Intuit’s $7 Billion Bid for Credit Karma; FinovateEurope Salutes its Best of Show

Intuit’s $7 Billion Bid for Credit Karma; FinovateEurope Salutes its Best of Show
Photo by Tirachard Kumtanom from Pexels

How’s $7 billion for good karma? One of Finovate’s earliest alums Credit Karma is reportedly the target of what would be Intuit’s biggest acquisition to date. According to The Wall Street Journal, the cash and stock deal could be announced as early as Monday.

Credit Karma will continue to function as an independent company with founder and CEO Kenneth Lin at the helm. The acquisition gives Intuit, maker of online tax filing service TurboTax, another contact point with the online personal finance world. Credit Karma provides its members with access to their credit scores and borrowing histories, helps them monitor their accounts for security breaches and, perhaps most relevantly, has offered a free online tax preparation service since 2017.

If the deal holds up, Intuit will be paying a significant premium for Credit Karma. The personal financial wellness company was last valued at $4 billion, based on a 2018 private market transaction.


With another Finovate conference in the books, our Finovate Best of Show ranks has a new set of members. Congratulations to Dorsum, Glia, Horizn, iProov, Sonect, and W.UP for taking home top honors earlier this month at FinovateEurope!

The victory may have been especially sweet for Sonect, whose Best of Show award-winning demo was also the company’s Finovate debut. The Switzerland-based start-up offers what it calls “the world’s first social cash network” that enables consumers to access cash without having to visit a bank branch or ATM. Sonect offers merchants the ability to grow their business via increased traffic and gives financial institutions a way to extend their ATM networks without the cost of additional hardware.

The Best of Show win was also a first for Horizn. The company, which made its Finovate debut three years ago at FinovateEurope, offers a platform that helps employees and customers maximize the opportunities of digitized financial services. Horizn uses simulator microlearning, as well as gamification and advanced analytics, to promote digital adoption across channels.

And last but not least, a special tip of the hat to Dorsum, Glia, iProov, and W.UP, all of whom won Best of Show honors at FinovateEurope for a second year in a row.


Here’s a round up of recent news from our Finovate alumni.

  • Larky enters reseller agreement with Access Softek.
  • Bison Bank in Lisbon, Portugal selects PSD2-ready software from ndigit.
  • Techround interviews Tradeshift co-founder Mikkel Hippe Brun.
  • Bremer Bank leverages Backbase’s digital-first banking platform to fuel digital transformation.
  • Paysend’s multi-currency global account launches in Europe.
  • Kinetica launches Kinetica Cloud.
  • Futurex taps ISARA to bring quantum-safe cryptography and crypto-agility into its Key Management Enterprise Server (KMES) Series 3.
  • With new FCA license, Meniga seeks to expand product offering.
  • StrategyCorps and Digital Onboarding partner to help banks grow checking account relationships.
  • Baker Hill renews partnership with Washington Trust Bank to streamline loan origination and portfolio risk management.
  • Aire launches Credit Insight Suite to improve access to credit.
  • Coinbase becomes Visa principal to offer more feature for Coinbase Card customers.
  • InComm partners with Eezi to launch Poundland’s gift card program.
  • Enveil secures $10 million in Series A funding for secure data collaboration.
  • Trulioo adds image capture SDK to Trulioo GlobalGateway.
  • Amaiz taps ValidSoft for voice authentication.
  • OurCrowd expands focus on growing early stage tech companies.

Finovate Alum Features and Profiles

eToro’s Evolution – Social trading and investment platform eToro has never been one to stand still for very long. The company’s development cycle is fast enough to make even the most sprightly fintech jealous.

Lending Club Snaps Up Radius Bank for $185 Million – When Lending Club was founded in 2007, the startup aimed to serve as a place to help borrowers avoid dealing with banks. In a somewhat ironic move today, that same startup is becoming a bank itself.

Breach Clarity’s New Offering Provides Consumers Personalized Protection – Fraud detection and prevention company Breach Clarity announced this week it has developed a new platform to help financial service providers offer personalized protection for their customers.

New SumUp Card Empowers SMEs as Business Payment Makers and Takers – The company that has helped bring fintech innovation to e-commerce with its mobile point-of-sale (mPOS), card reading solutions now offers merchants a card of their own.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Jumio Partners with Philippines Remittance Provider I-Remit

Around the web

  • Sezzle’s Karen Hartje wins recognition from Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal as its 2019 CFO of the Year.
  • FIS earns number one ranking for risk management and compliance technology solutions from Chartis RiskTech100 for the fifth year in a row.
  • Kinetica announces integration of NVIDIA RAPIDS to enhance performance of its Active Analytics Platform.
  • Fintech Finance interviews Personetics’ President of the Americas Jody Bhagat.

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

On Finovate.com

  • Splitit Secures Partnerships with Shopify, Divido.
  • Thought Machine Helps Standard Chartered Launch Digital Bank in Hong Kong.
  • OurCrowd Teams Up with Toyota in Search for Tech Talent.
  • Saving for What Matters: A Q&A with INSPIRAVE Founder and CEO Om Kundu.

Around the web

  • FinovateFall Best of Show winner Cinchy earns $500,000 cash prize as one of the winners of the 2019 VentureClash competition.
  • Signicat unveils new capabilities, including a new technical interface and new third party integrations, that extend the reach of its digital identity verification technology.
  • Arkose Labs VP of Marketing and Strategy Vanita Pandey and Senior Producer Hedda Peters win Women in Cybersecurity honors at the Cyber Defense Global Awards sponsored by Cyber Defense Magazine.
  • nCino partners with Seacoast Bank ($8.6 billion in assets).
  • iProov earns a finalist spot in the 2019 Go:Tech Awards.
  • Compliance and risk management firm Middesk brings its business verification tool to the Dwolla Partner Ecosystem.
  • Kinetica opens office in Melbourne, Australia.
  • Ping Identity adds to its North European operations with a new office in Utrecht, Netherlands.

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

On Finovate.com

  • ACI Worldwide Partners with Solutions by Text.
  • Envestnet to Acquire PIEtech for $500 Million.

Around the web

  • Prepaid Technologies Acquires Dash from Karmic Labs.
  • Switch launches its issuer-branded CardUpdatr app.
  • Kinetica unveils its active analytics platform that makes it easier to deliver smart analytics applications at scale.
  • Forbes interviews co-founder and CEO of Onfido, Husayn Kassai.
  • Tinkoff Mobile, a subsidiary of Tinkoff Bank, announces service in six new regions.
  • DocuSign launches its DocuSign Agreement Cloud to help companies better manage business agreements digitally.
  • Capsilon announces the beta launch of its digital underwriter solution.
  • AlphaPoint adds DiamondBack stablecoin to its crypto exchange.
  • Sri Lanka’s Bank of Ceylon goes live with Clari5 Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Solution to address money laundering threats.
  • PYMNTS: Amazon and Worldpay team up on one-click commerce.
  • NetGuardians‘ AI fraud-prevention software available on Microsoft Azure.
  • TurnKey Lender signs partnership agreement with Refinitiv.
  • MX and Personetics partner to bring AI-driven insights to financial institution customers.
  • ICBA and Jack Henry’s ProfitStars expand preferred service provider program with remote deposit capture solutions.
  • Insuritas and Oregon Mutual announce partnership to offer auto and home insurance solutions through meta-agency platform.

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

On Finovate.com

  • LendingFront, Veridium, Voca.ai Join Mastercard’s Start Path.

Around the web

  • Kinetica releases active analytics platform to simplify architecture and deliver analytical applications at scale
  • Tango Card partners with StatementGames to deliver e-gift cards as a redemption option for StatementGames players.
  • Larky wins big at Finastra’s Innovation Challenge

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 Global: Fintech News from Around the World

As Finovate goes increasingly global, so does our coverage of financial technology. Finovate Global: Fintech News from Around the World is our weekly look at fintech innovation in developing economies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.

Asia-Pacific

  • MoneyTap, DLT-based payment app developed by SBI and Ripple goes live in Japan.
  • Indonesia’s biggest telecommunications company, Telkomsel, picks Kinetica to support its accelerated analytics, location-based visualization and AI.
  • Ayondo expands B2B offering in Asia with a new white label deal.
  • First Circle, a lending platform for SMEs based in the Philippines, has raised $26 million in new funding.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Daon Inks Deal with South Africa’s Capitec Bank.
  • Commercial Bank of Ethiopia deploys UP Retail Payments from ACI Worldwide.
  • Ivory Coast subsidiary of Togo-based Banque Atlantique goes live with Temenos’ T24 core banking system.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Sberbank customers can now add “cash postcards” – automated images with sound – to their money transfers.
  • Payfone partners with Orange to fight identity fraud in four new global markets, including Poland and Romania.
  • Ukraine’s Akhmetov Bank leverages Corezoid’s cloud-based operating system.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Daon partners with Akbank, making the Turkish bank the first in the country to deploy facial recognition technology for mobile banking authentication.
  • Alcazar Capital Limited (ACL) to launch $100 million global fintech fund in collaboration with Fintech Consortium’s InQvest Partners.
  • Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange launches Sahmi, a new integrated digital platform for individual investors.

Central and South Asia

  • Bank of Punjab, based in Lahore, Pakistan, implements core banking technology from Oracle.
  • Entrepreneur.com considers the effect Indian fintechs have made on financial inclusion in India.
  • VC Circle looks at the rise in investment in insurtech innovators like India’s PolicyBazaar.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Brazilian challenger bank Nubank raises $180 million in funding.
  • UniBank Panama to implement biometric authentication technology from Ipsidy.
  • COK Sodality Co-operative Credit Union (COKCU) of Jamaica to modernize its core processing technology courtesy of a new partnership with Smart Solution.

Top image designed by Freepik

 

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • OnDeck Launches Subsidiary to Help Banks with Small Business Lending.

Around the web

  • Daon partners with Akbank, making the Turkish bank the first in the country to deploy facial recognition technology for mobile banking authentication.
  • YellowDog shortlisted for Tech Company of the Year honors at the 2018 U.K. Business Tech Awards.
  • Bluefin teams up with data security tokenization vendor, TokenEx, to boost payment security.
  • Finicity selected as third-party service provider for Freddie Mac’s automated income and asset assessment solution, Loan Product Advisor.
  • Zenmonics earns a spot in the 2018 IDC FinTech Rankings.
  • FinTech Global recognizes Insuritas as a 2018 InsurTech100 Company.
  • Lendio announces facilitating $1 billion in financing to more than 51,000 U.S. SMEs since inception in 2011.
  • Indonesia’s biggest telecommunications company, Telkomsel, picks Kinetica to support its accelerated analytics, location-based visualization and AI.
  • Blockchain innovator identitii to list on the Australian Securities Exchange this week with anticipated market capitalization of $41 million.
  • Atlanta Business Chronicle interviews Kabbage’s Kathryn Petralia, highlighting her as a 2018 Women Who Mean Business honoree.
  • Sara Berg appointed Chief Operating Officer of Trustly.
  • Expensify launches training and certification program for accountants.
  • Ping Identity launches new Quickstart Private Sandbox for Open Banking and PSD2
  • Openfinance signs data partnership with Refinitiv.
  • Trustly partners with Ingenico for online banking payments.
  • Moneynetint partners with Ripple to leverage instant payment rails.
  • Coinbase expands with new Dublin office.
  • Native American Bank selects Jack Henry’s SilverLake system.

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

On Finovate.com

  • NF Innova | NFG and Mambu Team Up to Deliver New Digital Banking Solution.
  • Thinking Capital and Equifax Launch ‘Cash Flow Revolution’ for Canadian SMEs.
  • PayPal’s Pledge: CEO Commits to $3 Billion a Year in M&A Spending.

Around the web

  • AI Foundry forges integration partnership with MTS Software Solutions.
  • PaySend joins Astana International Finance Centre (AIFC), a central Asian fintech hub based in Kazakhstan.
  • Thomson Reuters expands strategic partnership with SAP to simplify costs of cross-border transactions.
  • GreatHorn welcomes Vijay Malik as its new Vice President of Engineering.
  • Nanopay plans for B2B cross border and domestic transfer service.
  • Multiple Best of Show winner Trusona launches partner program.
  • Kinetica taps Gary West as Vice President of Sales, EMEA.

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.

Kinetica Taps Dell for Hardware

Kinetica Taps Dell for Hardware

Data insights company Kinetica expanded on its partnership with Dell EMC this week. The two have collaborated to offer a bundled solution to help clients quickly gather actionable insights from raw data.

Dell EMC, part of Dell Technologies, collaborated with Kinetica to create a data platform that handles– as Kinetica calls it– “extreme data.” These large and complex data sets require more computing performance, which will be powered by Dell PowerEdge servers. Ron Pugh, vice president and general manager for the Americas at Dell EMC OEM Solutions said, “We are excited to collaborate with Kinetica to deliver a solution that offers massive amounts of additional computing performance for real-time streaming data, machine learning and geospatial visualization of enterprise workloads.”

Kinetica’s GPU-accelerated insight engine will focus on the software side to analyze massive sets of data in real-time. Paul Appleby, Kinetica CEO said, “Previously, in the manufacturing economy data was used for business validation; as we evolved to the service economy, data was used to make informed decisions; and, now, in the extreme data economy our business is powered by data. Dell, NVIDIA and Kinetica are combining forces to provide enterprises with the freedom to analyze data whenever it is most valuable and gain instant insights that revolutionize the way they do business.”

Since it was founded in 2009, Kinetica has raised $63 million in funding from Canvas Ventures, Citi Ventures, GreatPoint Ventures, and Meritech Capital Partners. At FinovateEurope 2018, the company showcased its GPU-Accelerated In-Memory Database. At the start of this year, Kinetica partnered with UClick to launch solutions in South Korea and in April it earned a spot on the insideBIGDATA IMPACT 50 list.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Kinetica Taps Dell for Hardware.

Around the web

  • Workfusion announces Smart Process Automation 9.0 — the newest evolution of its flagship AI-powered RPA software.
  • Trulioo and Acuant join forces on AML/KYC Compliance.
  • SnapCar and Revolut team up to offer instant payouts to SnapCar drivers (in French).
  • InComm achieves HITRUST CSF Certification to mitigate security and compliance risk.
  • Glassdoor lists PayPal as one of 20 companies that champion LGBTQ equality hiring.

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 Alums Earn Spots on insideBIGDATA IMPACT 50 List

Finovate Alums Earn Spots on insideBIGDATA IMPACT 50 List

It is no surprise to see companies like NVIDIA, Intel, Dell EMC, and SAS at the top of the quarterly insideBIGDATA IMPACT 50 roster. But what caught our eye was the handful of Finovate alums that won recognition on insideBIGDATA’s review of companies that are “making waves in the technology areas of big data, data science, machine learning, AI, and deep learning.”

“Our in-box is filled each day with new announcements, commentaries, and insights about what’s driving the success of our industry so we’re in a unique position (to) publish our quarterly IMPACT 50 List of the most important movers and shakers in our industry,” Daniel D. Gutierrez, managing editor and resident data scientist of insideBIGDATA wrote in an article accompanying the announcement.

What does it take to make the list? Gutierrez explained that the roster consists of companies that “exhibit technology leadership, strength of offering, proven innovation, positivity of message, quality perception in the enterprise, intensity and frequency of social media buzz, high profile of members of the C-suite, and in the case of public companies: positive financial indicators and stock price, and so much more!”

Our five honored Finovate alums are below. To see the full list of 50 “DataTech” companies, visit insideBIGDATA.

#9 Google (Europe 2018, Fall 2011): Appearing first on the Finovate stage with its Google Advisor solution and as recently as this spring in partnership with KBC Bank Ireland, Google is in the top ten of insideBIGDATA’s Impact 50 list. Google needs little introduction as one of the companies that has done the most to bring the benefits of data to technology consumers via solutions like Search, Maps, Google Play, and its Chrome browser. Founded in 1998, Google is headquartered in Mountain View, California.

#14 Kinetica (Europe 2018, Fall 2017):  Founded in 2009 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Kinetica enables financial institutions to conduct on-demand risk calculations using the most up-to-date data with “sub-second speed.” High frequency trading firms and traditional asset managers alike can leverage Kinetica’s technology to measure risk, identify customer behavioral patterns, and locate up-sell opportunities. With $63 million in funding, Kinetica includes fellow insideBIGDATA Impact 50 members Dell EMC, NVIDIA, and Google Cloud Platform among its partners.

#15 MapD (Spring 2017, Fall 2016): Developer of the world’s fastest open source SQL engine, MapD harnesses GPUs to deliver extreme speed at scale. Based in San Francisco, MapD provides users with powerful data visualizations made possible by the technology’s ability to query and render billions of rows of data in milliseconds. MapD’s technology originated from research conducted at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Todd Mostak is CEO of the company, which was founded in 2013.

#40 Narrative Science (Fall 2013, Spring 2013): Specialists in Advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP), Narrative Science builds solutions that enable financial institutions to analyze, understand, communicate, and act upon their data quickly and efficiently. The company’s technology can turn ordinary numeric and symbolic data and visualizations into “intelligent narratives” that express insights and context in language that is indistinguishable from that of a human author. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and founded in 2010, Narrative Science has raised more than $43 million in funding. Stuart Frankel is CEO.

#46 TIBCO (Asia 2013, Asia 2012): Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, TIBCO is a leader in integration, API management, and analytics. The company’s TIBCO Connected Intelligence Cloud gives enterprise users access to a unified suite of services including the company’s low-code development platform, TIBCO Cloud Live Apps. The company was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in September 2014 in a deal valued at $4.3 billion. TIBCO made headlines earlier this year with the appointment of a new CTO and COO.

Finovate Alumni News

On Finovate.com

  • Revolut Adds Travel Insurance to its Insurtech Offerings.
  • Going Beyond the Demos this Year
  • Envestnet | Yodlee Unveils Single API Solution to Support PSD2, Open Banking Compliance.
  • Upserve Bolsters Online Ordering Features

Around the web

  • Expensify celebrates 10 years of expense reports.
  • Handelsblatt features Kreditech (article in German).
  • Kinetica and UClick push solutions to South Korea.
  • NCR to power prototype branch for UnionBank of the Philippines
  • Bluefin partners with AvantCom Payments Corporation (APC) to provide PCI-Validated P2PE to Oracle clients.
  • Worldpay expands payment processing into Turkey with iyzico.
  • VietinBank announces migration of debit card transactions to Compass Plus’ TranzWare system.
  • Barbican Insurance Group teams up with FICO to better measure the cybersecurity risk of the insured.
  • Cloud Lending Solutions unveils Xcelerate Software Implementation Program.
  • Panalpina World Transport chooses Tradeshift to support digitization of its procure-to-pay process.
  • Ripple joins sharing economy startup Omni’s $25 million fundraising with an investment of XRP.
  • Overbond wins Most Innovative Third-Party Technology Vendor (Front Office) category at American Financial Technology 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.