Edward Jones has announced a multi-year partnership with St. Louis based venture fund SixThirty; SixThirty invests in eight to 10 fintech startups annually with each startup receiving an investment of up to $100,000 along with support from a business development program that includes mentoring and networking; Edward Jones will be involved in numerous aspects of the venture fund's investing and Frank LaQuinta, a general partner with Edward Jones, will join SixThirty's investment committee. Source
Marvelstone Capital is working with fintech startup Smartfolio to develop a robo advisor solution for family offices; it will target family offices based in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar and India; the robo advisor solution is being designed as a hybrid service for family offices with less than US$1 billion in AUM however Marvelstone will also market to family offices with AUM of US$1 billion to US$10 billion; it plans to launch the new solution in the third quarter of 2017. Source
The number of global fintech patent filings has increased by 49% in the past five years; in 2016 there were 9,545 fintech patents filed globally; the US was the global leader in fintech patent filings with 4,523; China ranked second with approximately half of the number of filings as the US; data on the filings was compiled by commercial law firm EMW who reported that the increase was a result of more filings from both startups and traditional financial services firms. Source
Lyric Financial and TuneCore have partnered to offer loans for musicians; the two companies have developed TuneCore Direct Advance which provides financing from Lyric Financial to clients of TuneCore; through the partnership musicians can receive loans against future projected sales through a simplified application that integrates sales information from TuneCore's clients. Source
Channel Partners Capital has announced it will utilize Tamarack's Lease/Loan Origination Accelerator built on Salesforce; Channel Partners Capital is a working capital business lender; Tamarack's Lease/Loan Origination Accelerator will help the firm improve its loan origination operations and audit controls. Source
IW Capital has surveyed 1,000 investors who have between GBP10,000 ($12,812) and over GBP250,000 ($320,300) worth of investments; the report shows UK investors are willing to take on greater risk in 2017; 44% of investors think Brexit will have a positive impact on their investment strategy; many investors see investment opportunity in private equity and UK investors also reported they will be looking more to tax efficient investing. Source
Alibaba has reportedly increased its bid for payments company MoneyGram; Alibaba initially announced the acquisition in January which will broaden its payments network; new terms of the deal increase the offer price to $18 per share from $13.25 and have been approved by the board of directors; the increased deal value follows a competing bid from Euronet Worldwide. Source
Andy Stewart, managing partner at Motive Partners, says fintechs are overvalued in the current market environment; speaking at the UK International Fintech event in London, Stewart says the over valuations are a result of success in the market and confidence from venture capital investors; Stewart cautions investors to watch for buzzwords including machine learning or blockchain that can enhance the value proposition of the solution but may be overvaluing a company's value overall; Stewart's Motive Partners launched in 2017 and is seeking to raise $1 billion. Source
After a 17 year career at Goldman Sachs, Tom Jessop, a senior technology executive is joining Chain Inc.; Chain was founded in 2014 and is based in San Francisco; Jessop's new role will be as president and he plans to work on the firm's partnerships; Chain will be opening a New York Office; Chain licenses its own version of blockchain technology that is more secure; it was reported last year the company was working with Visa on a B2B payments solution; company has raised $40 million from Visa, Capital One, Nasdaq and Citi Ventures; Khosla and Thrive Capital are also investors. Source
Digital only bank Starling Bank and Moneybox, who provides savings and investment services, are teaming up; Moneybox will access Starling Bank customers offering them the tools offered by Moneybox allowing customers to round up purchases and invest the difference; integration is via Starling's API; Megan Caywood, Starling's chief platform officer stated: "People today want to not only manage their everyday money on their phone but their savings and investments too. Working with Moneybox makes this a possibility." Source