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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Many systems for managing the document life-cycle process could be more efficient.
Banks and financial technology (fintech) companies commonly use document life-cycle management solutions to make their back-office functions run more smoothly. To take full advantage of these systems, organizations must be able to transform documents into a format they can work with.
However, this crucial first step in the process remains cumbersome for many organizations. Even after documents are in the system, organizations need to be able to do more than view them. “The key to managing back-office tasks more efficiently is capturing and extracting data from documents without bogging employees down with manual processes,” said Tracy Schlabach, Director of Marketing at Accusoft. The ability to work with documents and their data can help organizations realize the full efficiency of a comprehensive document management solution.
Identity expert SailPoint is making waves this week. The Texas-based company has agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo.
The all-cash deal, which values SailPoint at $6.9 million, will take the company private. SailPoint debuted on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SAIL in 2017. As part of the transaction, SailPoint stockholders will receive $65.25 per share, which represents a premium of 48% to the company’s 90-day volume-weighted average price.
SailPoint cited multiple benefits of the new arrangement. As a private firm, the company will have increased flexibility and resources to provide identity security solutions. Additionally, SailPoint can now tap into Thoma Bravo’s operating capabilities, capital support, and software expertise. “The transaction will also allow us to pursue our long-term growth trajectory with greater flexibility and effectiveness to support our customers, expand our markets, and accelerate innovation in identity security with the backing of a strong financial partner with deep sector expertise,” said SailPoint Founder and CEO Mark McClain.
The deal comes at a time of increased interest in cybersecurity. Because many employees are still working at home after the pandemic, fraudulent attackers are taking advantage of increased security vulnerabilities. Additionally, experts have warned of potential cyber threats arising from the Russia-Ukraine war.
“SailPoint is ideally positioned to capitalize on the large and growing demand from modern enterprises for robust identity security solutions that secure their business and reduce risk,” said Thoma Bravo Managing Partner Seth Boro. “Their market-leading identity security platform provides the autonomous and intelligent approach that the market requires today, especially among larger enterprises and as hybrid working becomes more common.”
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2022.
Solarisbank Launches Women’s Network to Fight Fintech’s Gender Gap
As part of an effort to close the gender gap in the fintech industry, Berlin, Germany-based banking-as-a-service platform Solarisbank has launched a new “women’s network” called Futura. Part of the company’s holistic Nature, People, Business (NPB) framework, Futura is currently organizing events such as discussion panels and training sessions for women looking to enter the fintech industry.
Futura also has a “heal thyself” component. The company has overhauled its recruitment process to be more inclusive, changing language and encouraging recruitment agencies to reach out to more female applicants. Solarisbank has pledged to reach at least 30% female representation by 2024.
“At Solarisbank, we decided to take a deliberate stand to improve gender equity in our industry,” Futura initiator and VP of Onboarding and Integration, Alex Gessner said. “We launched Futura to make fintech more inclusive for everyone – women, men, and non-binary people. It’s encouraging to see so much support for our initiative, and the market response to our first activities has shown the need for such a network.”
German fintech Express Group raises €25m in Series A funding
Express Group, a Hamburg, Germany-based startup dedicated to making tax preparation easier for working and middle class families, has secured $27 million (€25 million) in Series A funding. The investment round was led by Insight Partners and Project A Ventures. The funds will be used to help grow Express Group’s business internationally as well as to fuel future product launches.
ExpressSteur, the initial product from Express Group, leverages AI to enable accounting companies, tax consultants, and lawyers to process tax cases in minutes. The solution brings machine learning and automation to a process that is typically manually-dominated, making the tax preparation process easier, faster, and more accurate. The product helped the company grow to a Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) run rate of more than $49 million (€45 million) in less than 12 months.
Express Group was founded in 2019 by Maximilian Lambsdorff, Dennis Konrad, Konstantin Loebner, Mehdi Afridi, and Andreas Santoro.
New partnership marries recurring payments and subscription management
Dutch payment processor Mollie has announced a collaboration with U.S.-based subscription management platform Recharge that will offer an end-to-end, one-stop solution for managing recurring payments and subscriptions. The partnership will make it easy for users to leverage Recharge’s APIs to integrate recurring payments into Magento, WooCommerce, or other standalone webshop. The integration will also support deploying and managing subscriptions, as well as offer a retention suite to automatically retry payments in the event of failure, an enhanced self-serve customer experience with personalized transactional notifications, and real-time insights into revenues, customers, and subscriptions.
“We’re really excited to be able to offer merchants the opportunity to implement fully powered subscriptions with Recharge easily,” Mollie CCO Ken Serdons said. “Seamless effortless payments brought to recurring ecommerce means an increase in lifetime value and average order value, and at a time of unprecedented ecommerce growth and ambition, we’re able to meet and surpass customer expectations.”
Headquartered in Amsterdam, Mollie is one of Europe’s fastest-growing payment service providers (PSPs). Founded in 2004, the company this year has forged partnerships with WooCommerce and carmaker Mazda. Mollie launched its SaaS payment platform in March.
Recharge was founded in 2014 by Oisin O’Connor (CEO) and Mike Flynn (CTO). Today, the company powers subscriptions for more than 15,000 merchants serving 50 million subscribers, and has processed more than $10 billion in transactions. In May of last year, the Santa Monica, California-based firm secured a Series B investment of $277 million in growth capital, giving the company a valuation of $2.1 billion.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Humanizing AI has been a challenge ever since humans created AI. At FinovateEurope last month, digital pioneer, AI scientist, and author of The Fifth Industrial Revolution Inma Martinez shed her wisdom on how firms can create a human-centric approach to AI innovations.
Martinez has been developing with AI since the year 2000, when she and her team built the first AI to power original mobile internet services. Since then she has been working in other sectors that have digitized, including music, video, and smart cities.
In her conversation with Finovate’s David Penn at FinovateEurope, she discussed how retail banks and fintechs can create a human-centered approach to technology. The first step is to consider the needs that the user at the other end will have, Martinez explained. She added that organizations must take into consideration that, at the end of the day, they have to service the needs of the person.
As a second point on humanizing AI, Martinez advised firms to not only better manage their data, but also make the data available to all parties in the organization who may need access to the data. This reduces the friction of calling data back from the lake or needing to contact data services.
In her interview, Martinez also compares the usage of AI in the financial services industry with other sectors and offers advice on how firms can prepare for future disruption.
Zilch is partnering with Experian to update its Buy Now, Pay Later affordability criteria.
Experian and Zilch will share reporting of payment plan data, which will provide a more complete picture of consumer finances when applying for BNPL financing.
The collaboration comes as many observers have begun to worry about the potential hazards that BNPL could represent for consumers.
At a time of growing scrutiny over the Buy Now, Pay Later e-commerce craze, companies like Zilch are taking the extra step to ensure that consumers using its BNPL service are not getting over their heads when taking advantage of the latest consumer financing option.
This week, Zilch announced that it has partnered with Experian in a reciprocal credit data reporting collaboration that will offer a holistic, 360 degree view of a consumer’s affordability at a given point in time. The data exchange plan takes place under the auspices of the U.K.’s Credit Reporting Act (CRA), which manages rules regarding the supply of products, services, and digital content in the B2C sector. In a statement, Zilch noted that adding Experian’s reporting of payment plans, along with CRA and open banking data, and its own proprietary behavioral statistics, will enable the company to better assess the affordability of its two million customers.
“Zilch was built with financial health at its core, which is why we were one of the first BNPL to work with the FCCA to secure a consumer credit license,” Zilch co-founder and CEO Philip Belamant said. “Today, by partnering with Experian, we are continuing to transform the way affordability is assessed which is the key to us delivering financial inclusion to all.”
Consumers using Zilch pay 25% of their purchase upfront at checkout, then pay the rest of the balance for their purchase in three installments two, four, and six weeks later. Zero interest is charged, and Zilch offers a 2% cashback reward for consumers using Zilch who pay for their purchase in full on the first payment (“Pay in 1”). Rewards can be used to discount future purchases or saved to be spent later on a full purchase.
Zilch was founded in 2018. Last month, the company announced that it surpassed the two million customer milestone. A double unicorn with a valuation of more than $2 billion, London-based Zilch entered the U.S. market late last year and, shortly afterward, announced the launch of its gift card solution, Gift Cards by Zilch. The company has raised more than $339 million in funding, according to Crunchbase.
Social investing platform eToro is launching eToro Art, a $20 million fund to support NFT creators.
Once the company’s $20 million collection of NFTs is complete, eToro will be one of the world’s leading NFT collectors.
eToro has made it clear that, while its new project supports creators, it is not an NFT marketplace.
When it comes to trends in fintech, NFTs are red hot. To capture some of this heat, social trading and investment network eToro is launchingetoro Art, a $20 million fund to support NFT creators, agencies, and brands by purchasing blue chip NFTs and investing in emerging creators and NFT projects.
As part of etoro Art, the Israel-based company has amassed its own collection of NFTs, which includes projects from Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, World of Women, and pieces from emerging artists. After eToro spends the full $20 million on NFTs, the company will be one of the world’s leading NFT collectors. This week, eToro will debut its NFT collection during an event at the Bass Contemporary Art Museum in Miami.
eToro Cofounder and CEO Yoni Assia said that the company’s entrance into the NFT space “is only natural” and that the move will serve as the bridge to bring its community of 27 million registered users into NFTs and the metaverse. “We’re incredibly excited to see the developments in this space over the coming months,” Assia added.
As part of today’s move, eToro will spend an additional $10 million to support up-and-coming creators and brands on new, emerging projects. Creators simply fill out an intake application and, if they are selected to participate, eToro will offer “a range of support and services” to help them bring their project to fruition.
“As the leading social investing platform, eToro is well positioned to lead this space,” said eToro Art Managing Director Guy Hirsch. He added, “eToro.art will bring creators and investors together through technology, uniting communities around art.”
The company is making it clear that it is not launching an NFT marketplace. “No NFTs may be purchased through eToro by use of the services provided by eToro, and eToro is not responsible for any trading activity in NFTs which may occur on any third-party platforms to which eToro may direct its customers,” the company said in a statement. Instead, eToro Art is simply an aggregation platform with referral to third-party platforms.
Founded in 2007, eToro went public in a $10 billion SPAC last year. The company was an early adopter of cryptocurrency, having purchased 100 bitcoin in 2012.
Women-focused roboadvisor Ellevest received a $53 million Series B investment, bringing its total funding to $153 million.
The company will use the funds to deepen its offerings and to help fulfill its goal of getting more money into the hands of women.
Ninety percent of the investors in the Series B round are women and underrepresented investors.
Women-focused wealthtech startup Ellevest just raised $53 million in Series B funding to fulfill its mission to get more money into the hands of women.
BMO and Contour Venture Partners co-led the round, which brings the company’s total funding to $153 million. Contributions also came from new investors Halogen Ventures, Cleo Capital, Stardust Equity, The Venture Collective, Envestnet, as well as the LGBTQIA+ investment syndicate Gaingels. Existing investors Pivotal Ventures, Venture Fund, Khosla, AME Cloud Ventures, Rethink Impact SPV, Salesforce Ventures, PayPal Ventures, and Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America also contributed.
Ninety percent of the investors in today’s Series B round are women and underrepresented investors. “What we’ve got here is women investing, women investing in women, and women investing to help women invest,” the company stated in the press release.
“Ellevest was built by women, for women. It is also funded by women, with 360 women and underrepresented investors participating in this funding round. This group recognizes that women have been disproportionately losing financial ground, and that’s bad news for all of us. Ellevest has a key role to play in addressing this issue: to help women — and their families — rewrite their financial narratives and thrive,” said Ellevest CEO Sallie Krawcheck.
Founded in 2014 by Krawcheck, Ellevest has grown to $1.44 billion in assets under management. The company will use today’s investment to deepen its offerings, which currently consists of a roboadvisor, financial and career coaching, insurance, and a digital bank with a debit card that offers a savings roundup tool and cashback rewards.
In addition to its financial products and services, Ellevest also serves financial content to its community of three million members, a number that includes Sallie Krawcheck’s connections on LinkedIn and Ellevest’s followers on Instagram.
April is financial literacy month. To commemorate the occasion, we’re showcasing a handful (or two!) of Finovate alums that are leveraging technology to lead the fight for financial literacy.
Many of these companies specialize in helping kids and youth learn about savings, investment, credit, and other aspects of personal finance and money management. Others respond to the needs of financial services professionals, ensuring that they are informed and up-to-date on many of the resources and tools available to them to help serve the public. Together, they are a reminder that financial education is in many ways a lifelong pursuit, one that is both necessary and rewarding for younger and older financial services consumers alike.
Fun fact: Companies involved in financial literacy tend to be Finovate fan favorites. Of the 13 alums listed below, more than half won Best of Show awards for their Finovate demos!
BankiFi launched its Open Cash Management platform this week.
The U.K.-based fintech built its latest offering to bring the benefits of both embedded banking and open banking to small and medium-sized businesses.
A “supercharged” version of BankiFi’s current platform, the new offering works alongside existing accounting systems and requires no tech integration.
The new Open Cash Management platform offered by BankiFi will provide SMEs with a fully embedded banking service that enables them to manage a wide variety of banking capabilities. Invoicing, payments, collections, accounting, cash forecasting, and working capital optimization insights are all available via the platform, which is built with small and medium-sized businesses in mind.
“The Open Cash Management Platform is a business banking super app,” BankiFi Chief Product Officer Marijke Koninckx said. “With Open Cash Management, banks can offer their small business customers a full embedded banking service, which revolves around procure to pay and order to cash workflows. Instead of offering a banking channel for simple tasks, such as checking account balances and making payments, banks can instead offer a rich and comprehensive service to their SMBs centered around a bank’s brand and digital channel.”
The new offering is described by the company as a “supercharged” version of its current service that combines the benefits of both embedded and open banking. The platform leverages a suite of pre-existing bank connectors that allow the solution to be onboarded without the hassles of technology integration. The solution also works alongside the company’s existing accounting system.
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Manchester, U.K., BankiFi began 2022 by helping TSB launch a new app, Revenu, that will enable small businesses to leverage SMS, WhatsApp, email, and QR codes to get paid faster. Also this year, BankiFi announced that it was joining the Visa Fintech Partner Connect program to help bring SME business banking solutions to Visa’s clients and partners.
BankiFi has raised $3.7 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. The company includes Co-Operative Bank, Praetura Ventures, Tech Nation Fintech, the Nationwide Building Society, and the FIS FinTech Accelerator in Partnership with The Venture Center among its investors.
Visa is bringing its Installment Solution to Air Canada, allowing customers to pay for their qualifying purchases over time.
According to Visa’s recent survey, a third of Canadians interested in using installments plans would do so for travel and entertainment.
Air Canada will be among the first group of airlines to use Visa’s BNPL tool.
If you’re looking to fly now, pay later in the friendly Canadian skies, you’re in luck. Visaannounced this week it will collaborate with Air Canada to bring its Visa Installment Solution, a buy now, pay later (BNPL) solution to the Canadian airline.
Air Canada, Canada’s largest airline, will be among the first group of airlines to use Visa’s BNPL tool. The Visa Installment Solution offers eligible cardholders a more flexible way to pay for qualifying purchases. At checkout, customers can opt to convert their purchase into smaller, equal payments made over time. With Visa’s Installment Solution, the card issuer sets attributes such as the duration of the installment plan, interest, and fees.
Keith Wallis, senior director Distribution and Payments, Air Canada expects the additional payment option will elevate the customer experience. “Visa is one of the most trusted brands in Canada and their close collaboration with major Canadian financial institutions provides a unique opportunity to deliver an exceptional shopping experience to our mutual customers,” Wallis said.
According to Visa’s recent survey, a third of Canadians interested in using installments plans would do so for travel and entertainment. In fact, BNPL is on the rise across the board. A separate survey found that one third of shoppers use BNPL at least once a month, while 9% of consumers surveyed use it more than once a week.
Last August, Visa announced it was collaborating with payment solutions company i2c, which is using the Visa Installment Solution to launch BNPL capabilities for their participating issuers in North America. The partnership offers merchants an accelerated path to providing consumers with a BNPL option at checkout. Visa has also formed partnerships with Moneris, CIBC, Commerce Bank, Desjardins Group (Desjardins), Equinox Payments, ScotiaBank Versapay, HSBC, ANZ, GHL Systems Malaysia, Quest Payment Systems, Home Credit Bank, Russian Standard Bank, Cybersource, FIS, Global Payments, and TSYS to enable the Visa Installments Solution.
Biometric cybersecurity company iProov appointed Miguel Traquina as Chief Information Officer.
Traquina comes to iProov from Santander U.K., where he served as Chief Information Officer for Operations and Economic Crime.
The appointment was made possible by the $70 million investment iProov received earlier this year, which the company set aside to “rapidly build on its leadership in the United States.”
When it comes to C-level hires, there may be plenty of fish in the sea, but only a select few make the best catch. Biometric cybersecurity company iProov announced today it snagged a good one, landing Miguel Traquina as Chief Information Officer.
“I am delighted to welcome Miguel to iProov, as we further grow our business,” said iProov CEO Andrew Bud. “The scale and scope of our technology activities are expanding rapidly. Miguel’s extensive experience with financial technology for a major bank complements and extends our team’s outstanding capabilities, enabling us to innovate and operate on more fronts globally.”
Traquina comes to iProov from Santander U.K., where he served as Chief Information Officer for Operations and Economic Crime. He has also spent time working at Accenture, where he was responsible for financial services projects in Europe and Latin America.
Launched in 2013, iProov helps governments, banks, and businesses securely verify the identity of their customers. The company’s differentiating technologies include Liveness Assurance and Genuine Presence Assurance, which help organizations protect against spoof attacks, digital injection attacks, and deepfakes by ensuring that the online customer is the right person, a real person, and is authenticating right now. Among iProov’s clients are the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.K. Home Office, the U.K. National Health Service, GovTech Singapore, Rabobank, and ING.
Bringing Traquina on board is made possible by the $70 million private equity investment iProov closed in January. The company allocated the funds to “rapidly build on its leadership in the United States” as well as expand its international customer base, and grow its global partner network.
Plastiq launched its new Plastiq Pay solution this week.
The new offering will help small and medium-sized businesses better manage cash flow and automate payment processes.
Plastiq has raised more than $140 million in funding and includes Kleiner Perkins among its investors.
The new offering from San Francisco, California-based fintech Plastiq is designed to help small businesses better manage their cash flow at a time of exceptional inflationary pressure. Plastiq Pay, launched this week, enables companies to reclaim time spent managing vendor payments by hand, and makes it easier for SMEs to connect with affordable working capital.
“Plastiq Pay represents the biggest update to our product offering since our founding,” Plastiq Chief Operating Officer Stoyan Kenderov said. “It solves the mismatch of how businesses and suppliers want to make and receive payments by digitizing back office processes and providing instant access to short term financing to make money flow easier. It is the result of more than a decade of working with SMBs to help solve their biggest challenges and friction points.”
Plastiq Pay has five main capabilities to help small businesses become more efficient and better able to compete: invoice data capture, team workflows, automatic two-way sync, a cash flow dashboard, and short term financing options. Along with a mobile app that enables companies to manage payables remotely, these resources help small businesses automate all the critical components of the invoice receipt, payment approval routing, submission and bill reconciliation process.
“Plastiq’s payment automation features are built for CFOs that want to upskill their teams, get people out of mundane and manual work, focus on more meaningful finance function optimization, and reduce cos with a more elegant, modern payables platform,” Plastiq Chief Financial Officer Amir Jafari said.
Plastiq’s latest offering comes in the wake of a pair of partnerships forged in late 2021. In December, the company announced that it was working with PayGround to help patients manage and pay for healthcare expenses. The strategic partnership leverages Plastiq Connect APIs to enable PayGround to integrate Plastiq’s payment capabilities into PayGround’s mobile app. Patients can then create and use their PayGround Digital Wallet to pay the medical expenses using whatever payment method they prefer – from credit cards to HSAs to bank accounts. Last fall, Plastiq teamed up with community-powered corporate card Trust to help businesses pay for their marketing investments using their Trust cards.
‘Trust is focused on helping members of the Trust community make smarter marketing investments and increase cash flow,” Trust CEO James Borow said. “Paying for marketing investments through bank transfers (ACH) or check can restrict cash flow and constrain growth. Our partnership with Plastiq will help remove that hurdle.”
Founded in 2012, Plastiq has raised more than $140 million in funding from investors including Kleiner Perkins, B Capital Group, and Khosla Ventures.
