The FinTech Innovation Lab accelerates market access for early- and growth-stage fintech companies to the world’s leading financial institutions. Alumni from across the globe have raised $530 million in venture capital financing since participating in the Lab; New York participants alone have raised more than $460 million. In 2010, Accenture and the Partnership Fund for New York City collaborated to create the Lab to make New York City a leader in fintech and grow technology jobs by leveraging the concentration of large financial services institutions and deep domain expertise that exists in the city. The FinTech Innovation Lab is now a leading venue for introducing financial services firms to breakthrough technologies that improve efficiency, security and customer experience.
“The concentration of large financial services firms actively looking for new technology coupled with a deep bench of talent that has financial services expertise gives New York City a competitive advantage in fostering fintech growth,” said Maria Gotsch, President and CEO of the Partnership Fund for New York City. “The FinTech Innovation Lab has successfully tapped into both of these strengths to grow fintech locally—in terms of jobs, investment and number of companies. With fintech flourishing here, New York has also become a magnet for international companies looking to be a part of this vibrant ecosystem.”
The eight companies that participated in this year’s lab, which were selected by senior technology executives from 16 of the 35 participating financial institutions, have spent the last 12 weeks receiving intensive product and business-development advice as well as mentoring from senior financial industry, technology and venture capital executives.
“Over the past seven years, we’ve seen a seismic shift in the willingness of financial institutions to experiment with, and in many cases adopt, cutting edge technologies to support their digital transformation and a better customer experience,” said Robert Gach, managing director of Accenture Strategy Capital Markets and co-founder of the FinTech Innovation Lab. “In many ways, the innovations we’ve seen come through the Lab have predicted the technology trends that banks have gravitated towards over the years, such as cloud, blockchain, big data and analytics. We expect this year’s innovations will experience a similar trajectory.”
The following 2017 FinTech Innovation Lab participants will present their innovations to an audience of more than 250 financial services executives and venture capitalists:
- Alloy – API/software that optimizes and automates customer on-boarding and AML/KYC checks. Through its dashboard and API, Alloy helps financial institutions integrate multiple sources of data increasing the speed and transparency of customer onboarding.
- BehavioSec – Multi-layered behavioral biometrics security solution that verify users’ identity by analyzing the unique patterns in how they type, click, hold and swipe on their devices to help combat fraud and improve user experience.
- Cutting Edge – Provider of NetAbstraction, a patented cloud-based cybersecurity solution that obscures and varies a company’s network path and location to prevent cyber-attacks. It protects networks, communications, applications and data that flow between the enterprise, the Internet and the cloud while maintaining carrier grade performance.
- DemystData – Cloud-based platform that allows financial institutions to explore and integrate new data more rapidly and gain a 360-degree view of data usage within their organizations.
- Detectica – AI-integrated system to uncover regulatory and reputation risk from employee misconduct by enabling in-depth investigation of electronic communications and employee activity.
- dMetrics – Places AI-driven, high-precision, adaptive reading platform (Minsky) in the hands of every business professional to reveal valuable insights from a wide range of unstructured data.
- Modelshop – Modelshop is the only technology on the market today that allows financial institutions to move mission critical financial analysis from spreadsheets into a collaborative, secure and real-time environment without coding.
- Nova Credit –The world’s premier cross-border Consumer Reporting Agency. Nova delivers instant overseas credit data to lenders so they can underwrite the millions of immigrants in the USA.
The selection committee for the New York FinTech Innovation Lab is comprised of the following 16 financial institutions: Ally Financial; American Express; American International Group, Inc.; Bank of America; Barclays; BlackRock; Capital One; Citi; Credit Suisse; Deutsche Bank; Goldman Sachs; The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America; JPMorgan Chase & Co; Morgan Stanley; New York Life; and Wells Fargo. Supporting venture-capital firms include Bain Capital Ventures, Canaan Partners, Contour Venture Partners, Nyca Partners, Rho Ventures, RRE Ventures and Warburg Pincus.
“We have been a proud partner of the FinTech Innovation Lab for all seven years, and our relationship with this program and the New York City fintech community is a critical part of our innovation strategy,” said David Reilly, Bank of America Global Banking & Markets CIO. “We are continually impressed by the quality of the talent pool and the Lab’s participating companies. As a result, this program helps Bank of America gain early insight into paradigm shifts that enable us to take proactive action now to serve Bank of America’s customers of tomorrow.”
“Citi is proud to be a founding sponsor of the New York FinTech Innovation Lab and to mentor the start-ups participating in this year’s Demo Day,” said Motti Finkelstein, Chief Technology Officer - Global Strategy Planning and Americas - Managing Director at Citi. “We recognize the important role FinTech plays in our industry and value the opportunity to collaborate with our peers and the start-ups to find innovative solutions for our clients.”
“Ally is pleased to support the FinTech Innovation Lab for the fifth consecutive year,” said Michael Baresich, Chief Information Officer at Ally. “Part of our commitment to do right by our customers is to stay on the forefront of the new technologies that will drive better products, services and experiences now and in the future. Our involvement with the FinTech Innovation Lab allows us to explore exciting technologies and help support the early-stage companies that are behind them.”
“Credit Suisse has a long history of supporting entrepreneurs, and in this context, the FinTech Innovation Lab represents a win-win,” said Steve Hook, Credit Suisse Global Markets Chief Information Officer. “Our firm is constantly looking for new and innovative ways to deliver the best possible services to our clients. The FinTech Innovation Lab affords us an opportunity to both help young start-ups get a leg-up within financial services firms and helps us deliver innovation and value to our clients. Whether exploring new ways to leverage Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning algorithms or finding unique mechanisms to defend against cyber threats, this year’s FIL class continues to validate the value of this program and reaffirms our commitment to its success.”