The fundraising round was led by TransUnion, Hearst, and Macquarie with participation from existing investors Uprising and John Mack; firm plans to use the funding for expansion of its data analytics platform services; it will also extend its services to the traditional lending market; following the deal, Steve Chaouki, executive vice president and head of TransUnion's financial services business unit, will join the PeerIQ board along with Shea Wallon, managing director of Hearst's Financial Venture Fund. Source
Brothers Patrick and John Collison have revolutionized how payments are transacted on the internet through their startup Stripe; source provides details on their backgrounds and the development of the business; reports on how the company has grown to provide services for more than 100,000 businesses and their new partnership with Amazon. Source
Skype users can now make P2P payments with PayPal in 22 countries; the partnership is a first on mobile for the two companies however they have partnered in the past for P2P payments through the desktop application; the deal adds to numerous partnerships PayPal has made in recent months, helping to expand its services to a broader network. Source
The insurer launched a product based on taking a photo of yourself and their technology will then estimate a number of items based on the photo; the product is launched at SelfieQuote.com and according to Coverager this is the first products of its kind; this is currently being used in beta mode and the technology comes from Lapetus Solutions, Inc.; after the initial beta period Legal and General America will decide if this solution will become a mainstay of their offerings; Jim Galli, executive vice president of business strategy and innovation for Legal & General America, tells Coverager, "This could revolutionize the life insurance application process for millions of consumers, as it allows for a much more engaging user experience while also showing in a matter of seconds how affordable a life insurance policy can be." Source
Fund That Flip is a real estate crowdfunding platform; it has been around for three years and plans to add 25 employees to the Cleveland location; the company received a Job Creation Tax Credit on Monday, July 31st which applies to the company's plan to generate $1.5 million in new payroll. Source
Personal Capital, a hybrid wealth management platform, raised another $40 million and it now brings their total funding to $200 million; this Series E round was led by IGM Financial, part of the Power Financial Corporation group of companies, with participation from other existing investors; they plan to use the new capital to expand product offerings, increase their marketing spend and build up their advisory service; they also plan to move into San Francisco and Denver, building on the markets they currently are in which include Dallas, Atlanta, New York, Greater Los Angeles and Chicago. Source
Acorns has partnered with personal financial management app Clarity Money; Acorns now has two million investment accounts with users investing spare change into customized investments; Clarity Money launched in 2016 and is an app for personal finance advice and expense and savings management; users of both platforms benefit from the partnership with Clarity Money customers able to use Acorns' automated investing features and Acorns' investors able to sync their Acorns investment account to their Clarity Money dashboard. Source
In an interview with RIABiz Personal Capital Founder Bill Harris talks about the outlook for his firm, the growth they have seen and some of the challenges with growing their brand; they do not consider themselves a robo advisor, they are more complicated and detailed with call centers and multiple strategies; they currently have $4.9 billion in assets under management which is more than five times the $1 billion in assets under management they had in January 2015; Jay Shah, CEO of Personal Capital, tells RIABiz, "Our rapid growth reaffirms that we are solving a major pain point for consumers by giving them conflict-free advice and full transparency and insight into their financial lives."; they are not as cheap as Betterment or Vanguard yet they are gaining market share and their average account is $380,000; the company has received over $200 million in venture funding with the most recent round of $40 million closing yesterday; the interview also goes through the pains of building their brand and the different strategies they offer to clients. Source
PeerStreet, a platform for investing in real estate backed loans, has now integrated with Personal Capital which is powered by the Envestnet | Yodlee data aggregation platform; customers will now be able to view their PeerStreet positions within their investment portfolio on Personal Capital; this is the third such integration as PeerStreet recently announced integrations with Wealthfront and Betterment; "Many PeerStreet customers have asked for this integration with Personal Capital. We're always working to improve the experience for our customers and provide greater control and transparency," said Brett Crosby, co-founder and COO of PeerStreet." Source
JPMorgan will soon be using robot technology to execute trades across its global equities algorithms business; the artificial intelligence, also known as LOXM, will be launched across Asia and the US in the fourth quarter; LOXM's job is to execute client orders with maximum speed at the best price, by using lessons it has learned from billions of past trades; one possible evolution of LOXM is teaching the machine how to get to know individual clients, so that it could consider their behavior and reaction as it decides how to trade. Source