Fintech Startups of NYC
August 2014
A guide to the founders, VC’s, monetization &
funding
Jesse Podell, (@jessepod)
-Co-Founder, The Startup Companies, Inc.
(@nycdevshop, @techdayHQ)
-Co-Organizer, Fintech Startups Meetup
(@NYFTS)

NYC Based Fintech Startups
• Not meant to be a comprehensive resource, just a guide.
• Data from CrunchBase, AngelList, LinkedIn & company
websites
• See each firm’s FAQ for further details on how they make
money- I may have overlooked some products or services
they charge for. I may be inaccurate about pricing/fees or
funding amounts.
• Companies listed in random order
• A good blog to read about the definition of fintech.
• Special thanks to Dan Palmer (@bdjpalmer)
Disclaimers: I did not omit any company purposefully, the information is meant to be informational only and may not be
accurate and I personally nor my employer accept responsibility for errors or omissions. This is not an endorsement for
any company’s market valuation or viability.

Some Observations
• Only 5/30 detailed were founded before 2010
• Only 2 of the 45+ mentioned have female CEO’s
and only 6 have a female founder
• All are based in Manhattan (Commonbond
moved out of Brooklyn this year)
• One company (BTX Trader) is a subsidiary of a
Nasdaq listed company.
• Funding amounts can be deceiving for lending
companies as much of the $ goes to funding the
loans on their platforms

Marketplace
What They Do: Connects people who own stock in a private company
with investors who want a stake in post-seed stage, pre-IPO startups
via their fund. Charges administrative fees and has a 10% carry.
Year Founded: 2013
How Much They’ve Raised: $150,000
Founders: Atish Davda, Shriram Bhashyam, Phil Haslett
Investors: 500 Startups, John Ason

Lending
What They Do: Collects money from individual investors, including
alumni of graduate programs who want to support other students, and
channels it into student loans. Charges origination fee + fixed loan
rate.
Year Founded: 2011
How Much They’ve Raised: $103,50,0000
Founders: David Klein Michael Taormina, Jessup Shean
Investors: Tribeca Venture Partners, Vikram Pandit

Investment Management
What They Do: Automated online investing for retail customers in
diversified ETF portfolios using modern portfolio theory. Charges
management fee of .15-.35% depending on balance.
Year Founded: 2008
How Much They’ve Raised: $45,000,000
Founder: Jon Stein
Investors: Menlo Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Anthemis
Group, Globespan Capital Partners

Lending
What They Do: Online small business loan provider with CEO
who came from Spark Capital and CTO who ran engineering at
Venmo. Charges flat 3% origination fee.
Year Founded: 2013
How Much They’ve Raised: $1,500,000
Founders: Jon Haber Peyton Sherwood
Investors: Homebrew, Founders Collective, Matt Coffin, Collaborative
Fund

Education
What They Do: Y Combinator-incubated startup that provides
tools to help retail consumers answer tough financial questions.
They make money on advertising and lead generation.
Year Founded: 2012
How Much They’ve Raised: $7,600,000
Founders: Michael Carvin, Philip Camilleri
Investors: SV Angel, Javelin Ventures

Marketplace
What They Do: The world’s biggest broker of venture backed private
companies. Facilitates company controlled private buy backs and third
party tender offers charging percentage of each transaction. Plus, they
run The Bitcoin Investment Trust.
Year Founded: 2006
How Much They’ve Raised: $32,400,000
Founders: Barry Silbert
Investors: The Social+Capital Partnership, FirstMark Capital

Marketplace
What They Do: Equity-based online crowdfunding platform for
startups and small businesses. Charges 7.5% placement fee and up to
$5,000 in dilligence, escrow, marketing, etc.
Year Founded: 2012
How Much They’ve Raised: $5,300,000
Founders: James Han, Ryan Feit
Investors: Archangel, Scout Ventures, Great Oaks

Investment Management
What They Do: Crowdsourced estimates for EPS and other datasets
from over 4,500 hedge fund, brokerage and independent analysts.
Makes money on selling its data to hedge funds and other investors.
Year Founded: 2011
How Much They’ve Raised: $2,600,000
Founder: Leigh Drogen
Investors: Contour Partners, Longworth Venture, Valuestream Labs

Financial Security
What They Do: Helps its users to identify fraudulent charges on their credit
and debit cards, and also to keep track of their spending on the web and on
its iPhone app. Licenses platform for banks and has monetizable financial
data on transactions.
Year Founded: 2010
How Much They’ve Raised: $13,000,000
Founder: Yaron Samid
Investors: IA Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures,
Founders Fund, Social Leverage

Marketplace
What They Do: Axial operates the world's most active online
network for professionals who operate, advise, finance, and
acquire private companies. Charges a monthly fee of up to
$4,250 for access to the network.
Year Founded: 2012
How Much They’ve Raised: $8,500,000
Founder: Peter Lehrman
Investors: First Round, Lerer Ventures

Marketplace
What They Do: The leading user generated content site for financial
information on global alternative investments (private equity, venture
capital, real assets and hedge funds). Charges up to $1,000 a month
for access to the network.
Year Founded: 2012
How Much They’ve Raised: $3,200,000
Founder: Alex Bangash
Investors: RRE Ventures, 500 Startups

Investment Management
What They Do: Equametrics has rebranded itself as RIZM, its product
that allows traders to create their own algorithms without needing to
know how to code. Charges monthly subscription ($100-$250) for
back-testing or to execute live strategies.
Year Founded: 2011
How Much They’ve Raised: $5,100,000
Founder: Christopher Ivey, Adam Demos
Notable Advisor: Joshua B. Siegel, Rubicon VC

Education
What They Do: Learnvest’s mission is to empower women everywhere
to take control of their personal finances. They make money by
providing customized financial planning programs for up to $400 to set
up and $19 a month.
Year Founded: 2007
How Much They’ve Raised: $69,000,000
Founder: Alexa von Tobel
Investors: Accel Partners, PKS Capital

Investment Management
What They Do: OpenFin provides runtime technologies for financial
desktops. They help financial firms update their technology and have
less reliance on Bloomberg terminals. Sells directly to banks.
Year Founded: 2010
How Much They’ve Raised: $6,600,000
Founder: Maz Dar, Chuck Doerr
Notable Investor: Bain Capital Ventures

Lending
What They Do: OnDeck is an online lending platform for small
businesses that has provided over $1Bln in loans- charges 2.5%
origination fee. According to WSJ, they’re filing for an IPO for later this
year.
Year Founded: 2007
How Much They’ve Raised: $409,000,000
Founder: Mitch Jacobs
Investors include: Google Ventures

Mobile Payments
What They Do: Handles B2B payments and high value payments
from consumers to businesses using existing checking
infrastructure. Makes fees on transactions.
Year Founded: 2010
How Much They’ve Raised: $3,500,000
Founder: Jake Howerton, Jay Bhattacharya
Investors: High Peaks Venture Partners, Contour Ventures, Village
Ventures

Crypto Currencies
What They Do: A low latency “liquidity platform” bitcoin exchange
for active traders. Charges up to .25% trading fee.
Year Founded: 2012
How Much They’ve Raised: $1,800,000
Founders: Janus Lukasiewicz, Yo Sub Kwon
Investors: Tribeca Venture Partners, Archangel

Investment Management
What They Do: They offer a platform for analysts to share
financial models. They make money by offering different
levels of subscription up to $200 a month.
Year Founded: 2013
How Much They’ve Raised: $1,000,000
Founders: Justin Zhen, Gregory Ugwi
Investors: 500 Startups, HKB Capital

Education
What They Do: PayPerks drives behavior change using its web
and mobile platform for low– and middle–income consumers
using pre-paid cards.
Year Founded: 2009
How Much They’ve Raised: Undisclosed
Founders: Jake Peters, Arlyn Davich
Notable Investor: Anthemis Group

Marketplace
What They Do: ACE Portal allows broker dealers to list and manage
private placement offerings and connect with investors. Charges
placement agents, investors, for membership access to the platform.
Year Founded: 2010
How Much They’ve Raised: Undisclosed
Founder: Brendan Cahill, Peter Williams
Major Investor: NYSE Euronext

Marketplace
What They Do: One of the original platforms for entrepreneurs to
collaborate with investors to fund new ventures by one of the most
notable angel investors. Does not charge fees to startups or investors-licenses
the platform to angel groups, VC’s, etc.
Year Founded: 2004
How Much They’ve Raised: Unknown
Founder: David Rose
Major Investor: David Rose (Rose Tech Ventures)

Banking
What They Do: The first bank to not have plastic cards for its
customers instead relying on NFC (Near Field Communication)
capability of phone as a payment device. Provides instant feedback on
payments and spending. Does not charge a monthly fee to users.
Year Founded: 2011
How Much They’ve Raised: $12,400,000
Founders: Alex Sion, Brett King
Investors: Anthemis Group, Raptor Ventures

Investment Management
What They Do: “Next Generation Vanguard” online portfolio
management offering “simple hedged solutions for every kind of
investor”. Charges annual fees of up to .75% of balance.
Year Founded: 2010
How Much They’ve Raised: $100,000
Founders: Mike Kane, Matthew Kane
Notable Accelerator: SixThirty – FinTech Accelerator

Education
What They Do: Equity crowdfunding research and education for retail
investors. Will make money on subscription products.
Year Founded: 2013
How Much They’ve Raised: $1,000,000
Founders: Matthew Milner, Wayne Mulligan
Notable Investor: Social Leverage

Investment Banking
What They Do: Created software that automates tediousness of
creating investment banking pitchbooks for tablet devices.
Already in pilot at major banks.
Year Founded: 2011
How Much They’ve Raised: $481,000
Founders: Jamie Ballingall, Adrian Crockett
Investors: Undisclosed

Education
What They Do: Comprehensive private company database and
data visualizations including VC’s & startups. Sells monthly
subscriptions of up to $4,000 for predictive analytics and data
access.
Year Founded: 2009
How Much They’ve Raised: Unknown
Founders: Jonathan Sherry, Anand Sanwai
Investors: Undisclosed

Mobile Payments
What They Do: Built tools to enable any developer to create his or her
own branded app and take in-person credit card payments from it.
Charges a monthly fee per device for unlimited use of their SDK & API.
Year Founded: 2013
How Much They’ve Raised: $1,600,000
Founders: Derek Webster, Tim Saunders
Investors: ff Ventures, Payment Ventures, Great Oaks

Crypto Currencies
What They Do: Comprehensive digital currency data dashboard and
analytics. Charging a fee for professional level reporting tools.
Year Founded: 2013
How Much They’ve Raised: $2,800,000
Founders: Jeff Schvey, Greg Schvey
Investors include: Y Combinator, FinTech Collective, Devonshire
Investors, Andreesen Horowitz

Marketplace
What They Do: Formed by the merger of Rock The Post and Co-
Founders Lab (in person networking events for tech founders) it is a
platform for early stage startups to get funded & charges a success fee
to startups after their fundraise.
Year Founded: 2014
How Much They’ve Raised: $3,300,000
Founders: Shahab Kaviani, Tanya Prive, Alejandro Cremades
Investors include: Mid-Atlantic Angel Group, Fortify Ventures

Marketplace
What They Do: Provides tools to institutional investors to scale their
investments in Online Direct Lending by providing analytics, trade
execution, and real time reporting.
Year Founded: 2013
How Much They’ve Raised: $2,700,000
Founders: Matt Burton, Jonathan Kelfer, Angela Ceresnie
Investors include: Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, Spark Partners

Other notable startups include…

http://ctt.ec/4cDd2
• Let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to
see next… NYC VC’s of Fintech? Angels of
Fintech? NYC Fintech accelerators? Tweet me
@jessepod & lemme know! Thanks for reading!