Where the Alums Are: A Remembrance of FinovateSpring Past

It is hard to believe that it is almost time for FinovateSpring 2014.

There’s still plenty of time for you to get your tickets to our upcoming event in San Jose, California on April 29 and 30. Our final Sneak Peek preview post is up, all the companies who were prepping under the radar are now out of stealth, and we can’t wait for you to see what this year’s spring crop of fintech entrepreneurs and innovators has in store.

Before we do, however, let’s take a moment to take a look back at last year’s FinovateSpring alums. As we scrolled through blog archives, several themes jumped out: the appetite for startups remains as passionate as ever, with three of our Spring 2013 alums being acquired by such financial sector potentates as Intuit and PayPal. And venture capitalists continue to see innovation in this space as a more than worthwhile investment, with 20 separate fundings for Spring 2013 alums

We’ve grouped the achievements into four categories: Exits, Fundings, Awards, and Acquisitions. Enjoy!

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EXITS

• Jack Henry buys Banno for undisclosed sum
• The rumors are true: eBay’s PayPal acquires Braintree for $800 million in cash
• Intuit buys tax planning/preparation specialist GoodApril
• TaxAct acquires Balance Financial

FUNDINGS

• CardFlight secures $1.6 million in seed funding from ff Venture Capital
• Encap earns seven-figure investment from ProVenture Seed
• EyeVerify earns $2.3 million in Series A funding
• Jemstep raises $4.5 million in Series A round
• Kabbage brings in $270 million in debt financing to provide small businesses with funding of their own
• Kabbage brings in $75 MIllion in debt financing
• Leaf raises $20 million from Heartland Payment Systems
• Alternative lender LendUp raises $14 million in new funding
• D3 Banking creator Lodo Software Brings in $3 million
• Narrative Science secures $11.5 million in Series C funding
• OpenCoin wins investment from Google Ventures, IDG Capital Partners
• P2BInvestor raises $1.2 million in Series A round
• PayNearMe leverages Family Dollar Partnership; raises $20 million
• PayNearMe raises $10 million in Series D funding, launches Express Merchant Onboarding Option
• Prestadero raises 5 million pesos ($400,000 USD) in first round of funding
• Quantopian raises $6.7 million in Series A round
• Realty Mogul raises $9 million in round led by Canaan Partners
• SeedInvest raises $2 million in crowdfunded investment campaign
• SeedInvest Raises $1 million in round Led by Jumpstart New Jersey Angel Network
• Zooz Closes $2 million Series A round Led by XSeed Capital

AWARDS

• Arxan Technologies wins in the Products and Services Excellence category of the Infosecurity Global Excellence Awards.
• Banno CEO Wade Arnold wins CEO of the Year Award from Technology Association of Iowa.
• Better ATM Services wins 2013 Paybefore Award for Visa prepaid gift card program.
• EyeVerify wins first place at International Startup Competition.
• Finect provides winning entry for Web Marketing Association’s WebAward 2013.
• IntelliReponse wins bronze in Best in Biz Awards’ Most Innovative Product of the Year category for 2013.
• IntelliResponse wins 2013 CRM Excellence Award from CUSTOMER magazine.
• Kofax Mobile Capture platform wins “Elegant Implementation” category of Housing-Wire magazine’s HW TECH 100.
• LICUOS wins Innotribe Startup Disrupt competition at Next Bank Madrid.
• MoneyDesktop marketing video wins 2013 Telly Award.
• Keith Kelly, Mortgage Harmony CEO, awarded a Tech All-Star Award by Mortgage Banking Magazine.
• NICE Systems makes Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.
• OneID wins 2013 North America Frost & Sullivan Award for New Product Innovation.
• Virtual Piggy (Oink) receives Frost & Sullivan Excellence in Best Practices Award.
• Yseop Artificial Intelligence Software honored as French National Champion for European Business Awards.

ACQUISITONS

• OpenCoin acquires SimpleHoney
• Kofax acquires data integration software provider Kapow Technologies
• NICE to acquire Causata to enhance customer experience management

Finovate Alumni News– March 11, 2014

• Lighter Capital provides $1 million in growth funding to 3 tech startups.

• Check Point collaborates with VMware to provide network security for the private cloud.

• Monitise now offers mobile alerting software as a standalone product.

• Moven launches its mobile-first bank to public.

• ClickZ features Actiance’s compliance specialist, Joanna Belbey.

• SafetyPay and GlobalShopex partner to provide a secure international shipping solution for U.S. ecommerce sites.

• MacWorld Business lists Kashoo and Xero among their favorite online business accounting apps.

• Wells Fargo reversal on P2P loan ban for staff is good news for companies like Lending Club and Prosper.

• Kansas City Star features local biometric security startup, EyeVerify.

• TradeHero launches Android version of their stock market simulation app.

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– February 18, 2014

• Scotiabank selects Fenergo’s regulatory onboarding solution.

• FIS announces partnership with Microsoft Cybercrime Center.

• Azimo credits Indian expansion for surge in new cash pick-up points.

• Betterment, Personal Capital, Wealthfront featured in Boston Globe column on personal wealth.

• DeviceFidelity unveils RF technology behind its latest stand-alone, NFC microSD card.

• Find Biometrics interviews Toby Rush, CEO of EyeVerify.

• Vincent Turner, Planwise CEO, gives a closer look at the Planwise Solid Earth partnership.

• Forbes examines how CAN Capital reinvents financing for SMBs.

• City of Prosser launches on doxo to simplify bill pay and add mobile interaction.

• BillGuard now offering free card monitoring for unlimited number of cards.

• Taulia triples revenue growth in 2013.

• BlinkMobile enters Europe, eyes U.S.

• Xero adds a new chairman, director, and CEO of North America.

• Matchi hires new CEO, David Milligan.

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– February 7, 2014

• Kansas City, Kansas mayor declares February 6th “EyeVerify Day.”

• Klarna announces broader expansion in Europe, interest in Japan and the US.

• LA Times real estate column on innovations in lending features Realty Mogul.

• Opus Research report names IntelliResponse as a leader in the Enterprise Virtual Assistant industry.

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– January 27, 2014

• Lending Club named #5 on Forbes’ Most Promising Companies List.

• The Wall Street Journal mentions SecondMarket’s private shares trading market.

• DoughRoller blog features Jemstep.

• Doxo receives 2013 Award for best Software and App from the Seattle Award Program.

• VentureBeat lists Xero and Expensify as 2 of the best back-office software applications for small businesses.

• Billhighway Prepaid MasterCard named winner in eighth annual Paybefore Awards.

• Bank Systems & Technology features Allied Payment Network’s Picture Pay mobile bill pay app.

• FIS wins Frost & Sullivan Customer Value Enhancement award for FIS Mobile Wallet.

• Credit Card Vault in the Cloud Spreedly Raises $500k.

• Find Biometrics takes a brief look at 2013 and 2014 with EyeVerify’s Director of Marketing, Denise Myers.

• DeviceFidelity announces availability of its IsisReady NFC cases for iPhone.

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– December 13, 2013

• Blackhawk Network partners with Opengate to Launch New Prepaid Content in South Africa.

• Tradeshift unveils Oracle Gold partnership & supply chain connectivity solution for the Oracle E-Business Suite.

• MasterCard launches recruitment drive for e-commerce tech lab in New York City.

• EyeVerify featured in KCUR.org column on the “benefits and disadvantages of launching a startup in Kansas City.”

• New MoneyDesktop Website Wins Multiple W3 Awards.

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– December 10, 2013

• Capital Access Network changes its name to CAN Capital.

• Compass Plus survey reflects declining support for NFC amid growing popularity of mobile channel.

• CFA Institute’s Inside Investing takes a look at Motif Investing and “the secret revolution in finance.”

• Gartner places NICE in leaders quadrant of the 2013 Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Workforce Optimization.

• Wealthfront announces new ability to harvest losses on stocks that comprise an index.

• Fast Company features EyeVerify.

• Flint Mobile raises $2 million from Verizon Investments.

• Mint, Manilla, SigFig, Jemstep and Planwise featured in Kiplinger’s list of smart online tools to manage finances.

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– December 4, 2013

• American Banker takes a close look at NCR’s purchase of Digital Insight.

• BBVA Compass announces launch of BBVA Research iPad app.

• Bank Innovation column on fintech in Israel features TipRanks and Payoneer.

• Emida launches Handset and SIM Programs.

• Taulia partnership with Optima ECM Consulting.

• BancVue and other Credit Unions Help U-Haul Refinance Corporate Debt.

• Prosper’s daily average loan originations grew almost 10% in November over October.

• The Next Web reports: PayPal launches a digital gift store, featuring Apple as its sole launch partner.

• City of Gig Harbor Launches on doxo; More than 5% of Residents Go Paperless in the First 90 Days.

• Forbes: Kabbage Now Uses Square Data to Provide SMB Funding.

• Mint is now available on Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.

• btcQuick Bitcoin Exchange working with miiCard to mitigate fraud.

• EyeVerify interviewed on The Kansas City Power Lunch radio program.

• IntelliResponse wins bronze in Best in Biz Awards’ Most Innovative Product of the Year category for 2013.

• Intuit to purchase document startup company, Docstoc.

• American Banker features Zaydoon Munir, founder of RevolutionCredit.

• ACI Worldwide adds new executives, open new South American HQ in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

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.

EyeVerify Wins First Place at International Startup Competition

Veteran of FinovateSpring 2013, EyeVerify won first place at the Get in the Ring international investment competition sponsored by the Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship in Rotterdam.

EyeVerify, which is based in Kansas City, Kansas, beat seven other finalists to win what CEO Toby Rush called “the Olympics for startups.” More than 1,000 startups participated in the competition, representing more than 30 countries, including Canada, Spain, Greece and Bulgaria. 

For winning first place, EyeVerify will have a shot at angel investment worth up to €1 million (approximately $1.3 million USD). The company won a cash award of $10,000 after beating eight U.S. finalists to qualify for the international round. EyeVerify also picked up a $1,000 Apple gift card for being voted the “crowd favorite”.

Video also available at YouTube.
EyeVerify’s technology uses “eyeprints” to authenticate. Eyeprints are pictures of the small patterns of veins in the whites of the eyes. These patterns are unique and the eyeprints taken of them have fingerprint-level accuracy. The camera on a typical smart phone or tablet, according to EyeVerify, provides more than enough resolution for effective “eyeprints” to be taken easily.
To see EyeVerify’s technology at work, here’s a link to their FinovateSpring demo from earlier this year in San Francisco. The company has raised $3.8 million in funding.

Finovate Alumni News– November 25, 2013

• Atos to become preferred partner for one of the largest Islamic banks in the world for their solution based Backbase.

• Yseop Artificial Intelligence Software honored as French National Champion for European Business Awards.

• Moven, Meniga, GoBank, mBank, MoneyDesktop, BBVA Compass, and CaixaBank make Marous’ “Digital Banking Nirvana”.

• American Banker review of new research on e-statement adoption notes role of Check and GMC Software Technology.

• Fast Company profiles EyeVerify.

• Charitable givers now able to use Square Cash to donate via Bright Funds.

• ACI Worldwide extends ATM-powering relationship with VocaLink to 2021.

• MasterCard now accepted for ATM cash withdrawals at Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady Bank Ltd.

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.