Skype’s Niklas Zennström backs London fintech startup Cleo

techcrunch.com

By Steve O’Hear (techcrunch.com)

London-based Cleo, a startup that’s developed an AI-powered chatbot to help you manage your finances, has picked up $700,000 in funding from an impressive list of angel investors, including Skype founder Niklas Zennström.

He’s joined by Zoopla co-founder Alex Chesterman, Wonga co-founder Errol Damelin, Albion co-founder and Atomico Executive-in-Residence Jason Goodman, Atomico Partner and The Climate Corp. co-founder Siraj Khaliq, Lovefilm co-founder Simon Franks, and Moonfruit co-founders and Entrepreneur First Partners Wendy White and Joe White. I also understand the round actually closed late last year.

Noteworthy is that Zennström has invested in a personal capacity not via Atomico, the VC firm he founded and manages. And whilst that’s not unheard of — though not always publicised — it would suggest he is bullish about Cleo’s prospects. Given his and other Cleo angel investors’ ties to Atomico, however, I also wouldn’t be surprised to see the VC appear in the fintech startup’s future A round, should or when it happens.

Founded by Barney Hussey-Yeo and Aleksandra Wozniak, after they teamed up at company builder Entrepreneur First, Cleo is described as a “financial assistant” powered by AI. It takes the form of a chatbot, either via the Cleo app or Facebook Messenger, and through integration with Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Google Home.

The result is that you can chat to Cleo via text or voice to interrogate your bank account and credit card data in order to keep track of your spending and hopefully budget better. This includes things like asking for your current balance, a breakdown of how much you’ve spent that month at a particular merchant, and setting budget or spending reminders and alerts.

“We’re trying to reduce the complexity and increase the transparency of financial services for our generation,” Cleo’s CEO and millennial co-founder Barney Hussey-Yeo tells me. “Cleo’s an AI financial assistant that makes managing your money incredibly simple… using artificial intelligence and machine learning you can ask Cleo nearly anything about your finances”.

To that end, Hussey-Yeo says typical users are young professionals and graduates who are keen to easily understand where their money’s going and to start saving. “They’re used to using world class products from Facebook, Snapchat and Uber and expect more from their bank,” he says.

Meanwhile, the burgeoning startup is yet to monetize, though future plans include offering its own “faster, more flexible and cheaper financial products”. Hussey-Yeo also conceded the ‘manage your money’ space is increasingly competitive, and name-checks challenger bank Monzo for its impressive execution.

Adds the Cleo CEO: “There’s a clear arms race going on to become the financial interface for this generation. Taking the ownership and control away from banks will be amazing for the consumer but will also create oversized returns. This is Europe’s chance to build a Google or Facebook sized company”.

Original Article

Student-Loan Startup Raises Money from Prosper’s Suber, Others

bloomberg.com

By Dakin Campbell (bloomberg.com)

– Credible says second round of financing draws $10 million

– CEO Dash says company still hold most funds from first round

Credible, which offers an online exchange for student and personal loans, raised $10 million from investors including Ron Suber, the president of Prosper Marketplace Inc., and Regal Funds Management to expand its business of matching borrowers with lenders.

The Series B funding round was led by Regal, and included existing investor Carthona Capital, Credible founder and Chief Executive Officer Stephen Dash said this week in an interview. The firm’s Series A round was for $10 million and much of it is still in the bank, Dash said.

San Francisco-based Credible works with student loans much like Kayak.com does for airline fares, acting as a marketplace for borrowers to compare available interest rates. The closely held firm works with credit bureaus and lenders such as financial-technology startups or banks to provide a personalized rate, Dash said.

“We have effectively created a pricing system that is accurate, because we are getting the data from the lenders,” Dash said. “We are really focused on helping millennials make these decisions about student or personal loans in a really simple way.”

The lender gets involved only when the borrower decides to accept the quote. Credible doesn’t initially provide data to lenders or hit a person’s credit report. It uses proprietary technology to quote an interest rate that will match the rate offered by a lender 95 times out of 100, Dash said.

Online Lending

Credible is tapping into the craze for online loans, pioneered by so-called peer-to-peer lenders like LendingClub Corp. and Prosper, and student-loan firms like Social Finance Inc. Dash’s firm, founded more than four years ago, participates in just under $1 billion in lending a year, including new student loans, refinancings and personal loans, he said.

The fast-growing online-loan industry ran into trouble last year after LendingClub and others struggled with loan quality and due-diligence concerns. LendingClub’s market value has slumped to $2.15 billion from as high as $10 billion after a December 2014 public offering. Social Finance, which specializes in refinancing student loans, pushed back its plans to go public, CEO Mike Cagney said last month.

Credible closed its Series A in 2015 in a fundraising led by Soul Htite, founder and CEO of Dianrong.com and co-founder of LendingClub, according to TechCrunch. Suber also participated in that round.

Original Article

E-book Platform Perlego Secures £500K in Seed Funding

finsmes.com

By FinSMEs (finsmes.com)

Perlego, a London, UK-based e-book platform, secured £500K in seed funding.

Private angels from the United Kingdom, Belgium and France participated in the round including Simon Franks, who co-founded film rental service LOVEFiLM and film distribution company Redbus.

The company intends to use the funds to grow the team, publishing partnerships and continue developing the platform.

Founded by Gauthier Van Malderen and Matthew Davis, Perlego offers academic and professional e-books under a monthly subscription fee. The company has already partnered up with over 240 publishers including Packtpublishing, Oxford University Press, Palgrave and Elsevier, offering over 85,000 ebooks to date.

Original Article

Perkbox, an employee engagement platform, picks up £2.5M backing from Draper Esprit

techcrunch.com

By Steve O’Hear (techcrunch.com)

Perkbox, a U.K. startup that offers an employee engagement platform to help companies retain employees (and customers), has picked up £2.5 million in backing from publicly listed European VC Draper Esprit. The new round — its first since it raised a very modest £350,000 five years ago and before several pivots — comes at the same time as the company’s equity crowdfunding campaign, which launched this week.

That is seeing Perkbox attempt to raise up to an additional £2 million at a rather hefty pre-money valuation of £75.4 million, and, I’m told, makes it the highest valued startup to attempt to crowdfund on Seedrs. Nice armchair investing, if you can attract it.

(Update: Seedrs tells me the equity crowd funding campaign is on the same terms as Draper Esprit’s investment in Perkbox.)

Originally launched as Huddlebuy, a group-buying platform for SMEs, all the way back in 2011, the since re-branded Perkbox eventually settled on the idea of developing a “digital engagement platform” to enable companies of all sizes (including startups) to look after their staff and customers via various perks and benefits.

“In the U.K., just 39 per cent of employees are engaged and only 28 per cent of consumers are loyal to their providers. Our digital platform helps brands connect and engage with their employees and customers through boosting financial, emotional and physical wellbeing,” says Perkbox co-founder and CEO Saurav Chopra.

On the “financial” side, this currently amounts to Perkbox being able to offer employees subscribed to its platform over 200 perks, including things like free phone insurance, cinema tickets, and 2 for 1 meal deals when eating out. “We are one of the biggest buyers of cinema tickets,” Chopra tells me, noting that working capital, along with investing in growth, is one of the reasons why Perkbox has chosen to raise funding at this time.

Then there’s “emotional” wellbeing. This has seen Perkbox build out an online rewards & recognition system, which encourages managers to reward employees with physical rewards, and enables teammates and peers to recognise each other’s work by exchanging digital badges. These include being labeled “King of the Kettle”, “Office DJ” and “Sales Superstar”. Yes, really.

Finally, there’s the “physical,” delivered via Perkbox’s Wellness Hub, which Chopra describes as a collection of professionally made cooking and exercise videos, and a free 24/7 employee assistance helpline “to boost wellbeing and reduce sick days”.

“We also have ‘Perkbox for customers’ — an advanced customer loyalty programme that helps businesses to acquire, engage and retain a loyal customer base. Our programmes can be white labelled, extending customer branding across the whole customer experience,” he adds.

So how well is Perkbox doing? The platform boasts over 300,000 paying members, and expects to hit one million by the end of the year. I’m told this translates into £10 million £4.3 million in revenue last year and is predicted to reach £15 million in revenue for this year. Chopra also says he’s confident of delivering over £25 million in revenue the following year. The startup’s team has now grown to over 105 people.

“Customers can include SMEs with 5 employees to some of the U.K.’s largest brands and fastest growing startups,” adds Chopra. “Deliveroo, Worldpay, Le Pain Quotidian, Holland & Barrett, BlaBlaCar, these are just a few of our well-known customers”.

Original Article

Credible, The Marketplace For Student Loans, Closes $10 Million Series A Funding

Tech Crunch

By Jordon Crook (techcrunch.com)

Unlike other student loan marketplaces that sell leads to lenders, Credible works by getting firm offers of credit for their customers to evaluate and choose from.

When a student gets accepted to a university, they (and their parents) can fill in all the required information on Credible, which then sends the relevant information to their lending partners. Working with 12 different lenders, Credible gets a fixed quote on loans for that individual student and lets them choose the credit line that works best for them.

“The line of credit is legally viable and set for 30 days – meaning Credible isn’t offering a range of rates, but an actual loan – and once accepted, the transaction is complete.

Credible also offers a student loan refinancing product, letting graduates who want to adjust their numbers refinance their outstanding federal and private student loans.

Credible founder and CEO Stephen Dash said that, of the $200 billion in outstanding student loans that have the potential to be refinanced, only around $5 billion of that is actually being refinanced.

The company makes money by taking a transaction fee from the lender once a credit line is actually accepted by the borrower.

“We’re fully aligned with both the lender and the borrower,” said Dash. “We offer the lender an efficient customer acquisition channel, but we never sell user information or leads, ensuring that our incentives are aligned with the borrower, as well.”

Credible first launched in 2012 and has raised a total of $12.7 million, including this latest Series A round.

Original Article

Credible Raises $10 Million for Student-Loan Marketplace

Wall Street Journal

By Mike Billings (wsj.com)

Credible Labs Inc., a company that wants to make it easier for students to obtain or refinance loans, has raised $10 million in new funding from venture investors and leaders in the alternative-lending industry, Lora Kolodny reports for Dow Jones VentureWire.

The company’s website lists rates and loan offers from financial services firms that run the gamut from traditional banks, credit unions and peer-to-peer lending platforms.

“The new funding included existing investors Carthona Group and Redbus Group. New investors included Soul Htite, the founder and chief executive of Dianrong.com and co-founder of Lending Club Corp.; Prosper President Ron Suber; and Scott Langmack, chairman of Purisima West Fundsand board member at Dianrong.com

Original Article

Credible, a ‘Kayak for student loans,’ lands $2.7M for itself

venturebeat.com

By Barry Levine (venturebeat.com)

One wonders if anything can fix the U.S. student loan system, in which many students carry massive borrowing for a credential that is often considered essential.

But student loan marketplace Credible is trying to connect students to the best deal available. Today, the San Francisco-based company is announcing it has closed the final $1.5 million tranche of its $2.7 million seed financing, the total raised thus far for the two-year-old company.

“In ten seconds, a recent graduate can use Credible’s comparison tool to find out if they are overpaying on their student loans,” founder and CEO Stephen Dash told VentureBeat via email.

In five minutes, he added, a student borrower can complete a Profile that enables lenders to offer personalized quotes with exact rates for private loans. In a Dashboard, users can compare such factors as APR, monthly payment, fixed or variable interest rate, total repayments, and estimated savings.

If a borrower decides to move forward, the last part of the process — including identity and income verification, and document signing — takes place with the lender.

There’s no charge for borrowers to use the platform, as lenders for completed loans pay a fee to Credible. The company said it does not sell leads or user data.

More than 15,000 profiles have been created on Credible since it launched last March, of which about 12,000 were entered in the last three months.

Dash pointed to an actual 2010 Babson College graduate named Cole who reduced the interest rate on his loan from 8.90 percent to 3.75 percent and saved more than $40,000 over the life of the loan. Credible said that borrowers saved an average of $11,688 last year by refinancing through the site.

Dash noted that federal loans have interest rates nearing 8 percent. But he added that at least 10 lenders are now providing “a very competitive” refinancing of federal and private student loans through his company’s marketplace.

The site focuses on helping borrowers in the refinancing of existing loans — as opposed to their initial college loans — because “this is where borrowers can save the most money by comparing lenders’ offers,” Dash said.

It’s where the better deals are.

“A graduate is typically a much more attractive lending proposition than a student,” he said, because they have a longer credit history, usually have a job, and have a university degree.

Most other online facilitators of loan refinancing are lenders themselves, Dash said, including Citizens Bank, CuStudentLoans, Earnest, CordiaGrad, Success Loans, iHelp, and others. By contrast, he said, Credible is a nonlending matchmaker between borrowers and lender — “a Kayak for student loans,” the company says.

Sites like PrivateStudentLoans, eStudentLoan, and SimpleTuition, Dash pointed out, are “lead-gen sites [that] provide rate ranges,” not actual quotes.

The student loan space is heating up. A few weeks ago, personal and student loan lender Earnest announced it had closed a $17 million Series A round. And SoFi, originally called Social Finance, offers loans from alumni to students at their alma mater and is reportedly prepping an IPO.

Investors providing the recently completed funding for Credible include Carthona Capital, Cthulhu Ventures, and Redbus Group. The new money will be used to expand Credible’s team and to build out its user-friendly features, the company told us.

Original Article

With $500K In The Bank, Credible Launches A Kayak-Style Marketplace To Simplify Student Loan Refinancing

techcrunch.com

By Rip Emerson (techcrunch.com)

With outstanding student debt now over $1 trillion in the U.S., it’s clear that college grads are struggling mightily to make payments and refinance their debt. Meanwhile, thanks to decades of plummeting borrowing costs, millions upon millions of consumers have been able to refinance mortgages and begin paying down debt.

In some irrational alternate universe, one might expect that lenders would be lining up to take advantage of soaring student loan debt by offering more favorable terms than competitors. Nope, because that’s “crazy.” Even when students happen to find a decent job out of college, make payments on time and improve their credit scores, they remain locked into absurdly high fixed rates.

The majority of the big players in the private loan market appear more than happy to maintain the status quo, and wave off refinancing as a threat to the bottom line. Enter: Credible, a San Francisco-based startup launching today that aims to help graduates extricate themselves from high fixed rates, and make it easy to switch lenders and save on their loan payments.

Taking home the “Best 2.0 Company” Award at this week’s Launch Festival, Credible founder Stephen Dash said that, while racked with debt, the truth is that today many students could save a significant amount of money on their loan payments by switching lenders. Yet, the majority of them don’t because they don’t know how, or because the process of switching is so complicated and time-consuming.

So, Credible has developed a platform that makes it easy for students to find out whether or not they’re eligible for lower interest rates and could benefit from switching lenders. The startup’s loan comparison tools enable students to understand their loan profile relative to their peers and get an indication of what similar borrowers are paying for private loans.

Typically, if a student wants to find out if they’re eligible for lower rates, they have to seek out a handful of different lenders and spend time filling out a bunch of repetitive forms, Dash says. With so much opacity around the degree to which they’ll actually be able to save on their payments and the time required to find out, most students opt against the idea of refinancing.

To address this friction, Credible allows students to quickly qualify their eligibility in a 7-question process. After answering questions about their current employment, salary, credit score and so on, students enter their email, receive their log-in information and can then view their options.

If they’re eligible for better rates and an appealing amount of savings, students can then opt to begin the process of switching lenders and refinancing their loans. Again, rather than filling out a bunch of different applications, Credible lets students submit a single offer request form, which consolidates the information every lender needs to see to make a refinancing offer.

To do this, in place of applications, students fill out a profile on Credible, link their existing loans, select the lenders with the best rates, enter their I.D. credentials (which Dash says are encrypted and never saved), at which point they’ll be able to view their existing loans.

After entering employment information, students can add a co-signer, upload their driver’s license and a recent pay stub, and then hit “submit.” Lenders then have every piece of information they require, Dash says, and a couple of days later, Credible will notify the student that the lenders’ offers have arrived. Students can then sign into their profile to review and compare the responses in their own private, secure dashboard. They can drill down into loan information, interest rates, total costs and so on, giving them, at least in theory, the opportunity to make a more informed decision.

Dash explains that Credible has essentially opted to take a “marketplace-style” approach to student loan refinancing, inspired by the way sites like Kayak.com have been able to transform the travel market. The Credible team set out to offer a similar experience; in other words, to simplify the complex search for financial services products that are themselves, fairly complex.

Naturally, many students opt to remain in the federal loan market rather than moving into private markets due to the risk of losing many of the protections the federal market provides. What’s more, private market giants like Discover Financial Services and Sallie Mae are the kind of companies that have little incentive to offer their existing customers refinancing options.

As a result of the complex, risky and often frightening world of student loans and loan refinancing, Dash says that it’s extremely important for Credible to be seen as an independent, transparent and customer-first option amidst the jungle. As part of that, Credible offers its service for free, and allows students to decide to which lenders it sends their information.

It’s still early in the process for Credible, so that list of supported lenders will likely expand over the coming year. But, as of now, the startup had 30K students sign up during its beta trial and Dash said that one of its student borrowers is now expecting to be able to save more than $40K in interest payments over the life of their refinanced loans.

As to how it plans to make money: Dash says that the goal is to, as much as possible, align its business model with both borrowers and lenders. That means that the startup has opted to get paid on disbursed loans as opposed to the Kayak-style lead-gen model, so that a lender must extend and offer a refinancing and a borrower must actively accept that offer before Credible can generate revenue.

To further support its launch and upcoming marketing push, Credible has closed a $500K round of seed financing from a handful of venture capital funds and angel investors, including Carthona Capital, Cthulhu Ventures, Orrick, Cap-Meridian Ventures, Simon Franks, Trevor Loewensohn, Mitch Zuklie and Peter Gammell.

With its funding in the bank, looking forward, Dash sees potential opportunities for Credible’s platform and technology to be applied beyond the world of student loans. After tackling the student loan market, the team’s big goal is to work towards the transformation of “every complex application process in banking and insurance.” The central goal for the startup, whether it’s in student loans or outside, will be to put some of the control back in the hands of the consumer and make it easy to switch lenders and understand their options.

Original Article

Private Museum owners from around the world gather in London for summit

artdaily.org

By artdaily.org

LONDON.– Art14 London announced the second edition of the Global Private Museum Summit, which will be sponsored by Citi Private Bank. The event will take place at the Royal Academy of Arts, London on Thursday 27 February 2014. Following the success of the inaugural event earlier this year, the closed-door session will bring together leading contemporary art museum owners to set up a network that will share exhibitions, expertise and funding strategies. Across the world, private museums of contemporary art are changing the ecology of the art world and this summit provides a unique forum in which an emerging and powerful force can meet and help to develop a sustainable future for the art world.

The Global Private Museum Summit will assemble private museum owners from all over the world, from China to Greece, from Indonesia to the United Arab Emirates, from the USA to Germany and from Mexico to Italy.

Philip Dodd, Chairman of Art14 London Advisory Board and Chairman of Made in China UK will chair the summit. Participants will include Wang Wei (China); Kian Chow Kwok (China); Li Bing (China); Dai Zhikang and Wong Shun Kit (China); Owais Husain (UAE); Ramin Salsali (UAE); Dominique and Sylvain Levy (France); Dirk Krämer and Klaus Maas (Germany); Gunnar B. Kvaran (Norway); Alexandra Economou (Greece); Dr Oei Hong Djien (Indonesia); Fabiana Marenghi Vaselli Bond (Italy); Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Eugenio Re Rebaudengo (Italy); Gina Diez Barroso (Mexico); Simon Franks (UK); Lord Edward Spencer-Churchill (UK); Nicolai Frahm (UK); Dr Bernhard Zünkeler (USA) and Don and Mera Rubell (USA).

Philip Dodd states that ‘The response to the inaugural summit was immensely positive. It clearly met a need and there has been tremendous enthusiasm from last year’s contributors – as well as new participants from countries as various as Indonesia and Norway – at the news that we shall hold a second symposium. The ambition of the summit is to set up a genuinely global network – whereby an exhibition might travel from France to Indonesia to the US or from China to Germany. In a global art world we need global networks and this may well be the first one which does not assume that west is best.’

Stephanie Dieckvoss, Fair Director, commented ‘The Global Private Museum Summit demonstrates Art14 London’s dedication to bringing major global private museum owners to London’s vibrant art scene. The galleries exhibiting at the Fair will show artists from almost every continent of the world and display them in dialogue with each other. The summit reflects the need for an art world with an international outlook and allows private museum owners to share their knowledge and expertise with a view to driving change world-wide.’

Suzanne Gyorgy, Managing Director Citi Private Bank Art Advisory & Finance said: ‘Citi Private Bank is thrilled to sponsor the Global Private Museum Summit, which will provide a fantastic opportunity for museum owners from around the world to share knowledge, develop networks and exchange ideas. The Summit acknowledges the increasingly important role of private museums, and has the potential to influence the way they collaborate and operate in the global art world.’

The Global Private Museum Summit is a three-way partnership between Art 14 London, Citi Private Bank and Made in China UK, of which Philip Dodd is Chairman. The Summit is the property of Made in China UK.

Original Article

London’s Private Taxi Marketplace Apps Move Up A Gear As Kabbee Gets Backed By Octopus

TechCrunch

By Steve O’Hear (TechCrunch)

Hailo, the taxi-booking app with a whopping $50 million+ in funding from the likes of Atomico, Accel, Union Square Ventures, and Richard Branson, has been grabbing most of the headlines in London. The service lets you book a fully licensed taxi in various major cities in the U.S. and Europe.

But, as in other cities in the UK, private taxi firms – known as “minicabs” – offer a cheaper, unmetered, alternative to the iconic black cab. Legally these taxi firms can’t be ‘hailed’ from the street and are therefore predisposed to being booked in advance via the telephone (or an app!). Now throw in a marketplace element that lets you get an instant quote from a range of competing minicab firms, along with user reviews and ratings.

That describes the proposition of minicab marketplace apps Kabbee, and Minicabster, both of which are announcing new funding. The private taxi-booking app space in the UK is definitely moving up a gear.

Kabbee has raised a £3.8m Series A funding round led by Octopus Investments (previous backers of property search engine Zoopla, Graze.com, SwiftKey and Secret Escapes). Notably, Simon Nixon, the founder of MoneySupermarket.com, also joins the round – adding a significant amount of marketplace experience to the startup’s investor list. According to CrunchBase, this brings total funding to around $9 million (circa £5.6m).

The additional funding will be used by Kabbee to accelerate growth, including beyond London, and consolidate what it claims is its position as the UK capital city’s most popular minicab app, as well as to further develop its technology and build awareness of the Kabbee brand.

Kabbee’s existing backers include Samos Investments (Betfair, Ocado, Goal.com), Pentland (Speedo, JD Sports, Hunter), Redbus (LOVEFiLM, Lionsgate), Tim Levene (Managing Partner at Augmentum Capital) and Ed Wray (co-Founder of Betfair).

Meanwhile, Minicabster, which currently operates in London, Manchester and Birmingham, has raised £2 million in funding (the round actually closed back in August) from a number of angel investors including David Buttress, CEO of takeout marketplace Just-Eat, Daniel McPherson, founder of Launcha, and Tom Singh, founder of New Look.

I’m also told that Buttress was instrumental in the conception of Minicabster, having first been pitched the idea by co-founder Brooke Pursey at a barbecue shortly before Anycabs, as it was known then, was founded two years ago.

So, just like Kabbee, Minicabster has significant marketplace experience in its investor ranks. In a sense, both startups are applying the Just-Eat model to the minicab space, while issues over trust and safety are also shared.

Comparing the two offerings like-for-like, Kabbee has apps for iPhone, Android and Blackberry 10, and lets users instantly compare quotes from 60 leading London fleets and then book and pay by cash, card or pre-paid account. It launched in June 2011 and claims over 250,000 app downloads to date.

Minicabster has apps for iOS and Android, and claims 200,000 “users”, which I’m taking as app downloads.

Another direct competitor is CompareMyFare.

Original Article