What are the latest innovations in financial and investment platforms, bitcoin and payments? On April 30th, AlwaysOn hosted OnFinance 2015 at NASDAQ’s headquarters in New York City. At this showcase, I had the opportunity to hear the hottest fintech company CEOs make their pitch to top venture investors and executives from big tech and financial institutions. This year, AlwaysOn launched its first annual OnFinance Top 100 private companies list. Congrats to all the winners! As shown below, we’re happy to announce that 13 Yodlee® Interactive customers landed on the list: 
1. Affirm 2. Chrome River Technologies 3. Coinbase 4. Coupa Software 5. Dealstruck 6. Dwolla 7. Expensify 8. FutureAdvisor 9. Kabbage 10. MineralTree 11. OrderWithMe 12. Payoff.com 13. WePay We would also like to congratulate our partner, CAN Capital, winner in the OnFinance B2B financial platforms category! The AlwaysOn Top 100 have a 40% chance of a successful exit or growth. These globally recognized companies are considered the best and most promising businesses shaking up the financial world with disruptive technologies and strategic approaches to tackle today's inefficiencies. Additionally, two Yodlee Interactive customers – Biz2Credit and NextCapital – and three Yodlee NEXT Incubator companies – DRAFT, Voatz and OCX – made the 50 Companies to Watch list. These early to mid-staged companies are positioned for high-growth and are quickly emerging as top contenders in the fintech arena. We’re also excited to see Anil Arora, CEO, Yodlee and Joe Polverari, Chief Strategy and Development Officer, Yodlee honored among the AlwaysOn 2015 Power Players in Fintech. This list represents a range of angel and venture investors, entrepreneurs and strategic corporate executives that are shaking up the world of finance. 
The OnFinance program kicked off on April 30th with an inspiring introduction by Tony Perkins, Founder and Editor, AlwaysOn. He discussed why it’s a great time to be an entrepreneur in fintech. According to Perkins, $4B in VC money poured into fintech in 2014 – $300M in Bitcoin. New York’s fintech sector is going twice as fast as that of Silicon Valley. Also, 85% of the time people are on smart phones, they are in an app. Therefore, developers have a tremendous opportunity to create innovative mobile financial apps that fulfill consumer needs for personalized financial services. As Mike Moritz, CEO of Sequoia Capital, observes, “Who you know, what you know and when you know is the currency of the Global Silicon Valley.” By combining a powerful, targeted social network with intimate events that attract key industry insiders, AlwaysOn is the exchange for this currency. Visit Aonetwork.com to join the global community of entrepreneurs, executives, inventors and investors. Next, our own Patrick Giamanco, VP of Customer Success, Yodlee Interactive, delivered the keynote on driving disruption in fintech and beyond. 
According to Giamanco, Yodlee is a 15 year old recently public company that powers digital banking experiences and was one of the original creators of personal financial management; think Mint before Mint. Yodlee powers some of the largest financial institutions in the world and hosts a large number of today’s internet innovators. We have all read across Google or Bing news clips about the increase in fintech investment. It goes without saying that there has been a huge influx of dollars, but what seems more appealing is the how and why it’s being done, said Giamanco. JP Nicols, President of Innosect, wrote an article titled “It’s too late, Banking is already disrupted.” In his post, Nichols highlighted and contrasted an American Banker article on whether fintech startups would overthrow the banking industry. Giamanco emphasizes that it’s important to recognize a few proof points. For example, some very large internet innovators now have as many online consumers on their platform as the largest online banking platforms; funds transferred into Google Wallet are now FDIC insured; and a large number of internet innovators have a Money Transmitter License. He describes how today’s banks are like grocery stores where you have to self-navigate and everything is organized by product, but not necessarily by customer experience. However, ecommerce offers a curated, personalized and intimate experience. In the future, financial services are likely to be highly customized as well. 
For example, three marketplace trends will drive a more personalized experience for consumers: 1. Sharing Economy 2. Mobile and Internet 3. Data and Analytics Giamanco concludes that disruption in banking is already happening and shares five major trends influencing the future of fintech: early stages of disruption; industry consolidation; innovation through partnerships; banks as a safe haven for money and data; and international competition. What disruptions do you see in the world of fintech? During the other sessions, OnFinance covered topics such as NASDAQ Private Market, Venture capital outlook in fintech for 2015, Perspectives on innovation, How crowdfunding is disrupting the DNA of the investment and lending world, Personal finance goes real-time, B2B financial platforms take center stage, The horse race in digital payments, and The Mad Alley 8 – top global investors in finance. Are you a startup looking for investment? According to Boris Fridman, Managing Director at Madison Alley – a strategic global corporate development, M&A and capital advisory firm – below are top investors in fintech. 
Top Investors in Fintech
- Norwest Venture Partners
- RRE Ventures
- Bessemer Venture Partners
- Warburg Pincus
- HSBC
- Index Ventures
- Trust Bridge Partners
- Anthemis Group
Overall, it was an amazing experience to mingle with top fintech innovators and influencers in the financial capital of the world. I also enjoyed meeting the fantastic AlwaysOn team – including Tony Perkins, Shannon Calvin, Paul Hamadeh, Richard Marx, Alex Taser, and Alexa Inga. Congrats to AlwaysOn for putting together a very successful, inaugural OnFinance event! OnFinance 2015 culminated with an exquisite dinner celebration at NASDAQ tower overlooking Times Square. Tony Perkins introduced the sponsors – NASDAQ OMX, Yodlee, KPMG, and IBM – along with select Top 100 companies. Also, Christine Loredo, VP of Yodlee NEXT, talked about how we support the burgeoning fintech ecosystem through our APIs and Incubator for fintech startups. For example, the YNEXT Incubator is hosting Demo Day for its inaugural class of fintech startups on May 27th in Palo Alto. Investors are welcome to request an invite: incubator@yodlee.com. For more insights from OnFinance 2015, follow @YIDeveloper on Twitter and the hashtag #OnFinance15 for live updates. Stay tuned for videos of speaker presentations as well!
