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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
“Throughout our longstanding partnership, exagens has worked with Desjardins to address challenges like improving the financial wellness of their members, up-selling, cross-selling, reducing call center volume, and increasing digital engagement,” exagens President and CEO Michael Stojda said. “This most recent renewal again confirms our steadfast focus on community-based financial institutions, the strong relationship we’ve built with Desjardins and the ongoing value together we’ve provided to both Desjardins and their members over the past 8 years. We look forward to this exciting new chapter in our partnership.”
Desjardins is the largest credit union group in North America, with assets of more than $407 billion. Courtesy of its partnership with exagens, Desjardins has provided its members with contextual, personalized insights into their financial lives. The credit union’s Assistant AccèsD solution leverages exagens’ behavioral banking technology to proactively engage members across the entire digital banking experience. This level of engagement helps members save, spend, borrow, and invest in accordance with their goals. Since embarking on its partnership with exagens, Desjardins has seen 3.4x more savings per year per member, increased digital engagement, and reduced operational costs.
More recently, Desjardins has leveraged its relationship with exagens to address issues ranging from rapid deposit growth to the challenges of the COVID pandemic. Proactive engagement with members, according to Desjardins, also has helped significantly reduce call center volumes.
Founded in 2013, exagens is headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The company made its Finovate debut in 2018 at FinovateSpring. Exagens and its solutions have earned recognition and received industry awards from EFMA, Celero, and OCTAS. Exagens was named a Cool Vendor in Banking by Gartner in 2019.
Very Good Security (VGS) has got a brand new boss. The data security and compliance platform has appointed Chuck Yu as its Chief Executive Officer.
Vertex Ventures U.S. General Partner Jonathan Heiliger, whose firm is a major investor in VGS, praised Yu’s experience in financial services. “His deep ties in the fintech and payments space will help advance VGS’ industry leadership position as the company looks to help its clients secure critical data and streamline compliance in more powerful and progressive ways,” Heiliger said. He called Yu “a transformational force.”
Yu’s background includes executive leadership roles at Visa, Point Digital Finance, and TrialPay, where he was Chief Revenue Officer. TrialPay was acquired by Visa in 2015. While at Visa, Yu led teams in business development, sales, finance, and operations. He also helped build strategic partnerships as the head of business development for Visa’s Global Fintech team.
In a statement, Yu underscored VGS’s goal of being a powerful steward “of the world’s sensitive data.” He added, “I am eager to work closely with our talented team to forge new strategic partnerships with industry leaders, and deeper relationships with the top brands that have chosen to trust us with their critical financial data.”
In its Finovate debut last spring, VGS demonstrated its VGS Zero Data Platform. The technology collects sensitive data from end users and conducts operations on the data – including exchanging it with third parties. The platform accomplishes this without allowing the original data to come in contact with your network. This allows companies to extract business value from sensitive data without touching it. As such, by enabling businesses to “offload” their data security burdens, Very Good Security allows these companies to focus on delivering innovative solutions to their customers.
Very Good Security has raised more than $104 million in funding. The firm’s investors include Vertex Ventures, Visa Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, VGS was founded in 2015.
Digital banking provider Bankjoy announced an integration with Fiserv Portico, a full-service account processing system.
The integration will enable credit unions working with Fiserv Portico to offer their members an online and mobile banking experience with a modern, intuitive UX.
Headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, Bankjoy most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2022.
Michigan-based digital banking provider Bankjoy has integrated with Fiserv Portico, a full-service account processing system. The integration will enable credit unions using Fiserv Portico to offer an online and mobile banking experience that will attract new members and deepen current member engagement.
“Investing in a truly cutting-edge digital banking solution can seem out-of-reach for institutions without extensive engineering resources and IT budgets,” Bankjoy CEO Michael Duncan said. “Our integration with Fiserv Portico aims to solve this by giving credit unions more flexibility to roll out the digital banking features that today’s members expect in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.”
Founded in 2015 and built by credit union executives, Bankjoy gives credit unions the ability to offer a wide range of contemporary banking services. These services include both mobile and online banking, e-statements, online account opening, online loan origination, conversational AI, and more.
“Ongoing digital transformation over the last decade has accelerated the need for financial institutions of all sizes to deliver a state-of-the-art digital banking experience,” Duncan said. “Their success as an institution depends on this.” He added that, according to research from McKinsey & Company, the top performing financial institutions receive an average of 24-28 digital banking log-ins per account holder every month. These digital banking customers are driving revenue growth by an average of 10% to 15% each year.
Bankjoy most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2022 in New York. At the conference, the company showed how its Business Banking Platform provides SMEs with a single portal for multiple business accounts, and enables them to manage multiple users, control permissions, send transfers to multiple recipients, and more.
In addition to the company’s integration with Fiserv Portico, Bankjoy has also secured out-of-the-box integrations with third-party partners ranging from Allied Payments and Savvy Money to Vertifi and UrbanFT. This week’s integration news comes a month after Bankjoy announced securing new funding in a round led by Curql Collective. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. Duncan said that the capital will help the company “help more community financial institutions thrive in an increasingly competitive environment.”
Canadian Crypto Combo: A trio of Canada-based cryptocurrency exchanges announced plans to merge into a single entity. Vancouver-based WonderFi, along with Toronto-based Coinsquare and Coin Smart Financial, are the firms involved. Together, they represent more than $600 million CAD in assets under custody and more than 1.65 million users. The merger will create what the companies are calling “Canada’s largest regulated crypto asset trading platform.”
The road to the three-way union had its complications. At one point, Coinsquare had been poised to acquire CoinSmart. At another point, a merger with WonderFi was allegedly on the table. CoinSmart had been both cold and hot to an acquisition by Coinsquare and reportedly was prepared to seek monetary damages in court when the acquisition deal did not work out. But those days are gone, and the three companies have decided they are better off serving cryptocurrency customers together than they are on their own.
UAE and ANZ Get Busy with CBDCs: There have been a few CBDC-oriented stories in fintech and crypto headlines in recent days. First up is news that the UAE has selected technology and legal partners ahead of the launch of its CBDC strategy. The country’s central bank has picked Clifford Chance to provide legal oversight. R3 and G42 Cloud will serve as technology and infrastructure providers. This will enable the central bank to begin Phase 1 of its CBDC project. This initial phase has three components: initiating real-value cross-border CBDC transactions for international trade settlement, proof-of-concept work for bilateral CBDC bridges with India, and proof-of-concept work for domestic CBDC issuance covering wholesale and retail use. Phase 1 is expected to take place over the next 12 to 15 months.
Meanwhile in Australia, ANZ bank reported that it had concluded one of its projects in the country’s CBDC trials. The project involved using the ANZ stablecoin to settle tokenized carbon credit transactions. ANZ Bank is involved in four of the 15 use cases and projects in the country’s CBDC pilot. With regard to this specific use case – applying tokenization to the carbon markets – ANZ Banking Services Lead Nigel Dobson expressed optimism. He highlighted the potential to improve both efficiency and transparency, as well as “preserve the unique characteristics of underlying projects to incentivize investment in climate solutions.”
Speaking of the relationship between crypto and the climate, SEB and Crédit Agricole announced this week that they are jointly launching so|bond, a sustainable and open platform for digital bonds built on blockchain technology. The platform enables issuers in capital markets to issue digital bonds onto a blockchain network in an effort to enhance efficiency and support real-time data synchronization between participants. Additionally, the network is using a validation protocol, Proof of Climate awaReness, that encourages participants to minimize their carbon footprint.
“Crédit Agricole CIB is proud to contribute to the emerging market of digital assets,” Crédit Agricole CIB Head of Innovation and Digital Transformation Romaric Rollet said. “The platform’s innovative approach, both to the blockchain infrastructure and to the securities market, is coupled with the strong commitment to green and sustainable finance that is at the center of our Societal Project.”
And while on the topic of the blockchain use cases, we report that Acre, a blockchain-based mortgage platform, has raised $8.1 million (£6.5 million). The fundraising is the second major capital infusion for the London-based company and brings the firm’s total equity funding to $14.3 million (£14.3 million). The round was led by McPike, an investor in Starling Bank, as well as Aviva and Founders Factory.
Acre helps traditional brokers compete with their digital counterparts by using blockchain technology to enhance the mortgage and insurance application process for advisers. The company’s technology brings together all aspects of the process into a single “record of the transaction.” This, according to Acre founder and CEO Justus Brown, helps brokers deliver “speedy, efficient advice that meets the individual requirements of each case in a dynamic market.”
Acre was founded in 2017. Brown reports that the company grew by 10x in 2022, and processes £10 billion in annual mortgage volume. In the wake of the latest investment, Acre will focus on forging new partnerships with lenders and insurers to enable brokers to recommend the most competitive financial products and services for their clients.
Coinbase Announces Derivatives Exchange Upgrade: Last up for this edition of 5 Tales from the Crypto is news from one of the industry’s banner companies, Coinbase. The firm announced this week that it had partnered with Transaction Network Services (TNS). The partnership is designed to enable faster, more efficient transactions on its derivatives exchange (CDE).
“Crypto has witnessed both volatile and liquid markets, and with institutional adoption remaining strong, we believe the time is right for the offering that TNS brings to the table,” Coinbase Derivatives Exchange CEO Boris Ilyevsky said. “Dedicated cloud infrastructure connectivity coupled with our derivatives exchange represents a mission-critical step toward supporting and maintaining a vibrant and reliable crypto derivatives market.”
Coinbase launched its Derivatives Exchange in June of last year with the goal of attracting more retail traders to its platform. This week’s news shows that the company recognizes the potential attraction its exchange could have for institutional investors, as well. Regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the CDE will leverage its new TNS-provided financial trading infrastructure to enable institutional investors to grow their storage capabilities and process large data sets with less delay.
The U.S. Federal Reserve has selected AutoRek to feature its technology in its FedNow Service Provider Showcase.
The showcase will give the Scotland-based company the ability to offer its payments technology, including automated reconciliation software, to financial services providers in the U.S.
AutoRek made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope 2023.
AutoRek, an end-to-end financial data control platform, has been selected by the U.S. Federal Reserve to feature in its FedNow Service Provider Showcase. The Showcase connects financial institutions with providers that offer real-time payment solutions. As a featured provider, AutoRek will have the opportunity to “offer a number of its instant payment services to U.S. financial services organizations preparing for the new real-time payments system.”
The FedNow Service is an instant payments infrastructure developed by the Federal Reserve. Going live in July, the technology will enable consumers and businesses alike to send and receive payments in real-time. The Federal Reserve launched its FedNow Service Provider Showcase just over a year ago in March. The Showcase is an online resource that facilitates connections between financial institutions and businesses looking to adopt the FedNow service with service providers in the instant payments space. AutoRek offers banks and payments companies the ability to implement and improve on instant payments with solutions for data management, automated real-time reconciliation and machine learning, reporting, and automating workflows.
“As part of the FedNow community, we know we’ll be able to add huge value to all organizations embarking on the journey of instant payments,” AutoRek Global Payments Sales Manager Nick Botha said. “With our solutions, banks and payments companies will be able to save time, increase efficiency and scale at speed while ensuring complete financial control across their business.”
AutoRek made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope in London. At the conference, the company demoed its global automated reconciliation software. The technology leverages machine learning and other technologies to help financial institutions better manage high-volume reconciliation challenges, improve auditability, and reduce operating costs.
Founded in 1994 and headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, AutoRek rebranded in February of this year to better position itself to enter new growth sectors, such as payments. The company, which has tripled in size since 2020, has more than 100+ leading financial services clients and has processed more than 2.4 billion transactions since inception.
“At a time when technological developments are happening at a faster rate than ever before, anticipating where the market is going next is the only way to stay at the cutting edge,” AutoRek founder and CEO Gordon McHarg said when the rebrand was announced earlier this year. “And this rebrand represents AutoRek’s commitment to and belief in the need for continuous innovation.”
“Kroll’s exceptional reputation for thought leadership in the risk and advisory space is well-known over the world,” EverC CEO Ariel Tiger said. “Working so closely together offers a significant competitive advantage.” Tiger added that having Kroll as both an investor and as a partner would help EverC build its “global brand with innovative technology to help make ecommerce more safe, secure, and profitable for payment providers, platforms, and marketplaces.”
The amount of the investment was not disclosed, but ahead of the funding EverC has raised more than $61 million in equity capital, according to Crunchbase. Kroll is an independent provider of risk and financial advisory solutions, founded in 1972 and headquartered in New York. Kroll was acquired by Duff and Phelps in 2018. Duff & Phelps rebranded as Kroll in 2021.
The partnership between Kroll and EverC comes as demand grows for fraud detection and prevention tools that can keep up with the increased pace of cyberattacks and illicit ecommerce activity in the payments industry. Calling “transaction laundering” the modern-day equivalent of money laundering, EverC provides innovative solutions such as its MerchantView technology. MerchantView helps companies reduce and avoid fines, protect their brands, and remain compliant by helping them identify illicit transaction behavior. EverC also offers MarketView, a solution for marketplaces that automatically detects and removes false, illegal, and/or dangerous products.
Earlier this year, EverC announced that it had forged a strategic partnership with KPMG. The partnership will combine the financial advisory expertise of KPMG with EverC’s innovations in the ecommerce risk space to help companies grow while successfully managing risk. “As payments providers and marketplaces face an increasingly challenging threat landscape, they will seek ecosystem partners to provide innovative solutions and expert guidance to support their growth,” Tiger said.
Stratyfy raised $10 million in funding last week in a round co-led by Truist Ventures and Zeal Capital Partners.
The capital takes the company’s total equity funding to $11.8 million, according to Crunchbase. Stratyfy will use the investment to fuel innovation on its technology that leverages AI and ML to help financial institutions make better, data-driven decisions.
Stratyfy won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2022 with a demo of its UnBias solution.
Stratyfy, which leverages AI to enable financial institutions to make better decisions at scale and drive greater financial inclusion, has raised $10 million in funding. The round was co-led by Truist Ventures and Zeal Capital Partners. Also participating were Mendon Venture Partners, The 98, FIS, and serial entrepreneur Barry J. Glick.
The New York-based company will use the funding to continue innovating its technology that helps financial institutions use AI-driven decision-making to enhance credit risk decisioning, fraud detection, bias mitigation, and more. The investment takes Stratyfy’s total equity funding to $11.8 million, according to Crunchbase.
“Stratyfy is growing fast as financial institutions recognize the urgent need to improve transparency and reduce bias in their decision processes,” Stratyfy co-founder and CEO Laura Kornhauser said. “With the increased adoption of AI and machine learning, transparency and controls around these solutions are essential so that the biases of our past do not encode into our future.”
Stratyfy made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring in 2018. The company returned to the Finovate stage four years later and took home a Best of Show award for a live demo of its UnBias solution. Delivered via API, UnBias enables users to continuously identify and address sources of bias in complex financial decisions. UnBias is part of Stratyfy’s suite of transparent machine learning tools developed to help financial institutions minimize bias, promote financial inclusion, and drive risk-adjusted returns.
Founded in 2017, Stratyfy has helped customers like Aflac boost their fraud flagging ability by 2.6x, and detect fraud 28 weeks faster on average, while simultaneously reducing the effort and resources needed to identify fraud by 66%.
“Our investment in Stratyfy is an opportunity to learn about innovative technologies, commercialize impactful solutions, and positively support our communities,” Truist Ventures Head of Corporate Development Tarun Mehta said. “Our platform of senior executives and technical experts look forward to being a part of the development and growth of this mission-driven, disruptive company.”
Thirteen Finovate alums raised more than $453 million in funding in the first quarter of 2023. Q1 of this year topped last year’s first quarter total but fell short of the massive amount of capital raised by a sizable number of Finovate alums in the first quarter of 2021.
The biggest fundraising of the first three months of the year was the $250 million raised by long-time Finovate alum eToro. Also noteworthy was the $92 million secured by Zopa in February.
Top Equity Investmentsfrom Q1 2023
eToro: $250 million
Zopa: $92 million
SESAMm: $37 million
LeapXpert: $22 million
Hawk AI: $17 million
Stratyfy: $10 million
DirectID: $9.5 million
NYMBUS: $9 million
Connect Earth: $5.6 million
QuantConnect: $1.5 million
Our top equity investments for Q1 2023 reveal a major range in funding from eToro’s $250 million to the $1.5 million raised by QuantConnect. Given the number of alums receiving funding in the first quarter, it is no surprise that the top 10 equity investments in Q1 make up the vast majority of all alum funding for the quarter. Also worth noting was the fact that eToro’s $250 million represents more than 50% of the top 10 equity investment total.
Here is our detailed alum funding report for Q1 2023.
January: More than $18 million raised by three alums
If you are a Finovate alum that raised money in the first quarter of 2023 and do not see your company listed, please drop us a note at research@finovate.com. We would love to share the good news! Funding received prior to becoming an alum not included.
This week’s edition of Finovate Global takes a look at the wave of funding that fintechs in France have received in recent weeks. The $108 million secured by hardware crypto wallet maker Ledger appropriately leads the pack. But there have been a handful of investments in a variety of French fintechs that are also noteworthy.
First up, though, it’s Ledger’s massive fundraising. The Paris, France-based crypto wallet designer and manufacturer announced that it raised $108 million in funding this week. The investment is part of the company’s Series C round and, as such, does not change Ledger’s $1.4 billion valuation. The funding does add to the $385 million the company raised in 2021.
Ledger’s latest investors are a lengthy list of new and existing backers. True Global Ventures, Digital Finance Group, and VaynerFund are among the new investors. Existing investors 10T, Cité Gestion Private Bank, Cap Horn, Morgan Creek, Cathay Innovation, Korelya Capital, and Molten Ventures are among Ledger’s existing investors who also participated.
“Today, Ledger announced our funding round. These funds will accelerate our mission to bring a new generation of secure consumer devices to hundreds of millions exploring critical digital assets and blockchain-enabled technology,” Ledger chairman and CEO Pascal Gauthier wrote in a blog post at the Ledger website.
Ledger demonstrated its crypto hardware technology at FinovateEurope back in 2016. The company currently offers three hardware wallets, Ledger Nano X and Ledger Nano S Plus, and Ledger Stax. The latter model, the company’s latest, was only recently announced and is scheduled to begin shipping to customers within the next few months.
The investment in Ledger is a reminder that France remains among the more crypto-friendly countries in Europe, if not the western world. U.S. based Circle, the company behind both USDC and Euro Coin, recently announced that it had chosen France for its European headquarters. This is just one reflection of the country’s openness to the cryptocurrency industry.
News that Burger King fast food restaurants in Paris will begin accepting cryptocurrency for payment may be another. The company has partnered with Instpower, who will deploy its power bank rental machines in Burger King’s Paris locations. The power bank rental machines are connected to a pair of cryptocurrency payment services – Alchemy Pay and Binance Pay. Now Burger King consumers will be able to get their Whoppers, charge their mobile devices, and pay in crypto all in the same place. The move is a boon for Instpower as it seeks to expand the popularity of power banks in Europe. The collaboration is also a clear win for crypto, which benefits from both the publicity and the convenient new use case for crypto holders.
Ledger is not the only French fintech scoring investor dollars this month. N2F, a French startup that offers business financial management software, raised $26 million (€24 million) in a round led by PSG Equity. A French fintech called Elyn that offers try-before-you-buy services raised $2.7 million (€2.5 million) in pre-seed funding in a round led by Headline and Sequoia Arc. On the financing front, B2B lender Aria secured a $53.3 million (€50 million) debt facility courtesy of M&G Investments. The funding added to the $21.7 million (€20 million) debt facility the company announced last year.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Poland’s Secfensejoined the Cybersecurity program of Google’s Startups Growth Academy. Secfense demoed its passwordless authentication technology at FinovateEurope 2022.
Austria-based Finmatics secured $6.5 million (€6 million) in Series A funding for its technology that brings the power of AI to accounting and tax planning.
Today is the final day of Women’s History Month. At Finovate, we have spent the past 30+ days highlighting the accomplishments of women in our industry. We began our commemoration with a look at the women who would demo their companies’ latest technologies at FinovateEurope. We followed up on International Women’s Day, showcasing the women who would deliver mainstage keynote addresses at the conference. And just this week, we featured the winners of the “Female Founded/Owned” category of our Finovate Demo Scholarship program for fintech startups.
Today we share insights from Maggie O’Toole, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at TabaPay. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, and founded in 2017, TabaPay is a specialist in real-time money movement. The company facilitates one million transactions every day, has more than 2,000 clients, and is the number seven ranked CNP (card-not-present) acquirer in the U.S.
We caught up with Ms. O’Toole to discuss her work at TabaPay, her experience as a female leader in fintech and financial services, and what needs to be done in order to enable more women to secure leadership roles in our industry.
Tell us about your background and current position at TabaPay.
Maggie O’Toole: When I graduated college and moved to the United States from Poland, I faced some of the biggest challenges of my life. Being an immigrant in a new country without speaking the language was a difficult experience, but it also ignited a fire in me to prove that I could succeed.
Over the past decade, I’ve dedicated myself to the payments industry, focusing on strategic partnerships that help businesses thrive. My time at Onbe was particularly impactful; I had the opportunity to lead the charge on launching new products and forging partnerships that enabled real-time payments. I’m proud to say that I played a pivotal role in helping Onbe grow from a startup to a scaled enterprise, while completing a successful M&A strategy.
Today, at TabaPay, I focus on maximizing value for our clients and positioning the company for long-term growth. Building solid relationships with clients, networks, and banks is at the heart of everything I do. I take pride in the fact that I’ve been able to establish a partner management department from scratch, which is set to quadruple in size by the end of the year.
My journey has been anything but easy, but it has shaped me into the leader I am today. I’m passionate about the payments industry and helping businesses succeed, and I’m excited to see where my journey will take me next.
What challenges have you faced as a woman in fintech, and how have you overcome them?
O’Toole: As a woman in fintech, I have faced various challenges throughout my career. I’m still amazed by the vast underrepresentation of women in leadership positions in the industry. This has made it more difficult to find role models or mentors who share similar experiences and can provide guidance and support.
Another challenge I have faced is the pervasive gender bias that exists in many aspects of the industry. This bias can manifest in subtle ways, such as being interrupted or talked over in meetings, or in more overt ways, such as being passed over for promotions or opportunities.
To overcome these challenges, I have sought out supportive networks of women in fintech and other industries. These networks have provided me with invaluable mentorship, advice, and opportunities for growth. I have also worked hard to advocate for myself and my accomplishments, and to challenge gender bias whenever I encounter it.
Furthermore, I have always prioritized my personal and professional development. I have sought training and education opportunities to improve my skills and knowledge, allowing me to excel in my role and advance my career despite these challenges.
How have these challenges shaped your leadership style?
O’Toole: My experiences as a woman in fintech have influenced my leadership style. I believe overcoming challenges and facing obstacles head-on has helped me become a stronger and more effective leader. By persevering through difficult times, I have developed a resilient and adaptable leadership style; I’m always ready to take on new challenges.
One way these challenges have shaped my leadership style is by making me a better communicator. I have learned the importance of clearly articulating the company’s vision and plan to my team, so everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals. Additionally, I have become more empathetic and understanding of my team’s needs, providing them with the support and guidance they need to be successful. I truly believe that sound, repeatable, positive business results are a natural outcome of prioritizing our employees, clients, and partners through building trusted and safe relationships.
Finally, setbacks and failures have taught me to view them as learning opportunities and growth. I encourage my team to adopt a similar mindset and not to be afraid to take risks and make mistakes. I believe that taking pauses periodically and reflecting on where we are and where we’re headed as a team is essential for long-term success.
Overall, my experiences have made me a more effective and compassionate leader, and I am grateful for the lessons they have taught me.
What is your approach to building work environments and teams?
O’Toole: My approach to building work environments and teams is rooted in building strong relationships. As a leader, I believe it’s essential to take the time to understand the backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives of each team member to foster a culture of trust and mutual respect. By investing in these relationships, I aim to create an environment that empowers individuals to be their best selves and feel supported in their growth and development.
I strive to create a work environment that encourages collaboration, creativity, and innovation. This includes providing opportunities for open communication and feedback, as well as recognizing and celebrating individual and team achievements. Ultimately, I aim to build a team united by a common purpose and inspired to work towards a shared vision.
What are the most important qualities for women in leadership positions in fintech, and how can they develop these qualities?
O’Toole: As women in leadership positions in fintech, we have unique perspectives and valuable insights to bring to the table. We must have confidence in our abilities and not let anyone else define us or hold us back. We should proudly tell our stories, embrace our individuality, and be intentional with our time and energy.
To develop the necessary qualities for leadership, we should constantly be growing and learning, personally and professionally. We can bring new skills and lessons from our personal lives into our work and vice versa and remain open to new perspectives and opportunities for growth.
As leaders, we must be intentional about what we say “yes” to, knowing that every decision comes with trade-offs. We should prioritize our strengths and areas of expertise and allocate our time strategically to make the most significant impact on our teams and organizations. By doing so, we can create a more fulfilling and rewarding work environment for ourselves and those around us.
How do you see the role of women in fintech evolving over the next five years, and what are your thoughts on the industry’s progress toward gender parity?
O’Toole: The fintech industry has come a long way regarding gender parity, but much more work remains to be done. As a female leader in fintech, I’m confident that women will continue to play a pivotal role in shaping the industry over the next five years, and beyond.
Companies need to recognize the value of diversity and make a concerted effort to hire and promote female leaders. This is not about meeting quotas, but about creating a genuinely inclusive workforce that reflects the communities we serve. By empowering women to take risks, dream big, and believe in themselves, we can develop a culture of success that benefits everyone.
At TabaPay, I’m proud to be part of a team committed to diversity and inclusion. With 55% of our employees and 65% of our leadership identifying as women or non-binary, we’re setting a powerful example for the rest of the industry. In the years to come, I believe we’ll see even more significant progress as more companies recognize the critical importance of gender parity in fintech and beyond.
LeapXpert, a specialist in compliant business communications, has locked in $22 million in Series A+ funding.
The round was led by Rockefeller Asset Management via its Technology Ventures Group.
LeapXpert most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2022 in New York.
Business communications company LeapXpert has secured $22 million in Series A+ funding. The round was led by Rockefeller Asset Management via its Technology Ventures Group. Also participating in the round were Uncorrelated Ventures, and the Partnership Fund for New York City. Existing investors and a new strategic investor were also involved in the funding.
“Today marks a significant milestone for LeapXpert’s growth journey,” LeapXpert Dima Gutzeit founder and CEO said. “Our goal is to set the global standard for responsible and flexible employee-customer communication, and with this funding, we are one step closer to achieving our vision.”
This week’s investment takes LeapXpert’s total capital to $36 million, according to Crunchbase. LeapXpert will use the funding to help meet increasing demand for its services from financial institutions. The investment will also fuel its entry into other industry verticals and build out its partnership network. Additionally, the investment will support continued development of its LeapXpert Communications Platform, and launch a new public SaaS solution.
The platform helps balance the ability of customers to use popular communication tools with compliance and security requirements. LeapXpert has found that messaging and communications apps are “almost universally used” by businesses in financial services. Yet the compliance technology to regulate them has yet to catch up. With LeapXpert’s technology, companies can offer employees a single corporate identity for business communications through these popular, already widely used options.
“Of course, customers should be able to use iMessage, WhatsApp, SMS, Signal, Telegram, WeChat, or whatever to interact with their service providers,” Uncorrelated Ventures Founder and General Partner Salil Deshpande said. “And financial institutions and other service providers should be able to communicate with those customers using Slack, Teams, or whatever else, while still respecting security, compliance, regulations, and governance. LeapXpert is really the only solution.”
LeapXpert most recently demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2022. At the conference, the New York-based company showed how its app for Microsoft Teams creates a comprehensive digital record of company conversations across all text and instant messaging communications channels.
Credolab and Provenir announced a partnership this week that will make credolab’s SDK available in the Provenir Data Marketplace.
Credolab’s SDK won the “AI Platform” category in Juniper Research’s Future Digital Awards last fall.
Based in Singapore, credolab made its Finovate debut in 2018 at FinovateAsia in Hong Kong.
A new partnership between credolab and Provenir will enable financial institutions to leverage behavioral data to handle the challenges of credit risk management, fraud detection, and more. The companies announced this week that credolab’s mobile SDK will be made available in the Provenir Data Marketplace, a data hub for Open Banking, KYC/KYB, verifications, and other resources.
In a statement, credolab co-founder and CEO Peter Barcak added financial inclusion to the list of challenges that the partnership responds to. “Credolab believes that traditional lending processes exclude many people because they target applicants with pre-existing credit history, typically in the middle- and high-income groups,” Barcak said. “Our aim is to make credit available to all by giving lenders access to a previously untapped, highly predictive source of behavioral data.”
CredoLab’s technology analyzes more than 10 million behavioral features to provide predictive credit risk scores, marketing predictions, and fraud alerts – without processing personal data. Companies using the technology have experienced up to a 40% predictivity uplift, up to a 22% reduction in fraud costs, and up to a 32% increase in approval rate. Last fall, credolab won the “AI Platform” category in Juniper Research’s Future Digital Awards – Fintech & Payments for its SDK. credoSDK offers a multi-modular code library that enables both Android and iOS apps to capture behavioral metadata. With the user’s consent, credoSDK collects both privacy-consented and anonymous metadata, and sends it to credolab’s proprietary scoring engine. The API delivers risk and fraud scores, anti-fraud verification, and marketing insights to users in real-time.
Headquartered in Singapore and founded in 2016, credolab made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia 2018 in Hong Kong. Today, the company has more than 150 financial companies, banks, fintech unicorns in more than 30 countries as its clients.
