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The Fintech 50: The Complete List 2015

This article is more than 8 years old.

This story appears in the December 27, 2015 issue of Forbes. Subscribe

For 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, Netflix and 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 buyers sitting 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, a veteran 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 on Earnest see, "Young, Broke And Creditworthy


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 Capital see,"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 Robinhood see,"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 Wealthfront see,"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.

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