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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 18 and 19. Register today and save your spot.
Spave lets users tap into everyday purchases to increase their savings, give to causes that matter to them, and have control and confidence in their finances. Spave transforms your spending, for good.
Features
We have a patent-pending engine that allows users to choose where they direct their spavings
Access to more than 1.5 million accredited U.S. nonprofits
Partners gain access to user insights
Why it’s great
Spave can help CUs empower their members to save more, give more, and live more by breaking down the barriers that hold them back. Empower your members to transform spending for good.
Presenters
Susan Langer, CEO Three words best describe Langer: Observer. Planner. Connector. Langer is a life-long learner and lover of people. Her 30-year professional journey within financial services, marketing and advertising, international development, and non-profit industries has taught her the value of listening to understand, the significance of appreciating others’ differences, and the extraordinary power of collaboration. LinkedIn
Sarah York, Chief Marketing & Digital Officer York is an active advocate for inclusive entrepreneurship and financial literacy. Her expertise spans data-driven growth, digital technology platforms, as well as global digital strategy. LinkedIn
Christen Wright, Head of Product Wright is a seasoned product leader, leading product for Reseda Group, a CUSO of MSUFCU. He has contributed to experiences at Delta, AT&T, and Best Buy. He was in 100 Black Men of Atlanta in 2020. LinkedIn
The investment includes $115 in debt funding and $60 in equity funding.
Wagestream will use the funds to add to its product lineup and fuel its U.S. expansion.
Earned wage access tool Wagestreamlanded $175 million in combined debt and equity funding today. The Series C round, which brought $115 in debt and $60 in equity, boosts the U.K.-based company to a total of $254 million in total funding.
New investors in the round include Smash Capital, BlackRock Innovation and Growth Trust, and Silicon Valley Bank. Existing investors Northzone, Balderton, QED, LocalGlobe, XYZ, Village Global, and Fair By Design also contributed.
Founded in 2018, Wagestream has offered one million workers access to $4.7 billion in wages that they’ve earned. The company considers one measure of its success as capital raised to liquidity released. Wagestream estimates that, prior to today’s investment, the company’s ratio was 1:55. That is, for every $1 of capital it raised, it released $55 of capital. “We’re aiming for a ratio of 1:100, meaning every $1 of capital raised by Wagestream will unlock $100 of impact for frontline workers,” said Wagestream Co-founders Peter Briffett and Portman Wills.
In addition to making that ratio possible, today’s investment will also power the development of new services, including an insurance offering that automatically adjusts coverage and premium, an app that enrolls users into optimal energy plans, fair credit without the need for a traditional credit score, and an intelligent savings installment plan.
Wagestream will also leverage the investment to expand internationally. Specifically, the company will focus on serving U.S. users. To fuel this move, Wagestream recently opened its U.S. headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Payment-card-as-a-service startup Deserveannounced it can now empower its banks and B2B clients via a new tool, the Commercial Card Platform, that enables customers to add a commercial payment card offering to their product lineup.
“We are extending our digital, cloud-native, mobile-first platform from consumer cards to commercial,” said Deserve CEO and Cofounder Kalpesh Kapadia. “With this, we will enable any financial institution or platform that serves other businesses to embed and issue commercial credit cards. For non-banks, this can be a significant source of revenue and can enhance brand loyalty. Our platform will enable those who serve small and medium-size businesses and corporations to offer true credit combined with sophisticated expense management.”
Formerly known as SelfScore, Deserve has re-imagined traditional credit cards by transforming the application and onboarding processes, as well as the credit card itself by bringing them into the digital-first era. The company enables businesses to provide a white-labeled or co-branded card program made possible via a set of configurable APIs and SDKs.
The new Commercial Credit Card product helps companies, banks, and online lenders offer a white-labeled or co-branded credit card product for their business customers. The full-service card product offering will include underwriting, instant virtual card issuance, digital wallet provisioning, and enterprise controls that will enable management to track, manage, and understand business expenses.
Customers Bank, which is headquartered in Pennsylvania and counts $19.6 billion in assets, will be the first bank on Deserve’s Commercial Card Platform. “Together with Deserve, we are looking forward to offering an exciting and valuable product to our small business customers, combining credit with powerful expense management,” said Customers Bank President and CEO Sam Sidhu.
Founded in 2013, Deserve raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Visa last fall, adding to the company’s $287 million in total funding. Among Deserves investors are Mastercard, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Sallie Mae, Ally Ventures, Visa, Accel, Pelion Venture Partners, Aspect Ventures, and Mission Holdings.
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 18 and 19. Register today and save your spot.
EG3C’s Financial Wellness Center helps credit unions build financial literacy with their members and community through interactive, educational content delivered via website, mobile app, API, or SDK.
Features
Created by a credit union for credit unions
Offers content that can be private-labeled and customized
Provides access to user data and dashboard, and CMS to supplement with your own content
Why it’s great
Creating good educational content is very time consuming. By leveraging EG3C’s Financial Wellness Center, employees can spend more valuable time engaging with members and the community.
Presenters
Ben Maxim, CTO at Reseda Group and VP Digital Strategy & Innovation at MSUFCU Maxim serves in a dual role as Vice President of Digital Strategy and Innovation for MSUFCU and as Chief Technology Officer for MSUFCU’s wholly-owned CUSO Reseda Group and its subsidiary companies. LinkedIn
April Clobes, President & CEO at MSUFCU and CEO of Reseda Group Clobes is President & CEO at MSU Federal Credit Union and CEO of Reseda Group, MSUFCU’s wholly owned CUSO. She has established MSUFCU as a leader in innovation in the CU space. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 18 and 19. Register today and save your spot.
ToroAlerts‘ fintech app removes emotions from trading by bringing Wall Street technology to Main Street with accuracy and precision using ML and AI with predictive analytics.
Features
Risk management tool for crypto
Easy tool for alternate investment
Crowd-sourced verified intelligence
Why it’s great
The performance from our fully automated algorithmic trading software is unforgettable. Our 2021 portfolio returns include:
Cannabis – 147%
Crypto – 876%
Options – 120% (YTD)
S&P500 – 47% (5yr avg)
Presenters
Rohit Srivastava, Chief Visionary Officer A math and quantitative analysis geek combined with advanced technological experience with an in-depth knowledge of investments and trading has led Srivastava to innovate and build “Smart Frequency Trading.” LinkedIn
Josh Kincaid, CMO Kincaid is the Chief Marketing Officer at ToroAlerts. In his spare time, he produces a cannabis business podcast called The Talking Hedge and hosts “Interviewing CEOs” for Seeking Alpha. LinkedIn
A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 18 and 19. Register today and save your spot.
Prelim is a no-code platform to automate the customer experience for banking. The company’s commercial real estate application is the first in the market to automate commercial lending at the point-of-sale.
Features
Reduce loan manufacturing turn-times by using the latest APIs to verify data at the point-of-sale
Offer a first-class customer experience
Decrease loan manufacturing costs
Why it’s great
Commercial real estate lending automation using Prelim’s platform and APIs is the future of lending.
Presenters
Heang Chan, CEO Heang Chan is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Prelim. LinkedIn
Sam Kim, Head of Banking Platform Sam Kim is the Head of Banking Platform at Prelim. LinkedIn
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.
