The FintekNews team has been watching the mobile-focused fintech Juvo for the better part of a year now. We've both featured Steve Polsky, the CEO, in our 3 Questions series and also spoken with one of its early investors, Ron Suber about this ambitious project. Juvo represents the best of what financial technology is all about in our opinion - financial inclusion for all. Their new affiliation with Samsung, announced today, will further that worthy goal. We are excited to see what the future holds for this company - keep an eye on them.
Cindy Taylor/Publisher
SAN FRANCISCO, January 23, 2018
– Juvo, the pioneer in mobile Identity Scoring, today announced a strategic investment from Samsung NEXT that will help provide access to the billions of prepaid users around the world who are currently unbanked or financially underserved. Additionally, this investment will help Juvo enable global mobile operators to significantly accelerate migration to smartphones amongst prepaid mobile subscribers, offering access to digital financial services and delivering on digital transformation.Mobile operators in competitive and developing markets across four continents use Juvo’s data science fueled prepaid engagement and growth solution to target subscribers with “fee free” airtime advance purchases, loyalty building incentives and rewards, and access to basic and progressively advanced financial services. At the same time subscriber engagement increases, Juvo’s sophisticated data science technology identifies and qualifies users for smartphone migration and handset financing - a first for most prepaid subscribers. Real time Identity Scoring allows retail agents to convert users in-store, through a seamless point-of-sale (POS) integration. As users migrate to smartphones over traditional feature phones, mobile operators deepen subscriber relationships and unlock value via digital services, typically seeing an increase in data consumption by an average of 30 percent per subscriber.
“At Samsung NEXT, we’re focused on working with entrepreneurs and startups that are creating truly impactful software and services--software and services that will transform the way we, as humans, interact with our devices, each other and the world,” said Patrick Chang, Principal, Samsung NEXT Ventures. “Juvo’s impressive traction from mobile operators and consumers offers an opportunity for us to tap into the next billion customers through more comprehensive financial inclusion and accessibility.”
“From the beginning, Juvo has been driven by the vision of ‘access for all’ and the idea that doing good is also good business,” said Steve Polsky, founder and CEO of Juvo. “This new collaboration with Samsung NEXT allows us to further realize our vision by being among the first to integrate financial identity into a hardware device and, with it, offer unprecedented access to greater financial services. Samsung opens a critical piece of the ecosystem for Juvo, and its world class organization, market expertise and reach will accelerate the Juvo mission, putting sophisticated technology in the hands of unbanked people and provide financial access to those who need it most.”
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About Juvo
Juvo was founded with an overarching mission: to establish financial identities for the billions of people worldwide who are creditworthy, yet financially excluded. In partnership with mobile network operators, Juvo’s proprietary Identity Scoring technology uses data science, machine learning, and game mechanics to create an identity-based relationship with anonymous prepaid users. Identity Scoring creates financial identities for users, providing ongoing access to otherwise unattainable mobile financial services to boost engagement and dramatically improve subscriber loyalty and revenue for mobile operators.
Headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Miami, London, Buenos Aires, Manila, and Jakarta. Juvo has a reach of over 500 million subscribers across four continents and is deployed in 25 countries. For more information, follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn, or find us at www.juvo.com.
About Samsung NEXT
Samsung NEXT builds, grows and scales transformative software and services to complement Samsung’s global hardware footprint. A leading driver of Samsung's transformation into an integrated hardware and software company, Samsung NEXT combines product development, investment, M&A and partnerships under one roof. If you have an idea, we can help you turn it into a product. If you have a product, we can help you build and grow it. And if you are ready, we can help you scale.