NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Eleven emerging enterprise tech companies will present their technologies to dozens of top executives within the financial services, venture capital and technology industries today at the ninth annual FinTech Innovation Lab New York Demo Day. Livestream of the presentations can be viewed here.
Founded in 2010 by Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and the Partnership Fund for New York City, the FinTech Innovation Lab New York provides early- and growth-stage fintech companies with access to the world’s leading financial institutions. The Lab was established to help make New York a leader in fintech and grow technology jobs by leveraging the concentration of large financial services institutions and deep domain expertise that exist in New York.
This year’s graduates are leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, cryptography and other technologies to tackle key industry challenges, including improving online engagement with customers, detecting financial compliance risks, driving operational efficiencies, measuring and underwriting cyber risk and tackling diversity and inclusion.
“Joining the ranks of fintechs and insurtechs that have helped cement New York as a hub for innovation in financial services, the 11 presenting companies are strengthening the backbone of New York’s economy and differentiating tech in New York City, a sector of the economy vital to the city’s growth,” said Maria Gotsch, Co-Chair and Co-Founder of the FinTech Innovation Lab New York and President and CEO of the Partnership Fund for New York City.
David Treat, a managing director in Accenture’s Financial Services practice and Co-Chair of the FinTech Innovation Lab New York, said, “The participating fintechs have made great progress over the last 11 weeks working under the guidance of our partner financial institutions. We expect these companies to follow in the footsteps of previous lab graduates, who have successfully applied fintech to transform financial services, whether it be through addressing emerging risks, harnessing data and analytics in new ways, or improving the customer experience.”
The 58 companies that have graduated from the Lab to date have raised US$1 billion since participating and have completed over 200 proofs-of-concept. Five of the alumni companies have been acquired, with Red Hat’s acquisition of InkTank for US$175 million in 2014 being the largest.
Notable capital raises by alumni include US$110 million by Dashlane in 2019, US$95 million by Enigma in 2018, US$60 million by Digital Asset in 2016, US$40 million by pymetrics in 2018, and US$40 million by Digital Reasoning in 2016.
The Lab’s 44 financial institution partners and nine VC partners work with the Lab from selection process to graduation, helping to refine products and services through deep engagement with the fintechs.
“By putting the selection process in the hands of banks and insurers, only companies with a technology solution addressing core challenges within the industry make it into the Lab,” said Matt Harris, a partner at Bain Capital Ventures. “This creates a paradigm that nearly guarantees these fintechs to have the greatest potential and will play a major role in the trajectory of fintech overall.”
Stuart Ellman, a general partner at RRE, said, “At RRE, we see our role as mentoring companies in the FinTech Innovation Lab as they think about capital-raising strategies. Once fintechs complete the program, they have validation from the industry that they have successfully collaborated with a corporate partner on cutting-edge technology, which helps fuel future success.”
The 2019 FinTech Innovation Lab New York graduates are:
- Cloudframe: Transforms legacy mainframe applications into cloud-native Java without adding undue risk to data and business processes.
- Cyberwrite: Provides a simple-to-understand report on the risks and financial impact of cyber-attacks on any small or medium-sized business worldwide.
- Extend: The Extend digital credit card redefines how credit cards are issued and shared and provides virtual credit card distribution without requiring any bank tech development.
- Fairframe: Takes diversity and inclusion to the next level with an easy-to-use ‘spellchecker’ for unconscious bias; the text analysis platform combines the power of AI and decades of social science research.
- Genus AI: Next-generation enterprise AI platform that helps financial institutions understand and engage with customers in an emotionally intelligent way, driving retention and revenue.
- Goalsetter: A savings and gifting platform that enables families to use social savings, gifts and gamification to teach kids financial literacy and independence, backed by an FDIC-insured account.
- Hyperscience: Uses proprietary machine learning technology to automate data entry and streamline document processing for large enterprises by extracting handwritten, printed and highly distorted text at accuracy levels surpassing manual data entry.
- Inpher: Uses cryptographic technology to power advanced analytics and AI applications without exposing or transferring sensitive data across departments, organizations or jurisdictions.
- Magma Trading: A new kind of stock market that allows broker-dealers to trade large blocks of equities. Magma’s structure allows market-making firms to post large potential trades without fear of getting run over by high-speed electronic sweeps.
- Npm: Manages the world’s largest software registry, empowering 11 million JavaScript developers with industry-leading tools and services. Npm lowers engineering costs, reduces time to market and improves the user experience while providing a greater level of security.
- Theta Lake: Cloud-based communication compliance platform that uses AI and deep learning to detect compliance risks in what was said, shared and shown — driving down the cost of compliance.
About the Partnership Fund for New York City
The Partnership Fund for New York City is the $160 million investment arm of the Partnership for New York City, New York’s leading business organization. The Fund’s mission is to engage the City’s business leaders to identify and support promising entrepreneurs — in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors – to create jobs, spur new business and expand opportunities for New Yorkers to participate in the City’s economy. As an “evergreen” fund, realized gains are continuously reinvested. The Partnership Fund Board is led by Co-Chairmen, Charles R. Kaye and Tarek Sherif. Maria Gotsch, President and CEO, leads the team. More information about the Fund can be found at www.pfnyc.org.
About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions — underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network — Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With 482,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.