Envestnet Yodlee

We recently had a chance to catch up with Jeff Cain, Incubator Director at Envestnet/Yodlee. For reasons we can't fully explain, we have this incubator positioned in our mind as a Cadillac of incubators (perhaps Bentley would be more appropriate). As a corporate incubator for Envestnet | Yodlee, which is a data aggregation and analytics platform, they do something quite interesting which is to churn out companies that will ultimately become customers for their data. Brilliant!

Now, incubators and accelerators have wildly divergent models. Some are government-directed, others are corporate-directed. Many take a percentage of ownership, some require onsite stays for months on end and have large onsite offices and facilities, others are offsite and primarily virtual. In this case, the Envestnet | Yodlee incubator is a 6 month, non-residential program with 3-4 bootcamps, where the entrepreneurs come onsite to the SF offices for a week-long intensive programs, and "graduate" by presenting their firm and capabilities to a large audience of VCs, investors, partners & influencers. Much of the instructing, though is done virtually through video chats, emails, phone calls, etc.

Jeff also explained that many of their entrepreneurs skew older, and may be married with children living in other cities (or countries), so it's necessary to work with them from a primarily virtual standpoint. We found this interesting and asked why they skew older. He explained that many were past their 20's and into more established lives in the 30+ bracket, and had identified areas they saw needs for as the result of their life experiences, and went on to start up companies that met those needs. And they are not just US-based. Recent graduates have been based in Australia and Israel.

We know a number of their graduates, one which we have featured on our site recently - Heather Holmes of Genivity- and she is a an incredibly impressive and focused young woman with a very interesting fintech that helps advisors assist clients & their families with health risks and care costs. Firms accepted into this accelerator are in rarified air. The last class had 108 applicants for just 8 spots.

Anyway, you can check out their program at this link, and they are currently taking applicants for their next class. And below, see "10 Great Facts About Envestnet | Yodlee Incubator Companies".

(Cindy Taylor/Publisher)

"We like to think that we have some amazing companies in the Yodlee Incubator. But just to back up those thoughts, we decided to gather some facts about our companies, to prove they’re amazing. In honor of Top 10 lists everywhere, here are ten great things that graduates of the Yodlee Incubator have done:

  1. Be named “startup most likely to develop a cult following
  2. Close a commercial deal with JP Morgan Chase
  3. Graduate from the following programs:
  4. Sign customers that manage over 1 million apartment units
  5. Present to 2,000 financial advisors at the Envestnet Advisor Summit
  6. Make the finals at TechCrunch Disrupt
  7. Close A rounds
  8. Be acquired
  9. Run the finances for more than 150 Bay Area preschools
  10. Analyze over $20M in spending patterns, and that’s just beta testers
So there you have it. Ten (15 if you include the sub-bullets!) great achievements by our companies. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list. If you want to learn more about the program and our graduates, go here or shoot us a note: [email protected]. If you’re an entrepreneur with an idea to leverage financial transaction data, applications for our next cohort are now open. You can learn more here." Source: Envestnet/Yodlee Blog