted price of £995.00 (£200 off) through this Friday. Tickets are limited so please lock in your seat today to guarantee your ability to attend (and these savings). We’ll see you in London in February!

FinovateEurope 2013 is sponsored by: Bluerock Consulting, Financial Technology Partners & The Bancorp

FinovateEurope 2013 is partners with: Financial Services Innovation Centre and Hotwire PR 

FinTech Innovation Lab Accepting Applications Through December 19

Fintech-Logo-Horizontal.jpg

Last week we met with the President and CEO of the FinTech Innovation Lab, Maria Gotsch, to learn more about the program. The Lab is currently accepting applications through December 19.

For those not familiar with the Lab, it is a program that connects early- and growth-stage financial technology companies to a group of 14 leading financial services firms:

  • Ally Financial 
  • American Express 
  • Bank of America 
  • Barclays 
  • Capital One 
  • Citigroup 
  • Credit Suisse 

  • Deutsche Bank 
  • Goldman Sachs 
  • JPMorgan Chase 
  • Morgan Stanley 
  • New York Life 
  • State Street 
  • UBS

Goals
The program has two main goals:

1. Create a stronger fintech sector in New York City. Because many startups look to the West Coast for their headquarters, the lab aims to keep them in New York. 

2. Expose its 14 financial institution partners to cutting edge technology. The Lab facilitates a dialogue between financial institutions and fintech companies, ensuring that their products and services are addressing real needs.

FinTechInnoLabHomepage.jpg

Benefits
Companies find the biggest benefit of the Lab is the feedback and mentoring from senior executives (CTO/CIOs) from large financial services firms. The tech companies receive more direct feedback than what they would receive in a typical sales call.

Challenges
The biggest challenge for participants is committing to the 12-week time requirement. Companies have to be prepared to spend 12 weeks on-site in New York and attend weekly panel discussion meetings. Because participants still need to run their business, they must balance the two.

Selection Process
Companies submit written descriptions of their product. About 20 of those are brought in to pitch to the financial institution representatives. Of those, six or seven are selected to go through the full program. 

Ideally, the Lab receives a mix of early and growth stage companies that, at a minimum, have a well-developed and working beta. The Lab will even accept well-established companies for the program if they have a new and innovative product. 

How to Apply
The Lab is accepting applications through December 19. Go to fintechinnovationlab.com to apply or learn more about the program.

Chatting with Joe Cunningham, Visa’s Global Head of Technology Strategy & Innovation, about VisaLabs and the Future of Payments

VisaLogo.jpgSince we’re in Singapore prepping for our inaugural FinovateAsia tomorrow (there are only 9 tickets remaining), we took a break for a quick chat with Joe Cunningham, Visa’s Global Head of Technology Strategy & Innovation, who recently relocated here.

Joe met up with us to talk about overall trends in the industry, how he sees payments in Asia evolving, and VisaLab’s role driving innovation with Visa. Cunningham has been with Visa since 2008 and is in charge of all future-focused aspects of Visa’s technology so he has a great perspective on where things are headed.

Here’s a transcript from the interview:

Finovate: What is your role at Visa? How did you end up in it? 

Cunningham: I’m globally responsible for technology strategy and innovation which means that I look after the future-focused aspects of Visa’s technology agenda. This includes defining the company’s technology strategy, leading VisaLabs (Visa’s R&D group) as well as leading all EMV-compliant development (chip, contactless and mobile).
Within VisaLabs, the role of my team is to look outside the company for interesting technologies on the landscape and identify potential opportunities for those technologies to add value to Visa’s business.
I’ve been at Visa nearly five years, prior to which, I worked with ANZ bank in Australia. 
Finovate: What is VisaLabs and how does it impact the technology road map of the company?

Cunningham: At Visa, there are essentially two aspects of innovation in which we’re interested. The first is innovation on the product side, which includes advancements in mobile, social, eCommerce and information products. 
The other aspect is the underlying technology; this is the area where VisaLabs focuses. Some of our technology research themes include security and encryption, ‘big data’, predictive analytics and large-scale virtualization. These themes guide our internal technology R&D priorities, and broadly inform the focus areas of our open innovation agenda.
At Visa, our technology research agenda is anchored by our open innovation philosophy, meaning we partner with third parties to help advance our agenda. For example, we have developed partnerships with a number of prestigious universities, government agencies and technology incubators around the world to leverage their expertise in areas that are relevant to our technology and business.
Finovate: Which emerging technologies do you see as potentially changing the face of the electronic payments sector?
Cunningham: The electronic payments sector is constantly evolving; as new technologies mature and enter the mainstream. For example, recently we’ve seen online, mobile, large scale data, and social networks open up new windows of opportunity. Visa continues to work at the leading edge of payments innovation to provide payment services that are relevant and compelling to consumers around the world.
Finovate: How do you see open source software being deployed in the electronic payments space?
Cunningham: Like many organizations, Visa’s core systems, and operational environments rely heavily on open source technology. Our Global Technology Strategy describes our long term position on open source solutions; we see it as critical, and we want to remain exposed to the high rate of innovation which is a characteristic of the open source space. Over time, we believe open source software will become even more important to Visa. 
One example of this is Apache Hadoop, which has become a critical part of Visa’s data architecture. In the past few years, with the help of a number of start-up organizations, we moved this technology from R&D to a full scale production deployment. We now use Hadoop to support data-intense innovative new products and services. We’re very happy with the results and we expect to continue to work closely with the open source community and derive further value from innovations in this field.  
Finovate: As newer, non-traditional companies move into the financial services market, what do you think they will be able to offer customers that traditional players have yet to deliver?
Cunningham: In our experience, a globally viable payments solution must have five fundamental characteristics – convenience and simplicity, standardization, interoperability, global accessibility and security, and we believe Visa embodies these characteristics fully. Visa has a track record of delivering highly secure and convenient electronic payment solutions to the point-of-sale environments. We are now extending our expertise to simplify commerce in new and emerging payment channels such as online and mobile. 
We’ve certainly seen an array of new competitors enter into this market. We welcome this healthy competition and we’re pleased to see how this has a positive impact on the industry as competition brings about new product development and innovation – ultimately benefiting the end consumer.
Finovate: How do you see the Asia-Pacific region evolving in terms of electronic payments innovation compared to more developed regions? 
Cunningham: Across all the markets we serve in Asia-Pacific, we see vastly different electronic payments innovations evolving, as you’d expect in such a diverse region. 
In some emerging markets around the world, consumers have historically been difficult to reach through traditional channels due to a lack of infrastructure and limited distribution. Innovators like Visa are using mobile technology to drive financial inclusion and meet the unique needs of unbanked and under-banked consumers. 
At the other end of the spectrum, there are very exciting examples in markets like South Korea and Hong Kong. In these cases, unique consumer demands, a technology-savvy population and local partnerships can help drive rapid adoption of new payments services.
Finovate: VisaLabs partners with a variety of third parties including startups to advance its innovation agenda. What qualities do you look for in the startups that you partner with? 
Cunningham: The start-ups we typically work with are solving legitimate business problems in fields that are relevant to our business. To be sustainable, all our R&D program activities must be pragmatic, accountable and aligned to our technology research themes. As you’d expect, these themes include security, encryption, ‘big data’, predictive analytics and large-scale virtualization.
Finovate: Can you give some examples of start-ups you’re working with?
Cunningham: We’ve had some great success over the past two years working with start-ups based in Silicon Valley, close to Visa’s global HQ. These start-ups have helped us quickly progress our research in the areas of ‘big data’ and have enhanced our visualization services. We hope to be able to replicate this success through our expansion into Singapore, and the wider Asia/P
acific region.

Finovate: If an Asian startup, research university or other potential partner is interested with working with VisaLabs, how can they reach you (other than coming to FinovateAsia tomorrow)?

Cunningham: They can email me at cunningham@visa.com.

Apply to Demo at FinovateEurope 2013

btn1_ov.png

Since the first Finovate in 2007, our mission has been to find and showcase the best new ideas in financial technology from around the globe.

That global mission led us to organize the first FinovateEurope in 2011 to focus specifically on the innovative fintech companies in the European region. After selling out the first show and getting rave reviews, in 2012 we moved to a larger location to accommodate even more innovators in the audience.

For FinovateEurope 2013, we’re going one step further and expanding the conference to two days so that we can showcase even more cutting-edge companies. There is so much innovation going on in Europe in everything from mobile to security to lending to PFM to payments that we want to be able to put it all on stage.

If you’d like to apply to demo your company’s newest fintech innovation at the event, please email us at europe@finovate.com for more details. We’ll be accepting applications from now through late November.

And,
if you’d like to attend and watch the cutting-edge of European fintech
debut via our fast-paced, demo-only format, tickets are now available at
the low pre-sale price of £795.00 (£400 off the list price) here. Tickets are limited so please lock in your seat today to guarantee your ability to attend (and these savings)!

We’ll see you in London in February (or Singapore in November)!

FinovateEurope 2013 is sponsored by: Financial Technology Partners and more to be announced

VC Funding Trends in Financial Services Startups

Last week, VentureDeals wrote a guest post for VentureBeat that looked at VC investment trends in financial services startups from 2007 to 2011.

Overall Picture

    • The number of companies that received funding increased substantially
      in 2010 and 2011
    • The dollar amount rose by only a fraction in 2010 and dropped in 2011

Funding Amount
The below chart summarizes the funding dollars financial services startups received from VCs during 2007 to 2011:

FundingDollarGraph3.jpg

Here is the year-over-year percent change in funding amount:

FundingPercentChangeGraph2.jpg

Number of Companies Funded
The below graph summarizes the number of financial services companies VCs funded from 2007 to 2011:

FundingNumberGraph3.jpg

Here is the year-over-year percent change in number of companies funded:

FundingNumPercentChange.jpg

Finovate Alumni Funding
We compared these results to our analysis of funding Finovate alumni received in 2011:

  • 34 Finovate alumni received funding, some more than once
  • $400 million in funding received