EXCLUSIVE – Paris-based BNP #Paribas announced this week that it has launched a startup #investment #fund, and called this move the final piece in its innovation strategy. The amount of the fund was not disclosed, but about #five strategic #investments a #year are envisioned, said Andreas Lambropoulos, head of strategic initiatives for BNP Paribas International …Read More
Bank Innovation
Innovation is risky, so when it comes to funding new fintechs, #banks should hold with a more traditional view of risk than the one proposed by Silicon Valley. In other words, banks can apply the famous “#move #fast and #break things” mantra of Silicon Valley’s #technology entrepreneurs to quite a few facets of the industry—but […]
Bank Innovation
We live a world that we still check our wealth #from our laptop or our smartphone. Tim Cook is leading us to check our #wrist for our health. Wearables for our finances, are still in the “nice to have” category and nowhere close to becoming the next black. Will GoldmanRead More
Bank Innovation
Founded in 2007 by Peter Niederhauser and Dr. Michael Sidler, Redalpine Venture Partners is a #Swiss early-stage venture capital firm focusing on European life science and information and communications #technology startups.
Active in the #fintech sector – an area it believes has a lot of potential -, Redalpine has signed key deals with the likes of Swiss digital insurance manager Knip, Berliln based digital bank Number26, and digital investment intermediary Cashboard, but also bexio and Givve.
Dr. Harald Nieder, Partner at Redalpine Venture Partners. Image via LinkedIn
Speaking to Fintechnews, Redalpine partner Dr. Harald Nieder, said that fintech and insurtech are two areas that still have a number of promising business models and technologies that are maturing. Naming the likes of #blockchain technology, risk-tech, artificial intelligence and capital markets innovations, among other sub-segments, However, in some other subsectors, Niederexpects consolidation.
Throughout the years, Nieder has witnessed the industry evolving, pointing out that while during the first era, fintech ventures were essentially aimed at “un-bundling” financial services &8211; citing for instance TransferWise in cross-border payments, and Zopa for peer-to-peer lending &8211;, today, a new trend is emerging as a number of players and niche products are maturing.
He calls this the &8220;re-bundling&8221; where the likes of Number26 and Cashboard act as new financial hubs and marketplaces for products offered by fellow fintech innovators.
Launched in January 2015, Number26 is a Berlin-based fintech company that wants to revolutionize the banking experience. Essentially, Number26 provides a mobile app that lets users manage their finances on-the-go and allows them to open an account in just eight minutes.
Similarly to its Vietnamese counterpart Timo or the American Simple, Number26 is not a bank of its own and it is its banking partner &8211; in the case of Number26, Wirecard Bank &8211;, that holds both customers’ money and the banking license.
Number26, which has recently received support from one of Asia&8217;s richest men to fuel its growth, says it wants to act as a fintech hub and integrate other financial products into its apps, including credit, saving and insurance products.
Redalpine, which participated in Number26&8217;s seed funding round in 2014, believes that there is high market potential for the product as it is aligned with the preferred user experience of the digitally native generation.
Cashboard on the other hand, is a #robo-advisor that uses algorithms to create diversified portfolios made up of a wide range of assets, including exchange-traded funds, money market funds, bonds, social trading, private loans and equity #investments in private companies.
Cashboard via introduction video: https://youtu.be/u9RZEXBmGoY
Cashboard, one of the BBVA&8217;s Open Talent 2014 fintech competition finalists, allows people to start investing with as little as €100 and does not charge into fixed fees. Cashboard earns commissions from their product partners and clients pay an annual 10% performance fee on net profits past a high-water mark.
Cashboard has a &8220;far more compelling business model than the traditional ETF-based robo-advisors,&8221; Nieder said, explaining what made his company invest in the startup in 2015. It has a &8220;unique positioning in the otherwise very competitive robo-advisory and online investing markets,&8221; he added.
Redalpine is also invested in bexio, a Swiss Provider of business-accounting software with strong FinTech angle and e-banking integration. Recently Bexio announced a partnership and integration with UBS E-Banking.
Another sub-segment which Redalpine is particularly interested in is insurtech, where the firm &8220;[sees] and [expects] lots of action in the startup space.&8221;
When Redalpine signed a deal with Swiss digital insurance manager app Knip in 2014, the firm became one of the first VCs to invest in that space, Nieder said.
Insurance is ripe for innovation across the entire value chain; and yet, the insurtech industry is still lagging behind.
&8220;Insurance didn’t have the crisis we saw in the financial sector to jumpstart disruption and a lot of areas in insurance require startups to have in-depth insurance knowledge,&8221; Nieder said.
&8220;We expect a lot more disruption in the insurance space, as knowledge transfer to startups continues. We also see this driven in large part out of Europe, where again, we have a co-existence of insurance know-how and start-up ecosystem.&8221;
When asked about his views on the fintech sector in Europe, and most particularly in Switzerland, Nieder argues that there are a lot of untapped opportunities.
Somewhat overshadowed by its neighbor the UK, and especially London, Switzerland could do much better in the field given its financial expertise and improving startup culture. This echoes previous comments that have been made by other industry observers who argue that Switzerland is lacking, in part, governmental support.
That said, Nieder remains optimistic in the future of the European fintech scene as he believes that the location provides &8220;the most fertile breeding ground for fintech startups.&8221;
Featured image by ra2studio, via Shutterstock.com.
The post Redalpine&8217;s Swiss And German Fintech Investments appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.
#Deutsche #Börse #Group announced the launch of a dedicated corporate venture capital (CVC) #platform – DB1 Ventures – which fosters #strategic #investments in #fintech #firms.
The DB1 Ventures team will be primarily based in Frankfurt and will undertake new investments as well as actively manage Deutsche Börse’s existing minority shareholdings. While Deutsche Börse has already made several strategic investments in early stage and mature companies, the new approach allows the Group to actively manage its existing and new portfolio to realize the full potential of these strategic shareholdings.
DB1 Ventures will invest only in areas that are strategic to Deutsche Börse. The focus will primarily be on early to growth stage fintech firms in order to establish mutually beneficial partnerships. DB1 Ventures will initially be funded via the significant resource base of Deutsche Börse’s balance sheet. The strategic investments will be governed by a dedicated Investment Committee, which will be chaired by Deutsche Börse CEO Carsten Kengeter and have a cross functional and business perspective.
Carsten Kengeter, CEO of Deutsche Börse.
“Our objective with DB1 Ventures is to continue to be active in investing in early to growth stage ventures which are core or adjacent to our client, product, geographic and #technology strategy. And as part of our active management, we will also deepen and extend promising partnerships with some of our current portfolio companies,” said Carsten Kengeter, CEO of Deutsche Börse.
Ankur Kamalia, Managing Director Deutsche Börse, Head of Venture Portfolio Management and responsible for DB1 Ventures, explained: “This dual approach will allow us to bring in our professional expertise as a market infrastructure provider and offer value creation opportunities for fintech companies. In return, we will benefit from new ideas and technological developments in an early stage. Simultaneously, we continue to actively manage our existing portfolio of investments, including divestments where necessary.”
Deutsche Börse, in collaboration with Celent, a financial technology research and advisory firm, has analyzed the significance of fintech firms and its potential impact on market infrastructure incumbents. The new report “Future of Fintech in Capital Markets” highlights the opportunity for market infrastructure providers to interact with fintech firms and drive a higher degree of strategic partnership. Since 2008, capital flow into fintech investments has grown six-fold. Last year, about $ 19 billion in capital was invested globally in fintech across approximately 1,200 deals. CVCs now represent 25 percent of global fintech capital flows.
David Easthope, Senior Vice President and responsible for the Securities and Investments practice of Celent: “Major parts of the financial services ecosystem are being transformed by pioneering financial technology firms. Instead of going alone, fintech firms can decide to pursue a collaborative approach with leading incumbents through partnerships, including market infrastructure firms. Combining forces will allow fintech firms to shape the future of capital provision, technology, and other industry workflows.”
Download the full study: Future of Fintech in Capital Markets
– In April 2016, Deutsche Börse opened its Fintech Hub in Frankfurt to support the Hessian State Government’s initiative to set up a fintech cluster in Frankfurt. With this Hub, Deutsche Börse aims to promote Germany’s start-up and investment culture.
&8211; In February 2016, Deutsche Börse sold its 50 percent stake in Infobolsa S.A. to
its joint venture partner BME.
&8211; In January 2016, Deutsche Börse also took part in a capital increasing round for Digital Asset Holdings, a developer of distributed ledger technology for the financial services industry. Launched in 2015, Digital Asset’s mission is to improve efficiency, security, compliance and settlement speed while reducing costs through the implementation of distributed ledger technology. Digital Asset software radically improves post-trade processing efficiency, reducing cost, latency, errors, risk and capital requirements.
&8211; In November 2015, Deutsche Börse Group invested in Illuminate’s IFM Fintech Opportunities Fund: This fund focuses on fintech companies in areas such as compliance, regulation and connectivity, among others, which fits into Deutsche Börse’s growth strategy to extend its service portfolio.
The post Deutsche Börse Group: A new platform to Foster Strategic Investments in Fintech Firms appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.
Six years ago roboadvising was the domain of just a few startups, but today the space is getting increasingly crowded. #Betterment saw that coming since Day One (exactly six years ago), according to CEO Jon Stein. “But that’s a good thing for us, because every time one of these incumbentsRead More
Bank Innovation
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