TOP 10 FINTECH startups that are able to kill banks

In recent years, the financial technologies market (FinTech) has attracted significant investments from venture funds, banks, stock markets, etc. They all rely on what emerging innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence, Blockchain, cloud computing, Big Data can significantly change the market in the coming years.

New players in the fintech market not only managed to compete with traditional financial institutions, but also demonstrated its capacity to destroy the traditional banking system. If banks do not revise their strategy and can not respond to constantly emerging new challenges, challenges and growing demands from users, they risk losing their place in the market.

Consider 10 well-known fintech startups that have proven to be worthy competitors to traditional banks.

CIRCLE (Dublin, Ireland)

Circle is an application for social payments that uses the Bitcoin digital currency. The main goal of a start-up is to make the process of transferring money locally and around the world as easy as sending a message. Circle uses artificial intelligence technologies in its work, and its main competitors are Venmo, PayPal and TransferWise.

The startup was founded in Dublin, Ireland in 2013. He has now raised $ 136 million in four separate rounds of venture capital investments and has attracted investors such as Goldman Sachs, Accel Partners, Baidu, CICC Alpha and EverBright. Circle, working in 22 countries, was able to reach the volume of transactions in billions of dollars. And the company’s customer base around the world increased by 300% over the past year.

TROV (California, USA)

Startup in the field insurtech already managed to raise $87,8 million in six rounds of investment from eight different investors. This insurance platform is located in Danville, California, USA and this year plans to launch at home. Last year Trov launched services in the UK with the support of AXA, as well as in Australia with the support of Suncorp.

Trov has become an innovator in the field of digital storage insurance, allowing users to enter detailed information about their personal belongings into a mobile application that communicates with insurance partners. The latter can provide insurance for notebook, camera, sports equipment, jewelry, household items, etc., deposited in the store. Digital repository based on Blockchain technology and could provide immediate service.

DEPOSIT SOLUTIONS (Hamburg, Germany)

Deposit Solutions received more than 25.5 million euros ($ 28.5 million) of venture investments from well-known European and American investors FinLab AG, e.ventures and Valar Ventures. The open banking platform is also supported by Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, who joined Round B in July last year, when the start-up was estimated at 110 million euros. Founded in 2011 in Hamburg, Finitech Startup Deposit Solutions has 110 employees and has offices in London and Zurich.

Deposit Solutions aims to work in the European market of retail investments. The startup, in particular, provides European banks with a platform through which they can offer their deposit and savings services throughout Europe. And clients, in turn, do not have to open several accounts in different banks, since they can use their existing account.

RIPPLE (San Francisco, USA)

Ripple is a payment hardware start-up based on Blockchain technology, which has already managed to raise $ 93.6 million as a result of angel investments, seed investments, rounds A and B from companies such as Core Innovation Capital, IDG Capital Partners, Santander InnoVentures and SBI. The startup was founded in 2012.

Fintech startup Ripple began as a payment protocol, offering retail payments and currency trading. To date, Ripple’s Blockchain solutions are among the most popular on the market. A number of top world banks use them. Ripple technologies allow banks from different parts of the world to dispense with intermediaries in the performance of international transactions, increasing security, accuracy and increasing the speed of operations.

ONFIDO (London, UK)

Founded in 2012 by three business students from Oxford, to date, Onfido has 145 employees. The task of the startup is to provide the banks and other financial institutions with services to verify the identity of customers. Onfido solves these issues in compliance with the law, while the cost of banks for personal meetings and paper work is reduced.

The startup attracted 30.45 million pounds as a result of angel investments, seed investments, and investment rounds A and B. Among investors Onfido are Salesforce Ventures, IDinvest Partners, Talis Capital and Brent Hoberman.

LEMONADE (New York, USA)

The startup, specializing in insurance technologies (insurtech), attracted $ 60 million from companies such as Aleph, Sequoia, Allianz, XL Innovate, General Catalyst, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Thrive Capital and Tusk Ventures since its foundation in 2015. In the native state (New York) Lemonade officially launched its services last year and now has a license to provide insurance policies to homeowners and tenants. After that the startup was launched in California and in Illinois, in the near future will be new markets.

Lemonade uses in its work analytical tools based on the technology of artificial intelligence, as well as behavioral economics. The goal of the startup is to completely replace the bureaucracy and brokers with bots, machine learning and providing instant online and mobile services without paperwork.

NEXT INSURANCE (Palo Alto, USA)

Another startup in the field of insurtech, which is a potential competitor for Lemonade and Trov, but currently focuses on small and medium audiences. Provides personalized insurance policies through an easy-to-use online interface or in a mobile application. By analogy with its competitors, Next Insurance uses “Big Data” analytics tools, artificial intelligence technologies to automate the entire service process.

The startup was founded in 2016 in Palo Alto, California. To date, a commercial insurer has already been licensed in all 50 US states. In the first six months of work, Next Insurance sold 5,000 policies, and its income was more than $ 1 million. The company has already raised $ 48 million of investment.

FINXACT SOLUTIONS (Florida, USA)

The startup is still at the stage of seed financing, raising $12 million in may this year. However, the list of top 10 most promising FINTECH startup should include the provider processing system of banking operations on the basis of cloud computing because of the experience of it’s founders.

CEO Finxact Frank Sanchez and his brother are former owners of Sanchez Computer Associates, which was sold to FIS in 2004. Also, these two have developed software for banks in the ‘ 90s, which allowed American banks to finally go to the payment calculations in real time.

Finxact is a cloud computing service that allows you to efficiently remotely monitor, update and maintain accounts on several channels. This allows you to save money for mid-tier banks and time for those banks that go faster to enter the market.

CURRENCY CLOUD (London, Great Britain)

Another startup in payments. The British company Currency Cloud provides services of cross-border money transfers for business. The startup competes with traditional banks that provide such operations. Unlike banks, Currency Cloud does it faster and cheaper.

Founded in 2012, the startup now has 125 clients and processes in the year of the transaction in the amount of $15 billion.

Currency Cloud raised $18 million investment last year from Sapphire Ventures and Japanese e-Commerce giant Rakuten.

ANT FINANCIAL (Hangzhou, China)

Unlike some of our lesser known participants of this list Ant Financial is one of the strongest players in the field of Finance and technology at the global level. Ant Financial, known as Alipay, is a subsidiary of the Chinese giant e-Commerce Alibaba Group led by Jack Ma. At the end of last year, the company was estimated at $60 billion.

Ant Financial subdivisions provide payment services, money management and credit reporting services, private banking and cloud computing services. Alipay is by far the world’s largest mobile and online payment platform, and Yu’e Bao has become the world’s largest money market fund.

Last year, Ant Financial raised a record $ 4.5 billion investment in Round B, which was supported mainly by China Investment Corp (CIC) and China Construction Bank (CCB). In february this year the company received another $ 4 billion in debt financing. This money will be directed to the international expansion of the service.

Ant Financial is a clear example of how technology companies and e-commerce companies can take their place in the financial services market in the event that there is no bank or payment provider that can provide payment services that meet the expectations of users.