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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
A collaboration announced late last week between a pair of Finovate alums will give small businesses new options when it comes to digital receipt and expense management.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada’s Sensibill, which won Best of Show for its FinovateFall demo of its digital receipt insights solution, has partnered with FreeAgent. The U.K.-based cloud accounting software company will combine Sensibill’s technology within its own new Auto Extract feature to help SMEs transition from manual expense management and receipt tracking to a modern, automated process.
“By joining forces with FreeAgent, we’re eliminating the time and money businesses have traditionally spent manually entering data into clunky and cumbersome spreadsheets and systems,” Sensibill Chief Technology Officer Danny Piangerelli said. “Instead, we’re delivering item-level details that enable faster, better expense management.”
Sensibill’s customer data platform blends ethically sourced, enriched SKU-level data with real-time, actionable insights to help FIs achieve personalization at scale. Integrated into FreeAgent’s Auto Extract technology, the technology enables businesses to capture, organize, and categorize their receipts digitally and accurately link them with corresponding bank transactions.
“Automation is at the center of our business,” FreeAgent co-founder and CEO Roan Lavery said, “which is why partnering with Sensibill was a natural choice.” Lavery added the collaboration will help increase satisfaction and engagement among customers while relieving SMEs and their accounting team from the “administrative hassles,” costs, and inaccuracies that plague most manual, expense management processes.
Founded in 2007 and making its Finovate debut in Europe in 2013, FreeAgent was acquired by NatWest five years later for $73 million (£53 million). The company currently has more than 110,000 small businesses, freelancers, and contractors in the U.K. using its technology for a variety of key business tasks – from invoice and expense management to project management and sales tax calculation.
With more than 60 million users across 150+ financial institutions in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., Sensibill was founded in 2013 and has raised more than $50 million in equity capital. Founded by current CEO Corey Gross, the company has forged partnerships this year with fellow fintech CAARY, as well as with Maryland-based SkyPoint Federal Credit Union ($182 million in assets) and AbbyBank, a full-service community bank based in Wisconsin with assets of $616 million.
Our Women in Fintech Series returns with an interview featuring Izabella Gabowicz, Chief Operating Officer of Sensibill.
An innovator in the field of SKU-level data insights,Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based Sensibill made its Finovate debut in 2017 at FinovateFall. At the event, the company won Best of Show for its Insights solution that helps institutions identify and act upon revenue opportunities from on- and off-card purchase data.
We caught up with Izabella Gabowicz to talk about her work with Sensibill, the importance of achieving a work-life balance, and why everyone benefits when women have a seat at the table when decisions are being made.
Tell us about yourself.
Izabella Gabowicz: I graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Cognitive Science and AI, and I joined IBM as a developer in 2001. During my 14 years at IBM, I had the opportunity to work in the airline, banking, and telecommunication industries, improving customer and employee experiences via technology and processes, as well as normalizing data and interfaces to connect disparate systems across enterprises.
The lessons I learned from IBM, such as the importance of value creation, helped me transition into my next role at Sensibill where I became one of the founding team members. Moving from a global organization of a few hundred thousand to a startup of five was energizing. I contributed to product strategy, built client relationships and our client success division from zero, as well as shaped the company’s vision and organizational structure. Today, as COO, I’ve been directly involved in finalizing agreements and rolling out technology to large financial institutions and core banking providers. It’s been a rollercoaster ride, but an incredibly rewarding one.
When I’m not working, you’ll find me trying to stay physically active, which is often outside in nature where I feel connected. I enjoy spending time with my family — whether that’s weekly dinners with my parents or walking through a nearby creek with my daughters. Over the years, I’ve learned the importance of making time to “refill my cup” in order to show up as my best self at work, while also approaching each new phase of my career as a learning opportunity.
What are some tips for balancing work and life?
Gabowicz: The reality is you can’t do that perfectly, and that’s okay. There’s this myth that successful women always have it all together, and that holds us back because we keep believing we should be able to do it all, all the time. Instead, let’s accept the fact that everything is a series of trade-offs. On the days that I’m pitching to an important client, I’m looking at a messy house – or my parents are helping with childcare so I can travel for business, or my partner is making me dinner when I’m putting in longer days to negotiate an agreement. Sometimes I get the balance right, sometimes I don’t. But giving myself permission to drop some of the balls I’m juggling from time to time and being kind to myself when they do has been game changing.
Why is it important for women to have a seat at the table?
Gabowicz: Businesses need to have decision-makers who reflect and represent the people they serve, which is why it’s critical for women to also be part of the teams making the decisions – at each level. While this concept hasn’t been successfully done at the top levels, technology companies are becoming more mindful of their efforts to be inclusive. Financial institutions have, however, made huge strides in including women – from the working teams that are designing the customer journeys and the leadership teams that are choosing the initiatives to be prioritized, to the board and executives who identify the strategic direction, mission, and corporate objectives. When you belong to the group that is being targeted for a product and/or service, often it can be easier to empathize with their needs and understand them. And since half of the population are women, having a seat at the table is that much more important.
For women who have a seat at the table, be yourself. There are so many of us who feel as if we have to be reserved and polished to be seen as respectable professionals. But I argue that women can be respected because of the concepts and thoughts they bring to the table, as well as their competence, while still feeling empowered to be themselves. And that might include being a little quirky and awkward at times, but that’s okay.
How can women having a seat at the table help drive personalization?
Gabowicz: The key to personalization is to avoid thinking of everyone in any targeted group as having the same thoughts, valuing the same things, and having all the same needs. To humanize the experience, we need to look at customers as microsegments. That requires analyzing additional data, aside from demographics, to inform messaging and advice. Harnessing deeper, contextual data like SKU-level insights can reveal interests, lifestyles, spending habits, and behaviors. This alternative data enables the financial institution to speak to customers on an individual level using language, messaging, and imagery that’s relevant to them, creating an emotionally compelling experience where the customer feels listened to and understood.
How can financial institutions benefit from harnessing SKU-level data?
Gabowicz: People typically don’t buy products for the sake of making a purchase; they buy them to solve a problem or satisfy a need. A financial institution has a myriad of products it can offer to its customers, involving cards, investments, loans, and so on. But the uptake won’t be there unless the institution is presenting an offer that is personalized, meaningful, and compelling to their customers, at the right time to fit their unique financial needs. If the 360-degree view of a customer is only looking at their interaction patterns, but not the details of their spending and expenses, then there is a lot of rich information being left on the table.
Such details can help pinpoint micro-moments and tailor messages that attract and retain customers. For example, the bank or credit union might see two customers spend $100 at Costco, but SKU-level data can reveal customer A might be an expecting mother and B a small business owner. Messages and interactions will need to be personalized for individual financial needs, which can look very different person to person.
What advice would you share for women professionals looking to break into the field?
Gabowicz: What’s exciting to me about technology today is that “business” and “technology” are no longer separate. It’s not sufficient to build software that just meets basic requirements. There must be value created, the experience must be compelling, and companies must consider how they position the innovation in the market, onboard users, and explain its value proposition. Today’s technology jobs are not limited to writing code but can include designing the user experience, architecting systems, creating go-to-market plans, and more.
Future professionals should not shortchange any industry experience they have already amassed, but consider how they can leverage and sell it when looking for opportunities in tech. People are graduating every day with computer science and engineering degrees, and they need to work with talented professionals who can help them build products that serve the needs of all people. Together, they can create AI algorithms that are less susceptible to bias, considering all types of people in the training set.
As I think about my professional journey, I’ve learned the following:
There is substantial value in learning and growing — anything can be attainable, and there are always multiple paths to any one destination.
We’re all humans, which means we need connection, empathy, space to be ourselves, ease, and convenience. This knowledge can apply to building solutions for customers, fostering diversity in the workforce, or encouraging women building their careers to be as kind to themselves as they are to others.
And lastly, outcomes matter. You need to consider both data and behavioral psychology when building strategies to drive value and generate results that make a difference.
A new partnership between AbbyBank and FinovateFall Best of Show winner Sensibill will enable the Wisconsin-based community bank to give its customers the ability to de-clutter and digitize their financial lives.
“In today’s online world, customers expect more convenience to bank how they want,” AbbyBank AVP of Marketing Natalyn Jannene said. “Our partnership with Sensibill will help our customers and employees with digitizing the shoebox of receipts or overstuffed purses and wallets, making it easier for them to track receipts, exchanges, and warranties in one place.”
Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Sensibill offers a receipt management solution that makes it easier to organize and track everything from Health Savings Account receipts to expenses from government relief programs like the Paycheck Protection Program. Sensibill’s everyday financial tools give financial institutions the ability to tap into – and act upon – SKU-level transaction data in order to provide their customers with the kind of personalized financial insights that can help them build better financial habits. More than 60 million individuals across North America and the U.K. use Sensibill’s AI-powered technology.
The company’s newest solution – Sensibill Platform – features a pair of new tools – Spend Manager and Spend Insights – that provide financial institutions with more ways to drive digital engagement with their customers and members. Spend Manager leverages predictive analytics to help customers track and manage their everyday spending, while providing personalized tips and custom advice based on their transactions. Spend Insights enables financial institutions to draw upon more than 150 unique points of data from purchases, and pair them with transaction data to anticipate customer needs and preferences in real-time.
“Sensibill is empowering institutions of all sizes to harness SKU-level data to offer personalized experiences and recommendations that help make customers’ hard-earned money go further,” Sensibill co-founder and CEO Corey Gross explained when the platform was unveiled in January. “The time to act is now – by better contextualizing the transaction-level data they already have with SKU-level insights, institutions can help their customers make smarter financial decisions. Those that do will retain loyalty and expand market share while making financial wellness more attainable for all.”
In addition to its newly-announced partnership with AbbyBank, Sensibill in recent months has also teamed up with Leaders Credit Union of Jacksonville, Tennessee ($520 million in assets) and Progress Bank, a $1.4 billion asset bank that serves customers in Alabama and in the Florida panhandle. Last month, Sensibill earned recognition as the winner of the “Personal Finance Innovation” category of the FinTech Breakthrough Awards.
A Finovate alum since 2017, Sensibill has raised more than $55 million in funding. The company’s investors include First Ascent Ventures, Information Ventures Partners, Impression Ventures, Mistral Venture Partners, and Radical Ventures. Sensibill also secured $5 million in debt financing from CIBC Innovation Banking a year ago.
This week’s partnership with Sensibill is only the latest instance of AbbyBank working with innovative fintechs in order to add to its own offerings. Last month, the Wisconsin-based community bank – with more than $616 million in assets – teamed up with another Best of Show-winning Finovate alum, MX, to power its new PFM solution.
“The goal is to help our customers improve their financial awareness,” Jannene said when the collaboration with MX was announced in March. “Knowing where money is spent allows you to manage your money more effectively. When our customers succeed, we succeed and that is truly what AbbyBank is here for.”
Progress Bank, a $1.4 billion asset financial institution that serves businesses in Alabama and the Florida panhandle, has teamed up with Sensibill to offer its digital receipt management solution to its business customers. Sensibill leverages AI and machine learning to provide SKU-level transaction data to help businesses better manage their finances and enable banks to better customize offerings to their business customers.
“We have long been dedicated to providing a seamless, convenient experience for our busy business customers, and partnering with Sensibill directly supports that strategy,” Progress Bank SVP of Operations, Finance, and Technology Randy Tidwell said. “With Sensibill, we are modernizing and digitizing receipt and expense management, a traditionally cumbersome and time-consuming process. This ultimately helps our customers save time, reduce stress, and manage their personal and business finances more easily. As businesses look to navigate the pandemic’s lasting impacts, digital tools like these become even more critical to provide meaningful support.”
Progress Bank sees the addition of Sensibill’s technology as a way to reach out to businesses that cannot or prefer not to visit a branch. Progress Bank will run Sensibill’s solution via its FIS Digital One platform, enabling its business customers to capture and store receipts on their digital banking apps. Once digitized, receipt data can be readily analyzed to track spending and better manage overall finances.
“Relationship-focused institutions like Progress Bank understand the importance of providing customers with quick and intuitive digital tools to help them better manage everyday spend,” Sensibill CEO and co-founder Corey Gross said. “By leveraging our technology, the bank’s customers eliminate the time and hassle of keeping up with and analyzing paper receipts, leading to easier tax seasons and expense management.”
Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based Sensibill earned a Best of Show award in its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2017. The company returned to the Finovate stage a year later for a demonstration in partnership with NatWest. Since then, Sensibill has partnered with JPMorgan to have its technology integrated into the Chase mobile banking app. The firm has also collaborated with Metro Bank, which went live with Sensibill’s digital receipt management solution over the summer. More recently, Sensibill earned a spot on The Globe and Mail’s Top Growing Companies in Canada list for 2020.
Founded in 2013, Sensibill has raised more than $55 million in funding from investors including Radical Ventures, Information Venture Partners, and First Ascent Ventures.
Digital receipt management specialist – and FinovateFall Best of Show winner – Sensibill has forged a new partnership that will put its receipt capture and management solution in the hands of more banking customers.
JPMorgan has agreed to integrate Sensibill’s technology into its Chase Mobile Banking app, making it easier for the firm’s customers to manage expenses, provide proof of purchase for insurance claims, and monitor spending “at a granular level.”
The offering will be made available to the 38 million active users of Chase’s mobile app as part of a progressive rollout later this year. As the U.S. consumer and commercial banking business of JPMorgan Chase & Co., Chase has 4,900+ branches in 38 states and the District of Columbia, as well as a network of 16,000 ATMs.
“Chase has created a digital banking experience that makes it easier for consumers and businesses to manage their finances,” co-founder and Sensibill CEO Corey Gross said. “Through our partners with Chase, millions of customers will have access to a best-in-class product that solves the hassle of expense and receipt management.”
Sensibill’s smart receipt management enables users to capture any physical receipt or invoice by taking a photo or forwarding an email. The solution leverages optical character recognition (OCR) and AI to turn receipt images into categorizable data that can be downloaded into expense reports, spreadsheets, or other digital documents. Sensibill makes it easier to organize and add context to expenses, and includes functionality to link receipts to card transactions for SKU-level visibility into spending.
The technology also helps financial institutions enhance their customer engagement by leveraging digital receipt data to offer more personalized solutions. Sensibill’s 75 financial institution partners in North America and the U.K. have used the technology to spot small businesses that may be ready to migrate from a personal to a business account, identify non-card spending patterns to better guide their own product offerings, and build brand loyalty.
Founded in 2013, Sensibill has raised $55.4 million in funding according to Crunchbase. The company, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, includes Radical Ventures, First Ascent Ventures, Information Venture Partners, Impression Ventures, and Mistral Venture Partners among its investors.
UK-based Metro Bank has partnered with Canadian technology firm Sensibill to launch a receipt management beta for SMEs, reports Alex Hamilton of Fintech Futures, Finovate’s sister publication.
The new feature, available via the Metro Bank app in 2020, will allow users to capture receipts using a smartphone camera and have them be automatically added to their transaction history.
According to the bank, the new pilot is the first in a “long list of innovations” that it is set to test out in the 2020. Metro states that it plans to “take the essential daily tasks of invoicing, receipt management, bookkeeping and VAT returns, and embed them intuitively into the Metro Bank mobile app.”
Paul Riseborough, chief commercial officer at Metro Bank, said of the new pilot: “Accounting tasks, along with chasing invoices and staying on top of receipts, are major pain points for SMEs.”
“By partnering with Sensibill we’re offering an innovative, digital solution that solves real problems for our customers, saving them time spent on admin and allowing them to focus on running and growing their business. And this is just the first piece in the puzzle as we set about developing a major new digital ecosystem of services to help SMEs,” Riseborough said.
Co-founder and CEO of Sensibill, Corey Gross, added: “Metro Bank is building a suite of compelling tools that will help transform the small business banking experience in the UK.”
“Our partnership with Metro Bank demonstrates our shared focus to deliver customer-centric solutions that improve the financial well-being of banking customers. We’re excited to support Metro Bank’s commitment to strengthening its relationship with their customers through digital innovation,” Gross said.
In October Metro Bank announced that it would be partnering with a number of fintech firms following the £120 million funding it secured from the Capability and Innovation Fund in February.
Sensibill demonstrated its Receipts for Microbusinesses solution at FinovateEurope 2018 in partnership with NatWest. The Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based company was founded in 2013, and has raised more than $50 million in funding. Sensibill includes Radical Ventures, First Ascent Ventures and National Bank of Canada among its investors.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Toronto-based fintech, Sensibill, has raised $31.5 million in a Series B funding round led by Radical Ventures, reports Jane Connolly of Fintech Futures (Finovate’s sister publication).
Previous investors Information Venture Partners and First Ascent Ventures joined National Bank of Canada and others in the round.
This latest round takes the total raised to $46.5 million for Sensibill, which provides receipt management for mobile banking apps. Sensibill will use the funds to advance its AI-assisted decisioning and pursue its mission of unlocking the value of purchase data.
The company aims to offer contextual advice to users and says it is working with over 30 major banks in the U.S., U.K. and Canada – including Bank of Nova Scotia, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and FIS.
“We’re helping champion the future of work,” said Corey Gross, co-founder and CEO of Sensibill. “That means supporting small business owners, freelancers and entrepreneurs – they’re the fastest growing segment and the most underserved by banks.”
He added: “What we’re trying to do at Sensibill is bridge the gap between what banks are good at today, and where they need to be in five or ten years to protect their relationships from disruption. Tools beyond core banking, an incredible customer experience and meaningful customer insights for banks – that’s what we bring to the table.”
Jordan Jacobs, co-founder and managing partner at Radical Ventures, commented: “This is a classic story of an under-the-radar company from Toronto with fantastic data-driven, customer-facing AI solutions being used by a who’s who of global Tier 1 banks.”
Since its last funding round, Sensibill has more than doubled its workforce and opened a U.K. office.
Sensibill demonstrated its Receipts for Microbusinesses solution at FinovateEurope 2018 – in partnership with NatWest. Founded in 2013, the company was featured last month in Startup Here Toronto and this spring announced that it was chosen to participate in the incoming cohort of startups for Plug and Play’s Fintech Europe accelerator program.
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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.
A pair of Finovate alums – including a Best of Show winner – are among the nine companies chosen to participate in the incoming group of startups for Plug and Play’s Fintech Europe. Nordigen, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall last year, and Sensibill, which won Best of Show in its FinovateFall debut in 2017, will join the fintech accelerator’s 12 week program.
“This batch has a strong focus on AI and Machine Learning,” Program Director Fernando Zornig said, “with startups in their seed stage all the way to Series C.” Also participating in the upcoming class are: Bankify, Digital Shadows, E-bot7, Fino Digital, Labest, Precire, and Spin Analytics.
The nine startups in the incoming cohort, Fintech Europe’s third, were selected from more than 214 applicants. The program will give startups the opportunity to meet and work with Plug and Play’s corporate partners, as well as examine pilot projects and potential business and investment opportunities. “We are very excited with this new class of companies that are bringing a new atmosphere to the corporate ecosystem,” Zornig said. “They will get connected with financial institutions from all over the Euro-Zone and beyond.”
Fintech Europe also announced that its partner base had expanded to nine financial institutions: Deutsche Bank, TechQuartier, BNP Paribas, Nets Group, Aareal Bank, Abanca, Danske Bank, DZ Bank, and Elo.
Nordigen demonstrated its Nordigen Report at FinovateFall 2018. The Report gives banks and lenders more information about applicants with little credit history, and supports verification of any current liabilities or “red flags” like previous debt collection. The solution also gives lenders new predictive features for credit risk modeling. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Riga, Latvia, the company returned to the Finovate stage earlier this year.
Last month, Nordigen was featured in EU Startups’ article, 10 Latvian startups to look out for in 2019. The company raised $800,000 in new funding last fall.
Sensibill was founded in 2013 and is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The company demonstrated its Insights+ technology, which helps FIs spot revenue opportunities from on- and off-card purchase data, at FinovateFall 2017, earning a Best of Show award. Named to KPMG and H2 Venture’s Fintech 100’s Emerging Stars, Sensibill since then has announced partnerships with NatWest, Quontic Bank, and Royal Bank of Scotland.
