aSpark, DCisions Both Acquired in Separate Deals

Recently, two Finovate alums announced that they had been acquired. We were excited to see two successful exits:

aSpark, an idea-incubation company that generates cloud-based mobile solutions for FIs
Founded: 2011
Acquired by: LiquidHub, provider of management and IT consulting
Finovate demo: FinovateFall 2012

Co-founder and CEO, Raj Patil, and his team will now continue operating under the company name LiquidHub.

DCisions, data analytics company that operates InvestorBee, a consumer-based service that provides investment data
Founded: 2005
Acquired by: Interactive Investor, a guide to UK finance and investing
Finovate demo: FinovateEurope 2012 and FinovateSpring 2012

DCisions will conclude independent data services on December 31, 2012, at which point the FTSE DCisions Index Series and InvestorBee service will stop.

Finovate Alumni News– November 27, 2012

• Interactive Investor purchases DCisions, closes InvestorBee service.

• Jingit raises $7 million.

• Finextra reports Rabobank Australia and NZ selects ThreatMetrix to secure online channels.

• InComm & SkyMall Ventures partner to launch electronic gift card program.

• Opus Research report recognises ValidSoft as leader in voice biometrics.

• AloStar Bank of Commerce chooses Andera’s oFlows for online account opening.

• TIO adds mobile bill pay app to its suite of services for El Paso Electric.

• Radian Mortgage Insurance now available through Mortgagebot’s loan origination system.

• E-invoicing Platform features AcceptEmail.

• Xconomy examines how Giftly will disrupt traditional gift card market.

• Luup signs partnership with Arab Link, provider of money transfer and exchange services in Abu Dhabi.

• Personal Capital launches Android app.

• Crunched lists On Deck in top 25 startups to work for.

• TechCrunch reports Holvi Plans To Disrupt Traditional Bank Accounts With Simple But Powerful Services.

• Citi Innovation Lab and SapientNitro honored at National Infocomm Awards in Singapore for next-generation banking experience.

• ActivePath merges with PowerInbox.

• Experian expands debt-collection product suite with TrueTrace.

• DeviceFidelity launches moneto prepaid MasterCard.

• BlinkMobile announces five more councils to adopt BlinkForms.

• Klarna earns 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year award from European Tech Tour Association.

• Money Smart Life reviews Betterment and Kapitall.

• American Banker reports Betterment deepens finance advice features.

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– June 20, 2012

• 2 Minute Finance interviews TIO Networks at FinovateSpring.

• 2 Minute Finance interviews Flint Mobile at FinovateSpring.

• Check Point provides FXCM with integrated network protection.

• IND Group’s technology initiates the world’s first Facebook money transfer.

• Kashoo named most promising startup at 2012 BCTIA Technology Impact Awards.

• DCisions awarded an Australian patent for business method.

• SmartyPig, Social Money’s goal-based savings product, increases its interest rate to 1% APY.

• TechCrunch reports PayPal rolls out a touch-friendly website redesign.

• US News lists Buxfer, YouNeedABudget, Pennyminder, Yodlee, Geezeo, Mint as personal finance tools you should use.

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– May 31, 2012

• DCisions reflects on its FinovateSpring experience.

• American Banker looks at TIO Networks as a Silicon Valley Tech company serving the underbanked.

• CorFire and edo Interactive to connect purchase data and targeted offers via mobile.

• Silver Tail Systems positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Web Fraud Detection.

• Bazaarvoice acquires PowerReviews for $151 million.

• doxo adds mobile bill Pay, launches Android app.

• Prosper takes on Lending Club’s PRIME service with Premier.

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– May 24, 2012

• Bank Technology News reports WattzOn Helps Banks Help Customers Save on Energy Bills.

• Fast Company reports Personal Capital’s beautiful app convinces the wealthy to trust their money to strangers.

• TechCrunch reports that Mint.com updated its app to allow users to split transactions.

• Crain’sNewYorkBusiness.com describes how BillGuard fits into the Big Data scene.

• How DCisions, Personal Capital, SigFig, FutureAdvisor, and Jemstep Are Shaking Up Wealth Management.

• Klarna adds Nigel Morris, co-founder of Capital One, and Anton Levy, MD of General Atlantic, to its board of directors.

• Westmoreland Community FCU chooses Geezeo for PFM.

• StockTwits debuts new social signals features.

• Kony Solutions announces $15 million series C financing.

• Mitek enables $10 billion worth of mobile deposits.

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.

How DCisions, Personal Capital, SigFig, FutureAdvisor, and Jemstep Are Shaking Up Wealth Management

The wealth management industry has seen increased press coverage lately. Take, for example, The Economist’s recent piece discussing how increased competition from startups has tempted clients into moving assets to lower-cost alternatives.

The article mentions DCisions, a startup tackling the big data around client portfolios. It also highlights Personal Capital, which launched at FinovateFall. The Economist states that the startup’s online platform:

“… tries to straddle the world between cheap online wealth management and the old world of private banking”

Aside from the cost, one of the largest benefits of moving your 

millions into a startup like Personal Capital is that the investment advice is unbiased. This is a topic that Business Insider covered last week, voicing concerns that clients’ brokers are “royally screwing them over.”

The article states:

“With no other fees to compare your own to, you could wind up paying for far more than you should – especially if your broker’s working on commission.”

To ease this concern, the article recommends using
DIY tools such as SigFig, FutureAdvisor, or Jemstep. These tools help you see how your funds are performing and how much you’re paying in fees.

To learn more about these companies, watch DCisions’ FinovateEurope 2012 demo, Personal Capital’s FinovateFall 2011 demo, SigFig’s FinovateFall 2011 demo, FutureAdvisor’s FinovateSpring 2012 demo (coming soon), or Jemstep’s FinovateSpring 2010 demo. 

FinovateSpring 2012 in the Press

Here’s a look at press coverage from FinovateSpring 2012 in San Francisco last week. For comprehensive coverage, be sure to check out Erin McCune’s live blog on PaymentsViews, which covers all 63 presenting companies:

2 Minute Finance
2MF @ Finovate Spring 2012 Conference
by Bobby Lee
Link

BillGuard Demo @ Finovate Spring 2012 Conference (Day 1)

by Bobby Lee

Link

Cardlytics Demo @ Finovate Spring 2012 Conference (Day 1)

by Bobby Lee

Link

Concur Demo @ Finovate Spring 2012 Conference (Day 1)

by Bobby Lee

Link

Flint Mobile Demo @ Finovate Spring 2012 Conference (Day 2)

by Bobby Lee

Link

Mitek Systems Demo @ Finovate Spring 2012 Conference (Day 1)

by Bobby Lee

Link

TIO Networks Demo @ Finovate Spring 2012 Conference (Day 1)

by Bobby Lee

Link

WattzOn Demo @ Finovate Spring 2012 Conference (Day 1)

by Bobby Lee

Link

Bank Innovation

5 Finovate Demo-ers’ News Catching Our Eye

by Mary Wisniewski

Link

4 More Finovate Products We Like

by Mary Wisniewski

Link

Bank Technology News

Best of Finovate Spring Day 1

by Penny Crosman

Link

Best of Finovate Spring Day 2

by Penny Crosman

Link

Dwolla Pitches Fast Fund Transfers, but Bank Participation is Vital

by Sean Sposito

Link

Edo to Harness Payment Data to Spur Consumer Spending

by Victoria Finkle

Link

WattzOn Helps Banks Help Customers Save on Energy Bills

by Sean Sposito

Link

BankersLab Blog

CreditLab Launch: Reactions and Responses

Link

BankNXT

Finovate, Simple, and Re-Imagining Banking Applications

by Bradley Leimer

Link

Live at FinovateSpring 2012- day 1

by Jelmer de Jong

Link

Live at FinovateSpring 2012- day 2

by Jelmer de Jong

Link

BetaKit

CoverHound Debuts Comparison Tool for Auto Insurance 

by Cheronne Thurab 

Link

Business Insider

Finally, a Mobile App That Helps You Save Money: Meet Urge

by Willy Staley

Link

Business2Community

What Does $4.6 Billion in Coupon Savings Have to Do with Savvy Consumers?

by Andre Bourque

Link

C’est pas mon idée!

FinovateSpring 2012: quoi de neuf?

by Patrice Bernard

Link

Currency Marketing Blog

Four Conference in Four Days

by Tim McAlpine

Link

Credit Union Times

MoneyDesktop Named Best of Show at FinovateSpring Conference

by Natasha Chilingerian

Link

Daily Disruption

Flint Mobile Announces Beta Launch at Finovate and Closes $3 Million Round of Financing

by Tim Rygh

Link

The Daily Guardian (BillGuard’s blog)

Financial Community Awards BillGuard Best Of Show at Finovate

by Maryanne

Link

DCisions Blog

DCisions at Finovate Spring 2012

by Kritika Ashok

Link

Des Moines Register 

Dwolla offers software for free

by Adam Belz

Link

Des Moines Register Blog

Dwolla, Social Money earn praise at national banking conference

by Marco Santana

Link

Exc
elsior

Kuspit, el primer Finovate mexicano

by Alicia Salgado

Link

Experian Blog

Business IQ Express… what is the media saying?

by Roslyn Whitehurst 

Link

FamZoo Blog

Finovate Winners

by Bill Dwight

Link

Finextra

Flint taps phone cameras for card payments

Link

SoMoLend closes $1.17 million seed round

Link

Forrester Blog

Finovate Spring 2012: Digital Financial Services Innovation

by Tiffani Montez

Link

FP Pad

[Video Spotlight] inStream Solutions CEO Alex Murguia at FinovateSpring 2012

by Bill Winterberg

Link

[Video Spotlight] iQuantifi CEO Tom White at FinovateSpring 2012

by Bill Winterberg

Link

[Video Spotlight] Sarah Carter of Actiance at FinovateSpring 2012

by Bill Winterberg

Link

Iconowatch

Accelerating Innovation at Finovate 2012

by Hans Eisenbeis

Link

Investment News

Personal Capital launches iPhone app

by Davis Janowski

Link

Lazy Man and Money

What’s Hot and What’s Not from Finovate 2012

Link

Mercury News

Money Goes Mobile 

Link

Montreal Gazette

Montreal’s Wall Street Survivor teaches about investing

by Jason Magder

Link

MyBankTracker

Can FinTech Stop You from ‘Showrooming?’

by Willy Staley

Link

MoneyDesktop: How Personalized Deals Shine in PFM Tools

by Simon Zhen

Link

Save Your Wallet, and Maybe the Planet, with WattzOn

by by Willy Staley

Link

On Deck Capital Blog

Photo Journal: Our Finovate Demo

Link

PaymentsNews

Highlights from Finovate Spring 2012 San Francisco 

Link

PaymentsViews

Live Blogging Finovate Spring 2012 San Francisco

by Erin McCune

Link

The Paypers

ZipZap rolls out CashCade payment service

Link

PaySimple Blog

PaySimple at Finovate

by Sarah Jordan

Link

PC World

New Web Apps and Services for Business

by Yardena Arar

Link

QuidLabs

Finovate Best in Show

by Aliisa Rosenthal

Link

SecurityPark.net

BehavioSec voted ‘Best of Show’ for biometric solution by audience at Finovate Spring, San Francisco

Link

Silicon Prairie News

With upgraded FiSync, Dwolla cuts 3-5 day wait to real-time

by Michael Stacy

Link

Silver Tail Systems Blog

Finovate Spring Demonstrates a Growing Richness in Online Interactions

by Laura Mather

Link

Social Lending Network

Roundup of Social Lending News – May 12, 2012

by Peter Renton

Link

TechCrunch 

Capital One Snags Mobile Savings Startup BankOns, Team Moving To Capital One Labs

by Sarah Perez

Link

Flint: A New Mobile Payment App For Small Businesses Picks Up $3M From Storm, True Ventures

by Ingrid Lunden

Link

How Personal Capital Wants To Bring Money Management Into The Internet Age [TCTV]

by Colleen Taylor

Link

Nearing The 1M User Mark, Expensify Adds ‘Trips’ Feature To Mobile Apps

by Colleen Taylor

Link

The Anti-Groupon? Edo Launches Real-Time Local Offers Platform, Tied To Your Bank Card For Instant Credits

by Sarah Perez

Link

Tradestreaming

List Of Winners Of Top Fintech Conference, Finovate

by Zack Miller

Link

World News (wn.com)

Instream Solutions Ceo Alex Murguia At Finovatespring 2012

Link

InvestorBee Uses Wisdom from the Crowd to Help Users Make Smart Investment Decisions

Next, DCisions took the stage to demo InvestorBee:

“InvestorBee puts data at consumers’ fingertips so they can make smart, confident investments.

• It’s fact, not opinion. Users can tap into the database to learn from the experiences of other investors.
• It’s an investment health check. Users can compare their portfolios and multi-asset products with fact-based, relevant benchmarks to understand whether they receive fair value.
• It’s simple investing without guesswork. Users can choose an objective risk-based strategy to track what’s right for them in a few easy steps.

Our users extract wisdom from the crowd to make better, simpler investment decisions – all for free at InvestorBee.”

Product Launched: December 2011

HQ Location: London, UK

Company Founded: 2005

Metrics: 15 employees, holds data on approximately 1.5 million investors

Website: dcisions.com

Introducing Graham Mannion (Managing Director & Founder) and Maya Kuzalti (Director, Product & Analytics)

FinovateSpring 2012 Sneak Peek: Part 2

Here’s part 2 of the sneak peek of the companies that will demoing at FinovateSpring May 8 and 9 in San Francisco. Each company provided a short summary of the innovation they will debut on stage. We published 23 last week and we will complete the preview next week.

Don’t miss the opportunity to experience the hottest innovations in financial technology. Get your FinovateSpring ticket here.

__________________________________________________________________________

DCisions

InvestorBee puts data at consumers’ fingertips so they can make smart, confident investments.

• It’s fact, not opinion. Users can tap into the database to learn from the experiences of nearly 1.5 million investors.

• It’s an investment health check. Users can compare their portfolios and multi-asset products with fact-based, relevant benchmarks to understand whether they receive fair value.
• It’s simple investing without guesswork. Users can choose an objective risk-based strategy to track that’s right for them in a few easy steps.

Users extract wisdom from the crowd to make better, simpler investment decisions – all for free at InvestorBee.

Innovation type: Investing, marketing, PFM

iQuantifi

iQuantifi takes you way beyond budgeting! It helps you reach all your financial goals and tells you exactly how you can do it. No estimates. No calculators. Just solid advice and the power to do it all online.

Innovation type: Banking products, investing, PFM

Kuspit

Historically, investing in securities has been 

a difficult proposition for retail investors, 

mainly due to the lack of access to competitive products and the absence of user-friendly financial education tools.

This problem is exacerbated in emerging markets, where financial markets tend to be less developed.

Kuspit offers retail investors an online platform to learn about investing, apply what they’ve learned, and invest in the same platform. All of this is available in an easy and progressive manner, while sharing ideas with the community.

Innovation type: Investing, online, PFM

On Deck Capital

The current infrastructure to deliver capital to Main Street businesses is broken. It’s simply too expensive for banks to manually analyze and underwrite a small loan – whether it is $10,000 or $100,000. As a result, banks make fewer loans, and creditworthy small businesses are denied the capital they need to grow. 

On Deck has created an efficient, effective and proven solution to this fundamental problem. By leveraging new digital sources of data, any institution can increase its small business lending through the On Deck platform, delivering funding decisions in minutes rather than weeks.

Innovation type: Lending, payments, small business

PaySimple

PaySimple is launching an innovative platform for banks to set up their own private-labeled version of cloud-based receivables automation. With this platform, banks of all sizes can easily bring to market a sticky value-added offering to attract and retain small business members, while adding a new revenue stream. 

PaySimple will demonstrate how banks can set up custom-branded software in a few simple steps and how small businesses can immediately benefit from a system that combines payment acceptance across channels integrated with customer management.

Innovation type: Online, payments, small business

Portfolio Football

Portfolio Football is a first-of-a-kind application that addresses the need for financial planning and literacy through gamification. Portfolio Football plays on the popularity of American Football and the adoption of fantasy sports into the lives millions. It makes financial management competitive, fun and easy to understand, while providing users with a powerful tool for personal finance and portfolio management. It’s a true “game changer.”

Innovation type: Investing, Online, PFM

SaveUp

With 80% of Americans between the ages 20-40 now using social media and playing social games, how can financial institutions reach their customers in new ways?

Introducing SaveUp – an innovative program that uses game mechanics to reward good financial behavior. When users save money and reduce debt, they earn credits to play for prizes like cars, travel, and cash up to $2 million.

Financial institutions can use a customized SaveUp experience to help their customers make better financial decisions, increase engagement, and cross-sell products. Current FI partner campaigns have conversion rates of up to 44%.

Build a deeper relationship with your customers while helping them succeed.

Innovation type: Marketing, rewards

SoMoLend

SoMoLend makes investing in your online community simple, affordable, and social. SoMo is an online platform that uses patent-pending lending technology executed within a hyper-localized geographic scope to connect small business borrowers with individual and organizational investors.  

SoMo’s user-friendly technology allows business borrowers to raise capital from friends and family, customers and community supporters as well as from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn connections. Investors lend money directly to borrowers through the SoMo platform, which then packages the loans and sells them as notes, bypassing banks and credit-card issuers.

Innovation type: Investing, lending, small business

Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is pleased to introduce their new App Store solution that enables access to the latest innovative capabilities and tools for use across the digital enterprise. Thomson Reuters’ solution makes it easy for financial institutions and third-party developers to create and integrate pioneering market monitoring and investing apps. 

By seamlessly enabling the combination of Thomson Reuters content, firm’s customer account data and firm’s internal and other data sources, Thompson Reuters is helping institutions leverage the providers of financial content. This delivers a differentiated experience for their customers while lowering both development costs and time to market.

Innovation type: Investing, marketing, mobile, online, PFM

ZipZap

Approximately half of the world’s population are cash-preferred consumers (unbanked, underbanked, teens or privacy-concerned) and have no bank account or limited access to traditional financial services. eCommerce merchants have not had a way, until now, to monetize this segment of consumers simply missing out on the substantial revenues they represent.

ZipZap will unveil the latest innovations in global cash transaction solutions for eCommerce merchants. CashCade ensures no more lost revenue from card-based transactions being declined, while CashPayment enables consumers worldwide to make payments for online purchases at offline locations using cash.

Innovation type: Back office, payments

Finovate Alumni News– March 20, 2012

• Betakit features Holvi.

• Mobile payments today reports MoneyGram and Fiserv hook up on mobile P2P payments.

• Kony Solutions announces support for iOS 5.1.

• The Republic identifies Mint and Expensify as two apps to help streamline finances.

• Boot Camp interviews ReadyForZero on its platform.

• SecondMarket launches ‘The Facebook Fund’ to buy shares before IPO.

• CU Times looks at Superior FCU’s success from using Mortgagebot.

• Forbes lists Alexa Von Tobel, CEO of LearnVest as a female founder to watch at SXSW 2012.

• Xero moves to new headquarters.

• City A.M. highlights InvestorBee by DCisions.

• All Things D looks at how Personal Capital fits into the trend of online wealth management.

• Ping Identity launches PingOne for single sign on access to cloud-based applications.

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.