Gallery: Fintech 50: The Future Of Your Money
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View galleryFor the 2016 edition of the list click here.
Reported by Samantha Sharf, Laura Shin, Lauren Gensler and Maggie McGrath
See our complete coverage of fintech and our first list.
ACORNS | Irvine, CA
App links to debit and credit cards, rounds up each purchase to nearest dollar, investing extra pennies in a portfolio of ETFs.
BONA FIDES: 1.3 million users
FOUNDERS: Former ETrade exec Walter Cruttenden, 65, and son Jeff, 29
FUNDING: $32 million from Greycroft Partners, Sound Ventures
ADDEPAR| Moutain View, CA
Cloud software lets advisors analyze and manage all of a client's assets, including hedge funds and private equity, on desktop and mobile.
BONA FIDES: More than $300 billion in assets already managed on platform
FUNDING: $65.8 million from David Sacks, Peter Thiel and Valor Equity Partners
AFFIRM| San Francisco
Finances purchases with instant loans at interest rates of 0% to 30%.
COFOUNDER & CEO: Max Levchin, 40, a co-founder of PayPal and Yelp
FUNDING: $325 million in debt and equity from Spark Capital, Jefferies, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures
ALGOMI| London
Its Honeycomb bond-trading information system helps buyers see which banks hold inventory of bonds they want to buy--information that, surprisingly, isn't now readily available.
BONA FIDES: 14 big banks and 140 buy-side firms have already signed up
COFOUNDER & CEO: Stu Taylor, 43, former UBS bond exec
FUNDING: $30 million from Lakestar and others
ALPHASENSE| San Francisco
Smart search engine for investment pros spares them irrelevant Google search results.
BONA FIDES: 400 clients include JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse
FUNDING: $13 million from undisclosed angel investors
COFOUNDER & CEO: Former Morgan Stanley analyst Jack Kokko, 42
ADYEN| Amsterdam
Payment platform bypasses rickety old infrastructure to power global e-commerce across six continents for companies such as Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Netflixand Spotify.
BONA FIDES: On track to process $45 billion worth of transactions in 2015
FUNDING: More than $270 million from General Atlantic, Index Ventures, Temasek, Felicis Ventures and Iconiq Capital
THREAT TO: WorldPay, Chase Paymentech and other old-line payment processors
AVANT| Chicago
Makes instant online loans of $1,000 to $35,000 to average Joes, at 10% to 36% interest for two to five years.
BONA FIDES: Has lent $2 billion, with an average loan size of just $8,000
COFOUNDER & CEO: Al Goldstein, 35, a Chicago real estate and tech entrepreneur
FUNDING: $659 million from KKR, Peter Thiel, August Capital and Tiger Global Management
THREAT TO: Credit unions, banks and credit card balances
BETTERMENT | New York City
Robo-advisor with more than 118,000 individual customers, now branching into 401(k) management.
FUNDING: $105 million from Citi Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Northwestern Mutual Capital
THREAT TO: High-priced managers of small 401(k)s
For more on Betterment see,"The Price Of Free: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Of Investing And Saving Options For The 99%"
BRAINTREE| San Francisco
Online payments processor powers one-click payments for consumer apps; acquired peer-to-peer payments app Venmo in 2012. Powers payments for Airbnb and Uber.
FUNDING: Bought by PayPal in 2013 for $800 million
THREAT TO: Traditional credit card processors, checks
C2FO| Fairway, KS
Uses bid system and algorithms to match buyerssitting on extra cash with suppliers ready to accept discounts for payment within 48 hours.
BONA FIDES: $106 billion in invoices a year now flow through it
FOUNDER and CEO: Sandy Kemper, 50, also chair of The Collectors Fund, founder of Perfect Commerce and former CEO of UMB Financial
FUNDING: $99 million from Union Square Ventures, Mithril Capital Management, Temasek
Holdings and others
THREAT TO: Traditional factoring industry, which buys receivables at discount
CHAIN.COM| San Francisco
Builds tools to exploit "blockchain" technology underlying Bitcoin.
FUNDING: $43.7 million from Visa, Citi, Nasdaq, Capital One, Fiserv, Orange, Khosla Ventures, RRE Ventures, SV Angel
BONA FIDES: Picked by Nasdaq to develop system for trading of private pre-IPO stock
For more on Chain.com see, "Bitcoin's Shared Ledger Technology: Money's New Operating System"
CIRCLEUP| San Francisco
Crowdfunding site connects creators of new consumer products with investors and potential distribution partners, including P&G, General Mills and eBay.
BONA FIDES: Has helped 128 companies raise $145 million
FUNDING: $53 million from Union Square Ventures, Canaan Partners, Google Ventures and Clayton Christensen
CREDIT KARMA| San Francisco
Provides truly free credit scores and credit monitoring to consumers.
BONA FIDES: Since 2008, Americans have checked their credit scores at Credit Karma more than 1 billion times.
FOUNDER & CEO: Kenneth Lin, 40, aveteran of Upromise and E-LOAN
FUNDING: $368.5 million from Google Capital, Tiger Global Management, Ribbit Capital, Susquehanna Growth Equity
VALUATION: $3.5 billion as of last round in June
THREAT TO: Credit-monitoring services and scores sold by credit bureaus, aswell as FICO credit score producer Fair Isaac
DIGIT| San Francisco
Monitors cash flow in your checking account, diverting small amounts into savings. Users can save more (or less) via text message.
FUNDING: $13.8 million from Baseline Ventures, Google Ventures
EARNEST | San Francisco
Crunches up to 100,000 data points about prospective borrowers, including transactions in their bank accounts and 401(k)s, to make personal loans and refinance student debt for young borrowers with scanty credit records.
FUNDING: $100 million from Maveron, Andreessen Horowitz, First Round, Battery Ventures
THREAT TO: Banks, credit unions and traditional credit scores from Fair Isaac (FICO)
For more onEarnest see, "Young, Broke And Creditworthy"
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Your cash belongs to you, not your bank. Fintech startups are challenging the big banks—and already saving people thousands.
EQUITYZEN| New York City
Connects employees at pre-IPO companies looking to sell stock with prospective buyers.
BONA FIDES: Works with 15 of the top 25 "unicorns"--private startups valued at $1 billion or more
FUNDING: $3.5 million from 500Startups, Silicon Badia Investments, Kima Ventures, zPark
ESTIMIZE| New York City
Proves old concept--wisdom of the crowd--by crowdsourcing corporate-earnings estimates from general public.
BONA FIDES: Beats Wall Street estimates 70% of the time
FUNDING: $9 million from Contour Venture Partners, Longworth Venture Partners, WorldQuant Ventures
FUNDBOX| San Francisco
Uses new software to solve an old problem for small businesses: They have to wait too long to be paid. By synching with Quickbooks and other accounting software Fundbox offers a small-business owner advances on outstanding invoices; he picks which one he wants to borrow against, and advances are made to his bank account, with repayments later debited automatically.
FUNDING: $107.5 million from Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, Spark Capital, Bezos Expeditions, former Citi CEO Vikram Pandit and others
BONA FIDES: Has already processed 22 million invoices from 30,000 small businesses
THREAT TO: Traditional factoring firms, small-business lenders
FUNDERA| New York City
Small-business loan marketplace allows borrowers to compare terms from 28 lenders.
BONA FIDES: 1,700 borrowers have used platform to borrow $85 million.
FUNDING: $15 million from Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, QED Investors, Susquehanna Growth Equity
THREAT TO: Small-business lenders with high rates or hidden fees
FUNDRISE | Washington, D.C.
Real estate crowdfunding site whose backers vet and buy the deals themselves, before reselling to accredited investors.
BONA FIDES: Ties to big real estate players allowed it to sell bonds for 3 World Trade Center
FUNDING: $35 million from Renren, Guggenheim Partners, Silverstein Properties CEO Marty Burger, Ackman-Ziff President Simon Ziff
COFOUNDER & CEO: Ben Miller, 39, from rich D.C. real estate family
For more on Fundrise see, "Is Crowdfunding About To Massively Disrupt The Real Estate Industry?"
HelloWallet | Washington, D.C.
Sold as employee benefit, links all a worker’s bank, credit,savings and investing accounts, and sends him individual nudges and advice viaemail, apps and text messages.
BONA FIDES: Has signed up 26 employers who offer the service to 550,000workers. Offered to Vanguard to 401(k)clients.
FUNDING: Bought by investor Morningstar in 2014 for $52.5 million value.
FOUNDER: Matt Fellowes, 40, former Brookings Institution fellow
THREAT TO: Payday lenders, high interest rate credit cards and bank fees
For more on HelloWallet see, "HelloWallet: Proving That Electronic Nagging Is An Important Employee Benefit"
IEX| New York City
Stock exchange designed to blunt predatory high-frequency traders' edge.
COFOUNDER & CEO: Brad Katsuyama, 37, hero of Michael Lewis book Flash Boys
FUNDING: $100 million from Spark Capital, Bain Capital Ventures and others
For more on IEX see, "Wall Street's Unlikely Rebel: Can Brad Katsuyama's New Exchange Fix The U.S. Stock Market?"
KENSHO
Combines latest big data and machine-learningtechniques to analyze how real-world events affect markets.
BONA FIDES: The CIA uses its software.
COFOUNDER & CEO: Daniel Nadler, 32
FUNDING: $58 million from Goldman Sachs, Google Ventures, General Catalyst, CNBC, Accel Partners, Fidelity Investments, Breyer Capital and IQT,the CIA’s venture capital arm
VALUATION:$650 million (updated)
THREAT TO: Human analysts, hedge funds trading on obscure knowledge
For more on Kensho see, "Kensho: The Financial Answer Machine"
LEVEL MONEY| San Francisco
Mobile budgeting app, with over 1 million downloads.
FUNDING: $7 million from Kleiner Perkins and former Citi CEO Sandy Weill. Bought by Capital One in January for undisclosed amount
LEARNVEST | New York City
Connects average folks with financial plans and planners on the Web and in the workplace.
FOUNDER & CEO: Alexa von Tobel, 32
FUNDING: Raised $72 million from Accel Partners and others. Northwestern Mutual bought in March for $250 million-plus
For more on LearnVest see, "The Recession Generation: How Millennials Are Changing Money Management Forever"
MONEY.NET| New York City
Provides real-time financial market data, news, messaging and analytics for $95 a month per user.
BONA FIDES: Six of nine largest U.S. banks use it
CEO: Morgan Downey, 42, former Bloomberg exec
FUNDING: Undisclosed
THREAT TO: $20,000-a-year Bloomberg terminals
MOTIF INVESTING| San Mateo, CA
Enables investors to design, share and buy themed ETF-likeportfolios (Motifs) of up to 30 stocks for $9.95 a transaction.
BONA FIDES: 200,000 retail customers
FOUNDER & CEO: Hardeep Walia, 43
FUNDING:$126 million from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Renren
VALUATION:$800 million as of last round in January
THREAT TO: Traditional discount brokers and mutual fund companies
For more on Motif see, "Motif Investing: Everything Is Thematic"
NAV| San Mateo, CA
Gives small-business owners access to their business and personal credit scores, help comparing rates from 36 lenders.
FUNDING: $6.5 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Peak Ventures and others
PERSONAL CAPITAL |Redwood City, CA
Offers free dashboard to track and analyze all your finances, using it to find clients for its hybrid robo and human financial advisory service.
FOUNDER & CEO: Bill Harris, 59, a former Intuit and PayPal CEO
FUNDING: $104 million from Blackrock, BBVA Ventures, USAA
For more on Personal Capitalsee,"The Price Of Free: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Of Investing And Saving Options For The 99%"
PLAID| San Francisco
Provides tools for other fintech startups to link bank and credit accounts and process transactions.
BONA FIDES: Used by Motif, Betterment, Wealthfront, Digit, Venmo and Acorns
FUNDING: $15.3 million from NEA, Google Ventures, Spark Capital and others
PREMISE DATA
Employs army of Android-wielding locals in 30 countries to collect on-the-ground data that shed light on economic trends in real time.
BONA FIDES: Clients include World Bank, the UN, Bloomberg and Standard Chartered
FUNDING: $66.5 million from Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Social Capital, Valor Equity Partners
PROSPER| San Francisco
Peer-to-peer lending site connects borrowers and lenders for unsecured loans of $2,000 to $35,000 at fixed rates ranging from 5.99% to 36%.
BONA FIDES: Has originated $5 billion in loans, third only to Lending Club and SoFi
FUNDING: $360 million from Breyer Capital, Neuberger Berman, Sequoia Capital, QED Investors
QUANTOPIAN| Boston
Crowdsources hedge fund by offering quants free platform for back-testing their algorithms. If hedge fund uses an algorithm, creator gets up to 10% of profits.
BONA FIDES: 50,000 folks, including computer scientists, physicists and rocket scientists, have signed on to the platform
COFOUNDER & CEO: John Fawcett, 38, formerly with Advent Software
FUNDING: $23.8 million from Bessemer Venture Partners, Spark Capital, Khosla Ventures
R3CEV| New York City
Has signed up 30 banks to jointly develop projects using technology that underlies Bitcoin.
BONA FIDES: Partners include JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Citi, Bank of America, BNP Paribas and Wells Fargo
FOUNDER & MANAGING PARTNER: David Rutter, 53, former CEO of ICAP Electronic Broking, the electronic clearing giant
RIPPLE| San Francisco
Allows banks to transfer funds in any currency in real time.
BONA FIDES: Partnerships with Earthport, Germany's Fidor Bank, Cross River Bank, CBW Bank
COFOUNDER & CEO: Chris Larsen, 55, cofounder of Prosper and E-Loan
FUNDING: $38.4 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures and others
RISKALYZE| Auburn, CA
Its software helps financial advisors quantify clients' risk tolerance and build suitable portfolios.
BONA FIDES: Customers include LPL Financial, Cambridge, SEI, AssetMark and United Planners
FUNDING: $4 million from angel investors
ROBINHOOD| Palo Alto, CA
Commission-free stock trading app.
FUNDING: $66 million from Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, actor Jared Leto, Snoop Dogg
For more on Robinhoodsee,"The Price Of Free: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Of Investing And Saving Options For The 99%"
SIMPLE| Portland, OR
Online bank offering no-fee checking and personal finance tools, such as automatic daily saving.
FUNDING: Bought by Spanish bank BBVA in 2014 for $117 million
THREAT TO: Bank fees
SOFI| San Francisco
Offers student loan refinancing, personal loans and mortgages toyoung borrowers with high-end jobs and degrees.
BONA FIDES: Has made $6 billion worth of loans
COFOUNDER & CEO:Mike Cagney, 44
FUNDING: $1.4 billion from Softbank, Third PointVentures, Peter Thiel, Baseline Ventures and Renren
VALUATION: $4 billion
THREAT TO: Traditional lenders
For more on SoFi see, "Student Debt As An Asset Class: A $1 Trillion Opportunity?"
STRIPE| San Francisco
Online and in-app payment platform with easy-to-use customer interface.
BONA FIDES: Clients include Twitter, Facebook and Lyft
COFOUNDER & CEO: Patrick Collison, 27
FUNDING: $300 million from Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, as well as PayPal cofounders Peter Thiel, Max Levchin and Elon Musk
VALUATION: $5 billion as of last round in July
THREAT TO: PayPal, traditional credit card processors
For more on Stripe see, "Stripe: The App Paymaster"
TRANSFERWISE
Chops the high fees individuals and small businesses pay for international money transfers by (invisibly to customers) matching buyers and sellers of each currency.
BONA FIDES: Customers transfer $750 million on the platform a month
FUNDING: $91 million from Peter Thiel, Richard Branson, Andreessen Horowitz
THREAT TO: Big banks' money-transfer profits, Western Union
TRUEACCORD| San Francisco
Brings debt collection into the 21st century by using machine learning programs to analyze individual debtor's responses and customize contacts.
BONA FIDES: Collects 20% more on each dollar of debt than traditional collectors
FUNDING: $6 million from Khosla Ventures, Nyca Partners, Max Levchin
THREAT TO: Traditional collection agencies
TRUEEX |New York City
Electronic interest rate swaps exchange allows big players to make trades anonymously
BONA FIDES: J.P. Morgan Chase, big hedge funds, have already signed on
COFOUNDER & CEO: Sunil Hirani, 49, the co-founder of Creditex
FUNDING: More than $25 million from management team and other investors
THREAT TO: Tradeweb and Bloomberg
VOUCH| San Francisco
New social network variant on the old concept of loan cosigners enables borrowers with credit scores as low as 600 to get a lower rate or larger loan online by having multiple friends and relatives guarantee or "vouch" for small parts of the loan--an average of $110 per voucher.
COFOUNDER & CEO: Yee Lee, 42, angel investor in 40-plus companies and former TaskRabbit exec
FUNDING: $9.6 million from Core Innovation Capital, Data Collective, Stanford StartX Fund, IDG Ventures, AngelList, First Round Capital, Greylock
WEALTHFRONT |Palo Alto, CA
Robo-advisor with nearly $3 billion under management.
FUNDING: $129.5 million from Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital, Social Capital, Benchmark Capital
For more on Wealthfrontsee,"The Price Of Free: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Of Investing And Saving Options For The 99%"
WORLDREMIT | London
Phone app for money transfers to Third World, typically charging 2% to 3% on a $200 transfer, compared with 8% current average.
FUNDING: $147 million from Accel Partners, Technology Crossover Ventures
XAPO |
Stores Bitcoin for wealthy investors on encrypted servers scattered across the globe and offers digital wallets used by consumers from developing countries to shop online.
BONA FIDES: World’s largest, most secure Bitcoin bank
COFOUNDER & CEO: Wences Casares, 41
FUNDING:$41 million from Benchmark Capital, Greylock Partners, Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital, Jerry Yang and Max Levchin
VALUATION: $120 million (est.)
THREAT TO: Would-be Bitcoin hackers
For more on Xapo see, "Xapo: Banking On Bitcoin"
XIGNITE | San Mateo, CA
Supplies financial market data to more than 1,000 financial companies for their apps and websites.
FUNDING: $16.4 million from Starvest Partners, Altos Ventures and Startup Capital Ventures
THREAT TO: Thomson Reuters and Interactive Data
ZENEFITS |San Francisco
Free cloud-based software to help small businesses automate payroll and benefits. Makes money off commissions on health insurance.
BONA FIDES: Valued at $4.5 billion in May
cofounder & CEo: Parker Conrad, 35, also cofounder of SigFig and WikInvest
FUNDING: $581.5 million from Fidelity Management and Research Co., TPG, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures
For more on Zenefits see, "What Bubble? The Unicorn Boom Has Just Begun"
ZESTFINANCE| Los Angeles
Uses unconventional metrics to underwrite loans to those with low credit scores or thin credit histories. Example: Borrowers who enter their name in all caps in the online application are poorer risks.
BONA FIDES: Chosen to underwrite loans on big Chinese retail site JD.com
FOUNDER & CEO: Douglas Merrill, 45, formerly Google's chief information officer
FUNDING: $65 million from Flybridge Capital Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Matrix Partners, Upfront Ventures, Peter Thiel, plus undisclosed amount from JD.com
See our complete coverage of fintech and our first list.