American Express Ventures

Democratizing financial technology with a suite of API-based solutions

FinTech Infrastructure

London-based Codat provides an API-based integrated offering to share business data. The platform offers real-time data connectivity by allowing software providers and financial institutions to build integrated products for their small business customers. It facilitates automatic reconciliation, business dashboarding, loan decisioning, and various other use cases by integrating data across small business systems within banking, digital lending, spend management, payments and point-of-sale, and cross-border payments providers.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsAs of June 2022, Codat had over 200 clients, including the world's largest banks and FinTechs such as Brex, Jeeves, Pipe, and Clover, and ongoing partnerships with J.P. Morgan, Shopify, and Plaid.Funding and financialsIn June 2022, Codat raised USD 100 million in Series C funding led by JP Morgan Growth Equity Partners. The funds were earmarked to support the development of infrastructure and data-sharing capabilities across small businesses and business systems.

Truework offers an API-based infrastructure platform for banks, lenders, and background check providers to verify the income and employment details of its customers. The platform caters to several types of loans, including automotive, personal, mortgage, and student financing, using integrations with payroll platforms (such as Gusto, Zenefits, and BambooHR) to verify details. As of April 2023, the platform reportedly verified information for a network of over 35 million employees in the US.The company also offers a tool to process manual verifications, which lets users transform physical documents (such as payslips) into structured digital data. The company claims that over 80% of manual requests can be processed within 48 hours. Moreover, Truework also enables applicants to submit verified payroll data to potential lenders.The company offers its platform through a pay-per-use business model and charges its users per employment report, income report, or re-verification.Key customers and partnershipsTruework reportedly connected consumers with over 17,000 lenders, as of August 2022, and claimed to boost applicant conversion by 14% and reduce verification costs by 60% per loan. Moreover, it serviced around 12 million income and employment requests in 2022 from over 20,000 small businesses and 100 larger enterprises. As of August 2022, its customers reportedly included 20 of the top 25 lenders in the US, including Fairway Independent Mortgage, Caliber, Guaranteed Rate, and Citizens Bank.In January 2024, Truework <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25496">partnered with Vault Verify</a>, an HR platform providing income and employment verification and other employment related services, to improve income verification capabilities.Funding and financialsTruework raised <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19381">USD 24 million in equity funding </a>from TransUnion in June 2023, around ten months after raising USD 50 million in Series C funding in August 2022. Along with the funding, the companies deepened their partnership, and TransUnion aimed to cross-sell Truework’s product alongside its main credit offering, allowing a bank to access both credit and income data through a single API.

Extend offers an infrastructure platform for financial institutions (FIs) and businesses to offer virtual payment cards through its virtual card APIs, digital corporate card app, and card tokenization service. The card solutions can primarily be used for enterprise vendor payments as well as employee expense management and reimbursements. In addition to issuing virtual cards, the platform also offers complementing budgeting and reporting solutions. Through its reporting solutions, the platform lets users integrate with third-party apps such as QuickBooks and Expensify as well as attach receipts and invoices to cards. The company notably caters to incumbent businesses to help them better compete with FinTech startups. Accordingly, Extend enables its users to integrate the platform with existing infrastructure and products, rather than having to replace legacy systems altogether. It is an issuer-agnostic platform; therefore, enterprise customers do not have to switch banking partners to implement virtual card solutions. Moreover, the platform is integrated with major payment networks including Mastercard and Visa. Extend also caters to non-bank industries like retail, legal services, construction, manufacturing, and media, among others. The company partnered with American Express (Amex) in September 2021 to enable “millions” of SMBs using Amex business cards to access virtual cards. By October 2021, Extend had more than 2,000 business customers, was reportedly growing at 30% month-over-month (MoM), and was processing a volume of nearly USD 2 billion (the company charges its customers basis points on the transactions processed). The company also raised USD 40 million in Series B funding led by March Capital, that same month.

Finix Payments (Finix) offers a payment facilitator (PayFac)-as-a-service infrastructure platform for software platforms (involved in several industries such as restaurants, gyms and club management) to embed ecommerce payment systems. The infrastructure covers a range of solutions, including merchant onboarding, reporting and reconciliation, settlement and funding instructions, compliance, and chargeback and risk management.The platform’s enterprise customers range from startups to listed companies and Finix <a href="https://sp-edge.com/insights/8989">offers several business models </a>based on the degree of PayFac services the company wishes to build internally. Finix’s transaction volume rose 2x year-over-year in 2021. As of February 2021, the company had a workforce of 100 employees and Finix intends to double the headcount within a year.In August 2022, Finix <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12257">raised USD 30 million </a>in venture capital for further product development.

Pinwheel offers an API-based infrastructure platform for financial institutions and FinTechs to access payroll related data to enhance loan underwriting, to offer innovative lending products (such as earned wage access [EWA] and paycheck-linked loans). Pinwheel uses information on employment, income (including hourly clock-ins and salaries), and paystubs to streamline income and employment verification. Pinwheel also lets users update direct deposits through the platform. Pinwheel obtains the data through connections with over 1,400 traditional and non-traditional platforms (as of January 2022), which it claims can access around 80% of people receiving paychecks in the US (including gig and creator economy workers). In January 2022, Pinwheel claimed that its platform executes over 4.6 million processes per month and that its annual recurring revenue (ARR) reportedly rose 177x in 2021.Key customers and partnershipsThe company expanded its platform offering by partnering with data aggregation and account connectivity platform <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/37235">MX </a>in September 2021. As of January 2022, Pinwheel’s users included <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/17115">Block </a>(formerly known as Square), Varo, Lendly, and Daylight.Funding and financials Pinwheel <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7859?industryIds=53">raised USD 50 million </a>in Series B funding in January 2022, at a USD 500 million valuation, to invest in expanding its workforce and expanding into new business verticals (such as tax preparation).

Plaid offers white-label and full-stack FinTech infrastructure for financial institutions, wealth managers, and other enterprises to embed banking, payment, financial advice, and lending solutions to their FinTechs. Its core product is a screen scraper that accesses user bank account data (after login credentials are provided), scrapes it, and enables data querying through APIs. Accordingly, its APIs support onboarding, information, money movement, payroll, and fraud prevention, among others.The platform initially focused on white-label account linking services, but eventually transitioned to a consumer brand, with its logo residing inside FinTech apps in the bank linking experience. Plaid has a three-sided network, comprising ~500 million customers (accounts), 11,000 banks, and 2,600 FinTechs (as of May 2022).The company continues to expand its FinTech infrastructure product range. It <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11674?industryIds=53">added several crypto exchanges </a>, including Binance.US, Gemini, Robinhood, and SoFi, to its network in July 2022, to allow developers to access and incorporate cryptocurrency asset data. This followed <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6166">the “pay-by-bank” </a>solution launching in October 2021, to enable the US and European merchants to accept payments directly from user bank accounts. In February/March 2021, the company also launched income verification product “Simply Income,” along with “Deposit Switch,” which enables users to switch direct deposits to a different bank account.Plaid also launched a biometric identity verification tool in May 2022, to prevent fraud by leveraging KYC and AML capabilities. This came just four months after Plaid acquired the <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7948">identity verification and compliance platform Cognito </a>for USD 250 million. The solution can reportedly verify identities in less than 30 seconds, and can also analyze email, phone, IP addresses, and device IDs.As of July 2022, its infrastructure connected enterprises to over 12,000 financial institutions (FIs) across the US, Canada, the UK, and Europe. Although Plaid connects user bank accounts with the FinTech apps, it is not directly involved in transferring money from the bank accounts. Instead, it has signed up more than 50 partners across the US and Europe (such as Square, Stripe, Silicon Valley Bank, and Galileo) to do so.Plaid charges its users in three main methods: 1) a per-request fee for transactions through Plaid, 2) a one-time fee when apps utilize Plaid to access customer bank accounts, and 3) a monthly subscription fee.Key customers and partnershipsThe company noted that its customer base grew by around 60% year-over-year (YoY) in 2020 and reached over 5,500 clients as of January 2022, including PayPal, Robinhood, Google, and Microsoft.Plaid announced that it aims to commit 75% of its traffic to APIs by the end of 2021, and in line with that has entered a series of open banking partnerships with leading FIs including Capital One (in June 2021) and <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3557">US Bank </a>(in May 2021). Through these partnerships, the FIs customers can connect their accounts to third-party apps on Plaid’s network.Funding and financialsPlaid forecast its revenue to total USD 225 million in 2021. The company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4785">agreed to pay USD 58 million </a>in a class action lawsuit settlement in August 2021, over claims the company used banking login credentials to share data to third-party firms without prior consent.In January 2020, Visa attempted to acquire Plaid for USD 5.3 billion; however, the deal was called off in January 2021, due to a potentially long and complex litigation process. In April 2021, Plaid raised USD 425 million Series D funding at a USD 13.5 billion valuation which was supported by pandemic-led user growth (up 44% YoY over March-May 2020).The company also received an <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4943">undisclosed amount of funds </a>from JP Morgan Private Capital Growth Equity Partners and Amex Ventures, in August 2021, as an extension to its Series D round. Plaid intends to invest the funds in expanding globally, developing new products and tools, increasing its workforce by 50% in 2021, and scaling its platform to meet increased demand from FinTechs.

Stripe provides the infrastructure for businesses to build online and app-based payment services using application programming interfaces (APIs). Stripe also offers point-of-sale hardware (in competition with Square and Zettle) through its “Stripe Reader,”(launched in June 2021), a standalone card scanner. Reader can be integrated with Stripe’s Terminal and the rest of the Stripe ecosystem, thereby allowing users to offer an omnichannel payment solution.Stripe also offers commercial card issuing infrastructure, “Stripe Issuing,” for which it charges interchange fees from transactions. The company expanded Stripe Issuing and <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19091">added charge card features in June 2023 </a>, enabling end-customers to spend on credit terms rather than exclusively through pre-funded accounts.The company has grown through multiple acquisitions. It expanded its operations to Nigeria in October 2020 by acquiring Lagos-based payment integration service infrastructure provider, Paystack. In May 2021, Stripe acquired Bouncer, a technology provider that authenticates cards to reduce fraud in online transactions, and in October 2021 the company acquired <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6113">Indian company Recko </a>.Stripe is present across the globe serving nearly 50 countries (as of October 2022), across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.Stripe expanded its platform solutions, by launching “ <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3563">Stripe Tax </a>” and “ <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3564">Stripe Identity </a>”. Stripe Tax automates the calculation and collection of multiple types of taxes for transactions made through the platform, and came on the heels of Stripe acquiring TaxJar, a sales tax software provider, in April 2021. Stripe Identity is a low-code/no-code verification tool for online businesses to prevent fraud, account takeovers, and bad actors. It also launched “ <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10153">Financial Connections </a>” in May 2022, for enterprises to connect directly with end customer bank accounts to verify accounts, check balances, and confirm ownership, and “ <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10666?industryIds=53">App Marketplace” </a>to provide access to third-party apps.In October 2021, Stripe also announced that it plans to offer infrastructure for merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments by forming a new crypto team to build out Web3 (highly decentralized web networks) payment solutions.Key customers and partnershipsIn November 2023, Stripe <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/23364">expanded its partnership with JCB International Co., Ltd. </a>(the international operations subsidiary of JCB Co., Ltd) to support its international expansion plans by leveraging JCB’s card network to facilitate merchant payments across European countries, Singapore, and Hong Kong. As of January 2022, Stripe’s enterprise customers included Shopify, Google, Peloton, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7819?industryIds=53">Ford </a>, and Amazon, among others. Stripe also enhanced its platform functionality and reach by partnering with leading global financial service companies and payment networks. In December 2020, it expanded the partnership with Goldman Sachs to add more functionality to “Stripe Treasury” (solution to embed financial services to marketplaces) in the US. Stripe also <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5215">partnered with China’s UnionPay </a>International in August 2021, to complement its Alipay and WeChat pay integrations. This enables Stripe merchants in several markets to accept payments from Chinese customers residing in and outside the mainland.Stripe has also partnered with leading buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) solutions providers, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6217">Klarna </a>and <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10799">Affirm </a>, to allow merchants using Stripe to offer its US and European customers an option to pay in installments.Funding and financialsStripe reportedly processed transactions worth more than USD 817 billion in 2022, up 26% YoY, with more than 100 companies handling over USD 1 billion in payments annually. Moreover, as of February 2021, Stripe handled over 250 million API requests per day in more than 135 currencies across over 35 countries. The company also reported that around 90% of US adults had purchased products from businesses using Stripe.Stripe reduced its internal valuation to USD 63 billion in January 2023 (from USD 95 billion during its March 2021 funding round), following laying off around 14% of its workforce in November 2022. The company noted that the layoff was owing to Stripe being overly optimistic about the internet economy’s growth in 2022 and 2023. In January 2023, the company also reportedly set itself a <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15977?industryIds=53">12-month deadline to go public </a>, either through a direct listing or a private market transaction (offering a secondary market exit for employees).The company subsequently <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17162?industryIds=53">raised USD 6.5 billion </a>in Series I funding, in March 2023, at a USD 50 billion valuation. The funds were nor earmarked for running business operations, and instead should be put toward offering liquidity to employees (current and former) and address employee withholding tax obligations related to equity awards.

Cardless offers infrastructure for enterprises to issue physical and digital credit cards. The platform lets users build credit card experiences within their respective mobile apps and websites. It builds credit card application solutions including the application flow, prefilled customer profiles, and in-built screening and underwriting. Cardless offers a range of core solutions to create credit card programs, including program management, security, fraud detection, rewards, and compliance, among others. The platform also offers decisioning solutions that leverage the user’s customer data and Cardless’s algorithms and data analytics. Meanwhile, Cardless enables credit card lending by linking users with issuers on the platform or lets users leverage their own balance sheets. Key customers and partnerships Cardless has also entered several partnerships to enable users to issue co-branded credit card products. Partners in this regard include LATAM Airlines, Simon Property Group, American Express, Manchester United, and Liverpool Football Club.Funding and financialsCardless secured a USD 75 million three-year credit facility from i80 Group in May 2023 to fund customer receivables and growth.

Travel Tech

Spotnana offers travel management solutions for corporates, including an online booking platform for flights and car rentals, with travellers having the option to select additional airline ancillaries, alongside optimized search results based on preferences. Other features include real-time traveller tracking, access to loyalty program benefits, omnichannel service, carbon-emission tracking, and the ability to analyze travel data across the organization. Pricing tiers include its “Simplify and reduce travel spend,” which charges a single, flat fee for all trips; “Standard”; and “Seat 1A” with additional features.The company also offers solutions for travel industry operators, with features such as a booking platform, dynamic event quotes to prioritize time-sensitive tasks and link sharing. Travel agents can generate additional revenue from ticket upgrades, bundles, and ancillary products through Spotnana's New Distribution Capabilities (NDC) connections, alongside the integration of Spotnana’s API. Furthermore, Spotnana’s solutions for product development teams include a white-label user interface and open APIs for custom development with the platform's open-data model, allowing integration of travel content, profiles, policies, analytics, and more into the product experience. In March 2024, Spotnana launched “Spotnana Events”, designed to manage corporate meetings and events in-person, offered as a standalone or add-on product through the company or its partners.Key customers and partnershipsKey customers include financial services company Brex, analytics tool provider Forsta, cloud API developer DuploCloud, and venture capital firm Floodgate.Partnerships include that with;1) United Airlines for an NDC agreement that delivers access and servicing capability for the 40% of the carrier's bookable content that is not available in traditional EDIFACT channels (June 2023)2) American Airlines to add personalization features to the platform for corporate travelers (September 2022)3) Travel management software developer TROOP to allow users to book flights on Spotnana via TROOP’s meetings management platform (August 2022).Funding and financialsIn July 2022, Spotnana raised USD 75 million in a Series B financing round led by Durable Capital Partners. The funding was utilized to expand the company’s engineering and product teams.

Mindtrip, founded in 2023, is an AI-powered travel platform that offers personalized trip planning experiences. The company's technology leverages large language models, natural language processing, and a proprietary knowledge base to enable travelers to plan trips through an interactive chat window. Mindtrip's AI assistant provides inspiration, recommendations, and helps users build detailed itineraries within a single application. The platform combines conversational elements with rich visuals, geospatial data, and booking capabilities, allowing users to view photos, maps, and detailed information about locations or points of interest mentioned by the AI without leaving the interface.&nbsp;Mindtrip's focus on personalization allows users to specify their travel preferences and constraints, which the AI factors into its recommendations and itinerary building. Users can further customize suggested itineraries through a combination of dialogue and direct manipulation. The company aims to consolidate various aspects of trip planning into a single, user-friendly application, making travel recommendations actionable and customizable. In addition to its consumer-facing product, Mindtrip plans to provide its tools to travel industry partners, including tourism boards, travel agencies, airlines, and hotel chains. The company was founded by ecommerce veterans, including CEO and co-founder Andy Moss, and is based in Silicon Valley. Mindtrip launched its platform in May 2024, positioning itself as an AI-first, vertically-focused player in the travel tech industry.

Turo (formley RelayRides) is a car-sharing marketplace that allows owners to lease their cars through its platform. Hosts can list their vehicles, manage availability, and adjust prices to respond to market demands. Renters have the ability to search for vehicles based on location, type, price, intended use, and other criteria to find the ideal car for their needs. The platform features integrated messaging, payments, and fraud detection, as well as the “Turo Risk Score” introduced in April 2020 to implement real-time, risk-based trip fees. Renters can access a wide range of vehicles including trucks, vans, minivans, and SUVs, in over 9,500 (June 2022) cities across the US, Canada, and the UK.Turo generates revenue through commissions charged based on the total trip price, varying from 2.5-100%, a flat fee of USD 15 and value-added services fees for additional services, such as protection. Turo had more than 125,000 active hosts and 250,000 active vehicles (as of June 2022) and 1.3 million active guests (as of September 2021).Turo also announced expansions into France—which coincided with the acquisition of its competitor, OuiCar, with the hopes of assimilating OuiCar under the Turo umbrella in the future—and Australia (including Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, and Brisbane) in 2022. Turo was backed by Daimler (now known as Mercedes-Benz Group) in its USD 90 million Series D funding round in 2017. At the same time, it took over Daimler’s car-sharing business, Croove, which initially launched in Germany in 2016, but was shut down in 2020.Key customers and partnershipsIn&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/35127">October 2024</a>, Turo partnered with Crashbay to improve the auto claims repair process for Turo hosts. Previously,&nbsp;In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/33358">August 2024</a>, Turo entered into a multi-year partnership with Uber to integrate Turo's vehicle selection into the Uber app.In May 2022, Turo joined forces with Capital One, allowing credit card holders to receive enhanced rewards when making bookings through Turo. Other partners include Delta Airlines, vehicle and driving data business IMS, Auto Rental ETC, Michelin Guide, and the Quebec Electric Vehicle Association.&nbsp;

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 Selfbook is a revenue management platform for hoteliers, allowing them to create booking flows, smart merchandising, and facilitate one-click payments. Selfbook Payment enables hoteliers to accept a wide variety of payment methods, such as Google Pay, Apple Pay (integrated in November 2021), Visa, American Express, and Mastercard, alongside options for buy now, pay later (BNPL) solutions. Selfbook Direct facilitates upsell opportunities through smart merchandising and add-ons, such as spa appointments, activities, and restaurant reservations during the booking process. Selfbook Direct Links facilitates customizable links for instant booking through Instagram and Google meta searches, which was launched in December 2021.&nbsp;
 
 
 In August 2022, Selfbook introduced three new user interface flows, alongside additional features to further streamline its hotel booking process. The company generates revenue by charging a 1% fee for all transactions that it helps to facilitate.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of March 2022, Selfbook had ~100 hotels onboarded. Notable customers include Eden Rock St Barths, The Line Hotel, Grupo Habita, and Concorde Hotels &amp; Resorts.
 
 
 In 
 August 2023, Selfbook partnered with Affirm, a payment company, to bring flexible payment options for hotel guests. As part of this partnership, their first joint hotel partners include The Kartrite, Cape May La Mer and Victor Hotels.
 
 
 Selfbooks partners with loyalty rewards providers to integrate their cash rewards onto the Selfbooks platform. These include Guestbook, Lassie (January 2023), and I Prefer (July 2022). Other partnerships include the digital marketing platform Sojern (to optimize the booking funnel for Selfbook in December 2022), Sabre&rsquo;s SynXis platform, SevenRooms, and Mindbody to integrate different aspects of the booking experience, such as room upgrades, meals, and spa add-ons, into one checkout system.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 The company received a strategic investment from Amex Ventures in December 2022. The amount of funding was undisclosed. In March 2022, Selfbook raised USD 15 million in its Series A extended funding round led by Tiger Global Management, with the financing valuing the company at USD 300 million. The funding was set to be utilized for headcount growth and an expansion of its product portfolio.&nbsp;
 
 
 
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From fast food to fine dining, everything but the kitchen sink is suddenly just a tap away.

Online Food Delivery

Wonder is a New York-based food delivery startup led by the ecommerce entrepreneur Marc Lore. Wonder initially operated as a network of truck based restaurants that prepare and deliver meals in partnership with restaurants headed by celebrity chefs. However, the company changed its business model in January 2023 and announced plans to move to a fixed-space model and focus on static locations that offer delivery and pickup, as well as “limited dine-in options.” Wonder currently partners with restaurants to offer food delivery and pickup to select areas of New York City and New Jersey.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26294">January 2024 </a>, Wonder announced plans to open two dine-in restaurant locations in New Jersey. The restaurant will function as a shared kitchen that hosts various restaurant brands, enabling customers to place orders from multiple restaurants in a single order. It opened a delivery-focused food hall at a Pennsylvania Walmart location in <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27117">February 2024</a>In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24687">November 2023 </a>, Wonder Group acquired meal kit and prepared meal delivery platform, Blue Apron, with plans to integrate Blue Apron’s offerings into Wonder’s product portfolio. Blue Apron provides subscription-based meal plans for a health-conscious customer base. The company also offers prepared meals under its “Heat and eat” and “Ready to cook meals” categories.Key customers and partnershipsIn <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29999">June 2024</a>, Wonder partnered with the meal manufacturer FreshRealm to produce the meal kits served from Wonder's locations.&nbsp;Fundings and financialsIn <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24688">November 2023 </a>, Wonder Group raised USD 100 million in funding as part of a strategic partnership with Nestlé. Under the partnership, Nestlé planned to manufacture pizza and pasta for Wonder's kitchen equipment, as well as sell the equipment to customers. In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/28083">March 2024 </a>, the company raised USD 700 million in a funding round led by NEA, GV, Accel, Bain Capital Ventures, Forerunner, Alpine, and Harmony. The funding will be utilized for the physical expansion of the company’s network of food halls, research and development, and the development of proprietary technology.

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 Founded in 2013, Toast is a POS and restaurant management platform that integrates employees, operations, and guests into a user-friendly platform for point of sale, contactless ordering, handhelds, online ordering, delivery, marketing, payroll, and team management. As of June 2021, the company has partnered with over 40,000 restaurants.
 
 
 Toast&rsquo;s POS system does not require a wifi connection to operate thanks to its offline mode feature. The company&rsquo;s digital ordering solutions are priced between USD 75 - 175 per month. Its&nbsp; POS pricing plan includes three options depending on the size of the restaurant:
 
 
 a. Starter (for small restaurants):
 
 
 1) Pay-as-You-Go plan with an&nbsp; upfront fee of USD 200 and Platform Rate of 2.99% + USD 0.15 per transaction; and&nbsp;
 
 
 2) Standard Plan with an upfront payment of USD 999 + Payment Processing Rate of (2.49% + USD 0.15) per transaction and software subscription of USD 69 per month.
 
 
 b. Customizable options for restaurants looking to expand into off-premise channels priced at USD 165 per month and up.
 
 
 c. Growth (to attract new guests and drive repeat visits) priced at USD 272/month. 
 
 
 The company does not charge a commission fee on delivery.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 In February 2020, Toast raised USD 400 million in series F funding. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, TPG, Greenoaks Capital, and Tiger Global Management including the participation of Durable Capital Part. The fresh funds will be used to enhance its technology platform (including hardware and software upgrades), improving the restaurant employee experience, and financial products to grant access to safe and reliable funding for restaurateurs to grow their businesses.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 In April 2020, the company laid off 50% of its staff in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Affected employees were given a severance package, benefits coverage, mental health support, and an extended window to purchase vested stock options. However, following accelerated demand during the lockdown&mdash;which resulted in restaurants retooling for takeout&mdash; Toast experienced a turnaround and was valued at USD 8.1 billion by November 2020.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 In February 2021, the company was rumored to be aiming for a USD 20 billion IPO.&nbsp;
 
 
 In June 2021, the company acquired xtraCHEF, a provider of back-office tools, such as inventory management and accounts payable automation, for restaurants. The acquisition aligns with Toast&rsquo;s ongoing product expansion strategy, to compete with competitors who are also expanding their product ranges. The acquisition is expected to support restaurateurs by simplifying the management of routine tasks such as bookkeeping, managing inventory, and tracking margins. The company previously acquired StratEx, a payroll and HR software provider, in July 2019, in order to simplify restaurant HR, payroll, and talent management for its restaurant customers.
 
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Giving creators the power of content monetization and audience engagement.

Creator Economy

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 Drum is a link-in-bio tool for creators, which allows them to showcase their content and connect with their audience. Through the platform, creators can link video and audio clips from popular social media sites as well as add their social media page links. Additionally, creators can organize links into collections, feature their favorite content, and track its performance with in-app analytics on visits, clicks, and revenue. Further, Drum Shops (launched in November 2021) allows users to create their own storefront, featuring personalized video messages, merchandise, and digital products such as ebooks. Drum charges a 5% commission and USD 0.3 fixed rate per transaction.
 
 
 In addition to its link-in-bio tool for creators, Drum also offers the Drum for Business platform. The platform allows creators to earn referral revenue for each successful transaction made by promoting offers to their followers. Once a creator selects a referral program, Drum auto-generates a web page for it and provides automated referral reminders to fans. Drum takes a transaction fee of 15% from commissions earned. 
 
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 OneOf is a green NFT marketplace built on the Tezos and Polygon blockchains, where creators can feature their NFT collections within the music, sports, or lifestyle categories. The platform uses a proof-of-work network that costs significantly less energy than traditional networks, enabling transactions on the platform to not incur any gas fees. Platform features include the creation of NFTs with varying rarities, NFT collections, and NFT drops (which allow users to purchase a digital token experience from their favorite artists via cryptocurrency, debit/credit card, or marketplace credit). In June 2022, the company launched its &ldquo;Offers&rdquo; function, which lets users send, receive, and manage their NFT offers on the OneOf Marketplace.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 Notable creators on the platform include musicians Doja Cat, G-Eazy, baseball player Nolan Ryan, and companies such as American Express and Gatorade.
 
 
 In August 2022, OneOf partnered with Globe Entertainment and Media to bring images of musicians, movie stars, comic book characters, and cultural events into the platform as NFTs. In January 2022, OneOf formed a white-label partnership with Warner Media Group (WMG) to create a range of NFTs for WMGs catalog of artists.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In August 2022, the company raised USD 8.4 million in a funding round with participation from Amex Ventures and Chain Link Crypto Fund, among others. The funding was to be used for the development of its NFT platform. The company also raised USD 63 million in a seed funding round in May 2021.
 
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Buy Now, Pay Later

Based in the UK, Divido operates an online marketplace connecting lenders, retailers, and payment partners. Divido offers a white-label infrastructure service to retailers so that they can offer BNPL services to their customers at the point of sale. The platform partners with multiple lenders that perform credit decision-making for loan origination and extend credit to consumers. This is in stark contrast to B2C and B2B platforms, which make the credit decisions in-house and partner with one lender to fund loans given out to customers, thus assuming the credit risk.The financing can be applied at the retailer’s checkout both online and in-store. By partnering with multiple lenders, retailers can offer higher acceptance rates and lower fees for installment financing as lenders on the platform compete to provide financing. Divido generates revenue through commissions when retailers use its platform to facilitate BNPL transactions. As of June 2021, the platform had more than 1,000 customers, including BNP Paribas, Nordea, Mercedes-Benz, Lastminute.com, and Lenovo.In October 2019, Divido partnered with BNPL provider Splitit to offer the latter’s payment solutions to Divido’s retail clients as an additional payment option at checkout.In June 2021, Divido raised USD 30 million in a Series B funding round led by HSBC and ING. As of June 2021, the company is available in 10 markets, and its Series B funding is intended to ramp up its international expansion plans.

Melio provides a digital platform for small businesses to manage their B2B payments and receivables. It offers a digital accounts payable and receivables dashboard that provides a unified integrated tool to transfer and receive payments. It helps small businesses and their suppliers receive and transfer payments, giving oversight and control over cash flow and reducing or eliminating late payment costs.In August 2023, Melio introduced a new product called <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/20593">“Pay Over Time,” </a>which is a buy now, pay later (BNPL) product. It offers flexible payment terms to help small businesses pay vendors and bills. Powered by Credit Key, the service allows eligible small businesses to access up to USD 50,000 in capital instantly through their Melio account. With Pay Over Time, business owners can choose to pay their bills in monthly installments over an extended period while ensuring their vendors receive full and timely payments. Key customers and partnerships In April 2023, Melio partnered with Shopify to offer Shopify Bill Pay, an accounts payable solution for Shopify merchants. The company integrated the cloud-based accounting software platform Xero in January 2023 to manage its accounts payable and receivable data. Funding and financialsIn September 2021, the company raised an additional USD 250 million in a Series D funding round led by Thrive Capital and General Catalyst. The funds were earmarked for accelerating the company's expansion through partnerships with financial institutions, software providers, and marketplaces interested in enabling B2B payments for their customers.

Platforms, apps, and cards to keep the corporate wallet in check

Business Expense Management

<div>
 
 Melio is a B2B domestic and cross-border payout platform for small businesses to transfer and receive payments. Users can upload and settle invoices through the platform, using several payment methods including bank transfers and credit cards (including virtual cards). It also helps users avoid late payment costs and makes the payout process more efficient and effective by setting policies and permissions to approve spending.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Melio can also be used to split one bill into multiple payments and even to pay several bills at once. In August 2023, the company
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/20571">
 launched &ldquo;Pay Over Time&rdquo;
 </a>
 , a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) solution. This enables small businesses to settle their suppliers immediately and in full through Melio, and subsequently pay Melio in monthly installments (up to 12 equal monthly installments).&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 
 As of October 2023, the platform gave access to over 7,000 popular vendors which were part of its network, including AT&amp;T, Amex, and First Progress. Melio charges on a pay-per-use basis for credit card and cross border transactions. 
 
 
 The company also operates an R&amp;D center based in Tel Aviv, Israel, to complement its New York headquarters. Melio appointed former Meta and PayPal executive Tomer Barel as its COO in February 2022 to lead its strategy executions and business scaling.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 The company has entered several partnerships to boost its platform. It partnered with Shopify in April 2023 to enable US merchants to pay and manage bills through their Shopify admin. In June 2021, it partnered with Capital One (a diversified banking company) to allow small businesses to access a wider gamut of accounts payable and receivable cash flow management tools. It also partnered with leading accounting software QuickBooks in 2020 to launch &ldquo;Bill Pay,&rdquo; which allows QuickBooks users to make payments and automate data entry and insights through the platform.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 The platform has seen strong growth, with its monthly payment processing volumes rising about 5,000% in the 18 months leading to September 2021.
 
 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 
 Melio raised USD 250 million in Series D funding in September 2021, co-led by Thrive Capital and General Catalyst, at a USD 4 billion valuation (around 3x its January 2021 valuation). The funds were earmarked to accelerate the company&rsquo;s expansion through partnerships with financial institutions, software companies, and marketplaces.&nbsp; 
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Glean AI offers an accounts payable (AP) platform that automates AP activities while improving intelligence and insights. Automation spans across data extraction, coding, approvals, and payments (ACH, check, and international), which Glean AI claims saves the equivalent of half a full-time employee's time, on a monthly basis. The platform also enables users to align with team mates on budgets and collaborate on spending decisions.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 Glean AI looks to differentiate itself through its AP intelligence solution, which leverages its proprietary vendor benchmarking data to help negotiate better deals from vendors. It also analyzes deal terms, line-item purchases, and redundant offerings, to optimize spend. The company claims its intelligence can enable users to reduce vendor spend by up to 10%.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 The platform can also be integrated with several third-party ERP and accounting software, including Xero, QuickBooks, Intacct, NetSuite, and Microsoft Dynamics. The company charges its customers a monthly subscription (starting at USD 95 per month), with charges varying based on features such as the number of invoices handled, international payments, and historical invoice processing.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 Glean AI primarily caters to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and its customers include Alloy, Thimble, Orum, and FreightWaves.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 
 Glean AI raised USD 10.8 million in seed funding led by Contour Venture Partners, in March 2022, to invest in product development and its go-to-market strategy. 
 
</div>

Cryptocurrencies

Abra is a financial technology company offering a mobile app that allows users to buy, sell, trade, and earn interest on cryptocurrencies. The app supports over 80 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and popular stablecoins. Abra utilizes a synthetic currency system, providing users direct custody of their Bitcoin holdings through private keys and recovery phrases.
Originally launched in 2014 as a peer-to-peer money transfer service, Abra pivoted in 2017 to focus on cryptocurrency services. It discontinued its US retail trading app in 2022 to cater to institutional clients and private wealth management through Abra Prime and Abra Private. These offerings provide asset management, lending, OTC trading, and customized crypto investment solutions for institutions, crypto funds, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals.
Abra plans to launch Abra Bank in 2023, aiming to be the first US-regulated bank for cryptocurrencies, allowing customers to deposit and bank digital assets alongside fiat currency access. It also intends to establish Abra International in late 2022, providing similar regulated crypto banking services globally.

FalconX is a leading digital assets platform that enables institutions to access and manage their crypto strategies seamlessly. It offers a comprehensive suite of services, including trading, prime brokerage, and clearing, through a single interface. FalconX leverages advanced technologies, such as machine learning algorithms, to aggregate liquidity from over 70 venues, providing clients with deep liquidity pools and optimal execution.
The company's flagship product, FalconX 360, launched in October 2022, is a unified investment and risk management platform for digital assets. It allows institutional investors to access 94% of global liquidity, manage cross-portfolio margins, and monitor positions and post-trade data in real-time. FalconX 360 also offers institutional staking, derivatives trading, and the ability to borrow against balances and positions, all within a single interface and a built-in risk management engine.
In April 2022, FalconX became the first and only cryptocurrency swap dealer registered with the National Futures Association (NFA) and one of the first crypto-focused Primary Level Members of the International Swaps & Derivatives Association (ISDA). This registration enabled FalconX to offer regulated derivatives trading to US institutional investors.
FalconX played a vital role in the inaugural day of trading for spot Bitcoin ETFs on January 10, 2024, executing over 30% of total BTC creation purchases on behalf of ETF sponsors, amounting to over USD 230 million.

Ensuring the right people access the right resources at the right time

Identity & Access Management

Prove is the modern way for businesses to enable their customers to prove their identities with just a phone. Prove offers phone-centric solutions that enable its customers to acquire new consumers and engage with their existing consumers by removing friction while bolstering security, and enhancing consumer privacy and consumer choice.Prove's solutions are used by more than 1,000 businesses across diversified industries, including banks, financial services, healthcare, insurance, and e-commerce. Prove has two main solutions + MFA: • Prove Pre-fill™ for Onboarding &amp; Digital Acquisition, which helps companies increase signups and mitigate account opening fraud by authenticating consumer identities, and auto-filling verified data in any channel. • Fonebook™ for Digital Servicing, which helps companies: - Access a single identity authentication platform that reduces complexity and total cost of ownership to create a holistic view of your customer across their entire channels - Manage, add, and update customer phone numbers to ensure you always have the right number for your customer Multi-factor Authentication: - Standard SMS &amp; Voice OTPs - Instant Link™ (authenticate through SMS link without needing OTP) - Mobile Auth™ (authentication via cellular networks; passive method for passwordless login) - Voice Biometrics – Match against a consumer’s voice for authentication - Push Authentication – App-based method to prove Possession, can also pull in behavioral biometrics, device (PKI), and environmental (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, network) signals - Secure transactions across multiple digital servicing use cases, including login, high-risk transactions, call center, and passwordless login.

<div>
 
 BioCatch specializes in behavioral biometrics intelligence, leveraging advanced cognitive science, AI, and ML to analyze user interactions and deliver insights about identity, trust, and legitimacy of online activities. The company's flagship product, BioCatch Connect, is a fully integrated fraud and anti-money laundering (AML) portfolio that proactively detects and interdicts fraudulent activities and criminal actors targeting customers of the world's largest brands.
 
 
 BioCatch's technology continuously collects data from five distinct sources &ndash; applications, user behaviors, devices, networks, and transactions &ndash; during each online session. Its Continuous Behavioral Sequencing (CBS) technology parses, matches, analyzes, coalesces, and scores this data to generate dynamic user risk scores. This predictive intelligence enables fraud, AML, and cybersecurity teams to monitor, investigate, and interdict potential fraudulent user activities and sessions in real time.
 
 
 UK-based private equity firm Permira acquired a majority stake in BioCatch through a secondary market transaction in May 2024 at a valuation of USD 1.3 billion.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of May 2024, BioCatch catered to 190 financial institutions as customers globally, including over 30 of the world's largest 100 global banks. Notable customers include National Australia Bank (NAB), Barclays, NatWest, and other major banks in the UK and Australia.&nbsp;
 
 
 In March 2024, BioCatch announced a partnership with Google Cloud to extend its fraud-prevention solutions into new and rapidly expanding markets, with an initial focus on Southeast Asia. This collaboration aims to provide real-time protection and enhance the accuracy and speed of fraud detection for financial institutions in the region.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 As of June 2023, BioCatch processed over 7 billion user sessions per month. The company reported 49% annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth in 2023, surpassing USD 100 million in ARR.
 
 
 In November 2023, the company raised USD 70 million from Sapphire Ventures at a valuation of over USD 1 billion.
 
 
 
</div>

Defining the future of the restaurant business.

Cloud Kitchens

Wonder is a New York-based food delivery startup led by the ecommerce entrepreneur Marc Lore. Wonder initially operated as a network of truck based restaurants that prepare and deliver meals in partnership with restaurants headed by celebrity chefs. However, the company changed its business model in January 2023 and announced plans to move to a fixed-space model and focus on static locations that offer delivery and pickup, as well as “limited dine-in options.” Wonder currently partners with restaurants to offer food delivery and pickup to select areas of New York City and New Jersey.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26294">January 2024 </a>, Wonder announced plans to open two dine-in restaurant locations in New Jersey. The restaurant will function as a shared kitchen that hosts various restaurant brands, enabling customers to place orders from multiple restaurants in a single order. It opened a delivery-focused food hall at a Pennsylvania Walmart location in February 2024.The company’s services were available to ~132,000 households in New Jersey. It planned to expand in New Jersey within 2022 and across the nation by 2035. As of January 2022, the company operated 60 restaurants in four New Jersey towns.Funding and financialsIn <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24688">November 2023 </a>, Wonder Group raised USD 100 million in funding as part of a strategic partnership with Nestlé. Under the partnership, Nestlé planned to manufacture pizza and pasta for Wonder's kitchen equipment, as well as sell the equipment to customers. In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/28083">March 2024 </a>, the company raised USD 700 million in a funding round led by NEA, GV, Accel, Bain Capital Ventures, Forerunner, Alpine, and Harmony. The funding will be utilized for the physical expansion of the company’s network of food halls, research and development, and the development of proprietary technology.

Now anyone can become a software developer.

No-code Software

<div>
 
 BigCommerce offers a no-code platform to create ecommerce websites. It allows users to build and edit web pages via a drag-and-drop interface, use custom design themes, and handle functions such as shipping, marketing, and payments.&nbsp;
 
 
 Moreover, the platform provides a range of supplementary tools such as 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/1144">
 &ldquo;Open Checkout,&rdquo;
 </a>
 an open-source addition to its native checkout process, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/1231">
 &ldquo;Big Open Data Solution
 </a>
 ,&rdquo; a customer analytics product that lets merchants aggregate, analyze, and use online store data to gain insights into customer behaviors, and a range of tools for SEO and merchandising. In September 2023, BigCommerce 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/23829">
 launched its B2B Edition Invoice Portal
 </a>
 to improve the invoice payment process for large suppliers.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company expanded its operations in Europe and Latin America in 2021 and early-2022, by expanding its operations to 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8159">
 Germany, Mexico, Spain
 </a>
 , the Netherlands, France, and Italy, bringing its coverage to 150 countries as of January 2022 (from 120 in June 2020).&nbsp;
 
 
 Furthermore, the company has made several acquisitions to expand its capabilities. BigCommerce acquired 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4541">
 the data feed management platform Feedonomics
 </a>
 for USD 145 million in July 2021 to enable enterprise customers to use 100+ advertising channels (including social media, search engines, and ad networks) and boost sales. In April 2022, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9966">
 BigCommerce acquired BundleB2B
 </a>
 to enable merchants to access BundleB2B&rsquo;s set of tools, which include account management tools, shared shopping lists, buy again functionality, and quote management.
 
 
 In October 2023, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/23829">
 BigCommerce acquired Makeswift
 </a>
 , a visual editor for Next.js websites, which offers a no-code solution for visually editing React components. The company leveraged this acquisition to launch a new storefront building product named &ldquo;Catalyst&rdquo; in February 2024. Catalyst is designed to enable BigCommerce customers, ecommerce developers, and agency partners to build online stores using composable Next.js architecture.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of January 2024, BigCommerce served a customer base of almost 6,000 enterprises, including large ones such as Ben &amp; Jerry&rsquo;s, Molton Brown, Burrow, SC Johnson, SkullCandy, SoloStove, and Vodafone.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company actively partners with companies to offer business solutions to its merchants in the form of integrations. It has strategic partnerships with Systum (insight provider for merchant data), Bunde B2B (which allows users to review transactions and maintain accounts), and payment partners including Elavon, WeChat Pay, and Adyen.&nbsp; In March 2022, the company partnered with Bolt, a checkout solutions and shopper network provider, to enable BigCommerce merchants to add Bolt &ldquo;One-Click Checkout&rdquo; for their stores. It went on to 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13088">
 partner with cryptocurrency payments processors
 </a>
 BitPay and CoinPayments in August 2022 to deliver cryptocurrency payment solutions to BigCommerce merchants in select countries.&nbsp;
 
 
 Moreover, in January 2023, the company
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15673?industryIds=14">
 launched &ldquo;Buy with Prime&rdquo;
 </a>
 in partnership with Amazon. This solution enables merchants to streamline their checkout experience, offer free shipping, activate Amazon display ads, and add a &ldquo;Buy with Prime&rdquo; button on any product in their storefront.&nbsp;
 
 
 In January 2024, the company partnered with Marketplacer to enable customers to transform their online stores into marketplaces for diversified products.The platform also assists users in cross-selling through multiple platforms including Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and Instagram.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 The company 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26969">
 generated USD 309 million in revenue in 2023.
 </a>
 However, as of January 2024, the company was yet to turn profitable (with a non-GAAP operating loss of USD USD 5.7 million in 2023). The company expected revenue to reach USD 327.1 million&ndash;335.1 million in 2024 (implying YoY growth of 6%&ndash;8%).
 
 
 
</div>

Speeding up sales, cutting costs, and preparing for the future of retail—whether brick-and-mortar or online.

Retail Industry Robots

RetailNext provides in-store analytics for retailers using a variety of sensor sources, combined with data from video cameras, PoS systems, staff systems, weather, Bluetooth devices, promotional calendars, etc. to provide insights on ways to improve shopper experience in real-time.&nbsp;The company also offers an “Optimization Dashboard” that allows retailers to optimize staff against footfall by analyzing and predicting customer traffic. The company’s tools include 1) Aurora, a patented all-in-one sensor which, reportedly, is the first to integrate HD video, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth into a single sensor, and 2) Traffic 2.0, a store foot traffic monitoring software that utilizes information gathered using Aurora to generate real-time customer foot traffic insights, reports, and dashboards. RetailNext’s API can be integrated with other end-user applications such as virtual queuing apps, digital signage, and task management tools..&nbsp;In November 2022, RetailNext acquired UK-based people-counting and footfall solutions company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/14663?industryIds=17">Ipsos</a> to expand presence in the UK and European markets.Key customers and partnershipsAs of January 2024, RetailNext’s services were in use by 450 brands in over 90 countries. RetailNext’s customer partnerships include companies such as UAE-based Sharaf DG (June 2023), UK-based UNTUCKit (July 2023), and US-based Daniel’s Jewelers (January 2024).In April 2021, RetailNext partnered with Raydiant (an experience management platform) to automate occupancy tracking for retailers. In May 2023, RetailNext partnered with pass_by, an AI-powered geospatial insights platform to integrate Aurora sensors with ass_by’s advanced predictive software.&nbsp;

Providing a seamless consumer experience is one hope for bringing back brick and mortar retail, automated stores are being built to do just that.

Automated Stores

<div>
 
 MishiPay is a London-based startup that offers a self-checkout system powered by Radio Frequency ID (RFID) and cloud computing. MishiPay provides an app that allows shoppers to scan the barcodes of products and carry out payments using their mobile devices. The company also provides a progressive web apps (PWA) solution to allow customers to use their self-checkout solution without the need to install and launch an Android app. The company claims the PWA increases transactions by 10 times and has a higher user adoption rate than platform-specific apps.
 
 
 As of April 2024, MishiPay also provides a range of barcode scanner-based self-checkout kiosk solutions, which include a mounted 10-, 15-, or 22-inch tablet that can be integrated with existing point-of-sales solutions in the store.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of March 2024, MishiPay&rsquo;s solutions were used by 30 brands across 14 countries in North America, Europe, and the Middle East. In August 2016, MishiPay partnered with Cisco UK and had its first commercial deployment at Deloitte&rsquo;s &ldquo;Store of the Future&rdquo; in London. Mishipay&rsquo;s other retail deployment partnerships include Dufry (2017), Leroy Merlin (2017), Saturn (2018), Mango (2018), Decathlon (2019), MUJI (2020), SPAR (2020), Londis (2020), Flying Tiger Copenhagen (2021), Virgin Megastore (2022), and Grandiose super markets (2023).&nbsp;
 
 
 In March 2021, the company also deployed its technology in US airports in collaboration with Paradies Lagard&egrave;re, a North America-based airport retailer and restaurateur. As of 2022, MishiPay had deployments at 30 airports across North America.
 
</div>

Retail investors demanding sophisticated passive investment strategies are looking for an edge.

Retail Trading Infrastructure

Guideline provides automated investment management services for employer-sponsored retirement accounts. The services also include plan set-up and administration, enrollment and education, recordkeeping, compliance with Retirement Income Security Act, and reporting.As of July 2023, Guideline had assets under management (AUM) of over USD 9 billion and over 350 employees. The company stated that it is the only provider that does not charge plan participants (i.e. employees) with any fees. Guideline charges the employers with a straightforward pricing of one flat fee per participant, in contrast to the asset-based fee model predominant in the industry (i.e. fee is charged on account balances). The standard service has a base fee of USD 49 per month and an additional USD 8 per participant. The standard service includes unlimited phone/email support to both plan participants and employers. For prime service, access to a dedicated account manager is available at a higher base fee of USD 129 and an additional fee of USD 8 per participant. In addition, the company stated that it has a low mutual fund expense ratio, at 0.08%. It purchases mutual funds from Vanguard and other fund providers.Funding and financialsIn June 2021, Guideline raised USD 200 million in funding led by General Atlantic. The company intends to utilize the funding to broaden its 401(k) offerings and introduce new retirement plan solutions.

New data privacy regulations have opened up space for a new wave of compliance-focused startups.

Digital Privacy Tools

DataGrail provides a platform for privacy management, specifically designed to comply with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, etc. The company’s Live Data Map feature integrates with existing applications and automatically carries out data discovery and mapping, enabling organizations to automate data subject rights requests, data protection impact assessments, among other data-related requirements. The platform provides organizations the ability to monitor their privacy program and the ability to deploy a user-facing portal that can be used to manage their consent and email preferences, which are then enforced organization-wide. In March 2024, the company reported it had more than tripled revenue since late 2022.DataGrail’s Risk Monitor leverages intelligent workflows and pre-populated documentation to build risk assessments such as automated Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs), or third-party assessments.The company supported integrations with over 2,000 enterprise apps, data platforms, and internal systems with pre-built connectors as of September 2024.Key customers and partnershipsAs of September 2024, DataGrail’s customer base included notable companies such as Bed Bath &amp; Beyond, Fanduel, Okta, and Salesforce.DataGrail partnered with the cloud-based CRM platform HubSpot in July 2021 to offer unified preference management, maintain continuous data discovery, and automate data subject requests (DSRs and DSARs) in compliance with CCPA, CPRA, and GDPR.

Helping employers provide personalized, high-touch, and holistic financial wellness tools to their entire workforce.

Financial Wellness Tools

Albert offers a mobile app that allows its users to obtain personalized financial advice, financial planning and investment support from human experts. The mobile app also analyzes income and spending behavior to automate savings and budgeting, provide alerts for overspending, and enable customers to obtain emergency interest-free cash advances of up to USD 250—with the average approved amount being USD 80 as of November 2023—that are automatically repaid on the user’s next payday. Basic features of Albert's app are available for free, while premium features such as access to human experts are available for a monthly subscription of USD 9.99–14.99 per month.As of September 2024, Albert served more than 10 million users, who have collectively saved and invested over USD 1.5 billion.Key customers and partnershipsAlbert partnered with Sutton Bank to provide banking services and with Coastal Community Bank and Wells Fargo to offer savings accounts.

AI-based solutions for evolving digital threats

Next-gen Cybersecurity

<div>
 
 Menlo Security offers cloud security products, such as Secure Web Gateways (SWGs) and Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs), for enterprises to protect access to their cloud environments. These products act as layers between the user and network traffic, utilizing sandboxing technology to render web pages independently as opposed to loading everything onto user devices, thereby blocking any malicious activity before it reaches enterprise resources. Menlo's offerings include features to assign access controls to enterprise SaaS applications, along with data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities, phishing protection, and download controls.
 
 
 
 
 As of November 2020, the company reported an increase in revenue by 155% year-over-year (YoY) with its average deal value doubling YoY. As of November 2020, the company employed 235 staff.
 
 
 
 
 In November 2020, the company raised USD 100 million in Series E funding at a valuation of USD 800 million. Vista Equity Partners led the round, and the company expects to use the funding to accelerate product development and increase its engineering and marketing capabilities. The company also plans to expand to countries such as Japan, Singapore, and the UK across industries in demand such as financial services, critical infrastructure, healthcare, and government sectors.
 
</div>

Using AI to automate, enhance and optimize marketing activities

Marketing Automation

Persado is a “motivation” platform generating marketing content using machine learning. The platform recognizes different customers based on their reactions to language and uses those insights to generate personalized content that engages across all channels (web, email, ads, etc.) Persado’s use cases include:1) Personalization: Identifying what content will motivate each customer to generate personalized messaging across all marketing channels2) Acquisition: Using personalized messaging for higher conversion rates in customer acquisition campaigns3) Onboarding: Personalizing content for each individual and engaging customers from the day of acquisition4) Retention: Keeping customers engaged using personalized messaging for renewals, loyalty programs, and upgrades5) Pre-collections: Promoting on-time payments using encouraging language and providing clear instructions6) Customer service: Encouraging customers to follow self-service promptsIn August 2023, Persado launched <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/33428">“Essential Motivation”,</a> to help marketers create emotionally resonant messages, to drive customer engagement and conversion rates. The company unveiled <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/33429">new features </a>to this in March 2024, including new product descriptions, segment personalization, brand alignment scores, and web copy optimization, aimed at improving marketing content effectiveness. In July 2024, it launched <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/33430">“segments”</a> capabilities in its Motivation AI platform, to help financial services and retail marketers engage Gen Z audiences more effectively.The Persado platform, based on a proprietary language model, uses a large consumer behavior database of historical interactions (1.2 billion consumers and over 100 billion interactions as of April 2024) to determine what qualities of a message appeal to consumers. Given a set of keywords as input, it leverages deep-learning transformer models to generate messages that are most likely to bring conversions, ensuring the content is in line with a customer’s brand using specially trained language models.Over time, Persado uses machine-learning experimentation and decision-making to identify how messages cause each consumer to behave, enabling additional personalization for each future communication. The platform can also directly integrate with customer data platforms (CDPs) to leverage consumer language profiles.Persado also integrates with common marketing tools to fit into marketing teams’ workflows, providing detailed dashboards and analytics to visualize the impact of each piece of content.The company claims that its solution can increase ecommerce revenue by 3%–5%.Key customers and partnershipsPersado partnered with digital journey continuity platform Namogoo in May 2023, integrating its dynamic motivation platform with Namogoo’s customer intent and segmentation database to allow ecommerce stores to dynamically adapt their messaging for individual customers. In March 2024, it partnered with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27701">Bounteous x Accolite</a> to leverage Persado's language knowledge base and GenAI tools to enhance commerce and marketing experiences across diverse sectors.Persado’s customers as of September 2024 include Vanguard Group, Marks &amp; Spencer, Chase Bank, Emirates NBD, and Vodafone. It also reported that 8 of the top 10 US banks and iconic Fortune 500 brands use its solution

Marketplaces and related solutions for selling goods and services online

Ecommerce Platforms

<div>
 
 BigCommerce is a leading ecommerce platform that offers a comprehensive suite of tools and features to help businesses of all sizes build and manage successful online stores. With its user-friendly interface, robust inventory management capabilities, and advanced marketing tools, BigCommerce empowers merchants to streamline their operations and drive sales effectively.
 
 
 
 
 The platform stands out for its scalability, allowing businesses to seamlessly grow and expand their online presence. It supports an unlimited number of products, offers multi-storefront functionality, and enables merchants to sell across various channels, including social media platforms and online marketplaces. Additionally, BigCommerce boasts native integrations with leading payment gateways, ensuring a secure and hassle-free checkout experience for customers.
 
 
 
 
 One of BigCommerce's key strengths is its extensive feature set designed specifically for ecommerce businesses. From customizable product options and variants to abandoned cart recovery and customer segmentation tools, the platform provides merchants with powerful tools to enhance sales and foster customer engagement. Furthermore, BigCommerce offers advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, empowering merchants to gain valuable insights into their business performance and make data-driven decisions.
 
 
 
 
 As of March 2024, BigCommerce's customers were generating a remarkable USD 39 billion in gross merchandise value annually. The platform's rich functionality, scalability, and commitment to innovation have made it a preferred choice for businesses seeking a robust and future-proof ecommerce solution.
 
</div>

Digital Wallets

MishiPay is a provider of self-checkout technology that empowers shoppers to scan and pay for their purchases using their smartphones. The company's solution allows customers to scan barcodes on items and complete the payment process through a wide variety of digital payment methods, eliminating the need to queue at traditional checkout counters. MishiPay's technology can be seamlessly integrated into retailers' existing infrastructure, enabling a frictionless shopping experience for customers. The company's web and native app platforms ensure shoppers do not need to download additional applications to utilize the service.In addition to enhancing the customer experience, MishiPay's solution enables retailers to reduce checkout times, collect valuable shopper insights, and optimize staffing by allowing employees to focus on providing personalized assistance instead of processing transactions. The technology has garnered acclaim from notable retail chains such as MUJI UK, Flying Tiger Copenhagen, and Paradies Lagardère, who have recognized its ability to streamline operations and elevate the in-store experience.In September 2019, MishiPay secured GBP 3.5 million in Series A funding from investors including American Express Ventures, Nauta Capital, and United Ventures. This investment facilitated the company's expansion into new markets and enabled the integration of its solutions across a diverse range of retailers.By October 2020, MishiPay had introduced a mobile self-checkout solution tailored for the retail industry, enabling contactless transactions and adherence to social distancing measures through the use of personal devices.In November 2023, Flying Tiger Copenhagen announced the complete integration of MishiPay's suite of transaction solutions across its 56 UK stores, marking a significant milestone for the company's technology adoption.Key customers and partnershipsMishiPay has established partnerships with several prominent retailers, including:MUJI UK: The mobile self-checkout solution has enabled MUJI UK to offer a new level of convenience, allowing customers to check out without queuing or interacting with hardware, while freeing staff to provide personalized assistance.Flying Tiger Copenhagen: Flying Tiger Copenhagen has fully integrated MishiPay's solutions across its 56 UK stores, enhancing the shopping experience by eliminating the need for customers to wait in line to pay.Paradies Lagardère: Paradies Lagardère, a leading airport retailer, partnered with MishiPay to implement the "Scan, Pay &amp; Go" technology at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Early results indicated travelers embraced the user-friendly service.

Riding together toward a sustainable future

Shared Mobility

Turo is a peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace that allows car owners to rent out their personal vehicles to others. Founded in 2010, the company has expanded rapidly, operating in over 9,500 cities across the US, Canada, the UK, France, and Australia as of June 2022. Turo's platform offers a vast selection of vehicles, with over 250,000 active vehicles listed by 125,000 active hosts as of June 30, 2022.
The service provides an alternative to traditional car rental companies, allowing users to rent unique cars from local hosts at affordable rates. Turo's business model eliminates the costs associated with owning and maintaining large fleets, enabling hosts to earn extra income by sharing their underutilized personal vehicles. Guests can book any car they desire, from compact sedans to luxury sports cars, through Turo's user-friendly website or mobile app.
Turo's platform utilizes a dynamic pricing system, where hosts set their rental rates based on market demand. The company generates revenue by taking a commission from each rental transaction, typically ranging from 10% to 40% of the total rental fee, depending on the protection plan selected by the host. In addition to rental fees, guests may incur additional charges such as trip fees, young driver fees, and optional extras like unlimited mileage or prepaid refueling.
In April 2022, Turo confidentially filed for an initial public offering (IPO), indicating its intention to become a publicly-traded company. The company's revenue surged 207% year-over-year to USD 330.5 million in the first nine months of 2021, driven by an increase in the number of days booked and higher gross booking value per day. However, Turo reported a net loss of USD 129.3 million during the same period.

Promises increased productivity, cost-efficiency, and competitiveness in the legal industry

LegalTech

Trust & Will is an online estate planning platform that enables individuals to create wills, trusts, and other legal documents for end-of-life planning. Their platform simplifies the process of drafting these documents by guiding users through a series of questions and providing templates tailored to their specific needs.
Trust & Will's will-making service allows customers to create a legally valid last will and testament for a one-time fee starting at USD 199 for individuals or USD 299 for couples. Their trust services, priced at USD 499 for individuals and USD 599 for couples, assist in setting up revocable living trusts to avoid probate and manage assets in case of incapacitation.
A key differentiator of Trust & Will is their annual USD 19 membership which provides unlimited updates to estate planning documents as life circumstances change. Customers can also opt for an additional USD 300 fee to get a year of attorney support.
Trust & Will caters to those seeking a straightforward and affordable approach to estate planning, though their services may not be suitable for complex family or financial situations.

Harnessing the power of social influence to fuel online sales

Social Commerce

Firework is a pioneering video commerce platform that enables organizations to create engaging and shoppable video experiences on their digital channels. Its proprietary technology allows for seamless integration of live streaming, short-form videos, and interactive features directly into brands' websites and apps. Firework's solution revolutionizes the way consumers interact with video content, fostering immersive and personalized shopping journeys.
At the core of Firework's offering is its industry-leading video creation studio, which empowers brands to produce captivating shoppable videos effortlessly. These videos are designed to drive higher engagement, conversions, and sales by allowing customers to explore products, access information, and make purchases directly from the video player. Firework's videos can also incorporate artificial intelligence capabilities, providing real-time responses to customer queries long after a livestream has concluded.
Firework has partnered with prominent retailers like The Fresh Market, enabling them to replicate the in-store shopping experience online. Statistics from May 2023 showcase the platform's impact, with The Fresh Market reporting a 97% increase in clickthrough rates and doubled ROI after implementing Firework's shoppable videos.
In its pursuit of innovation, Firework acquired cutting-edge technologies to enhance its platform's capabilities. The acquisitions, completed in September 2022 and March 2023, broadened Firework's product suite and fortified its position as a leader in the video commerce space.

Providing AI-driven market intelligence and workflow automation to give firms an edge

Capital Markets Tech

Sedric.ai is a compliance excellence platform designed for next-generation fintech companies. Founded in 2020, the company offers an AI-based solution that provides real-time monitoring, detection, and analysis of customer interactions across various channels including voice, chat, email, and social media. Sedric's platform empowers compliance teams to swiftly implement new laws and regulations across their growing operations while focusing on high-risk events. The technology ensures customer protection, minimizes risks, and supports business growth for fintech firms.The platform tackles complex issues facing fast-growing fintechs, particularly in the realm of customer protection regulations. By adding a compliance layer to major communication platforms, Sedric enables contact centers serving financial services organizations to maintain compliant, effective, and risk-free communications across all channels. This approach not only ensures regulatory compliance but also improves customer experience. The AI-driven insights provided by Sedric allow sales and customer service leaders to continually enhance the performance of their client-facing teams. In June 2022, Sedric earned its SOC 2 compliance certification, underscoring its commitment to data integrity and high-level security operations.Key customers and partnershipsSedric has established partnerships with leading communication platform providers, including Aircall, Twilio, and Zendesk. These collaborations, announced in June 2022, enable Sedric to offer its compliance solution to a broader range of financial services organizations. The company's platform has gained recognition in the fintech industry, with Sedric being named one of the most promising fintech startups in Israel by a selection committee that included representatives from Citi and Visa in June 2022.

Deriving insights from uncommon data streams

Alternative Data

Enigma Technologies is a data science company that specializes in providing comprehensive intelligence on the financial health and identity of over 30 million small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) across the US. The company's proprietary machine learning algorithms combine data from hundreds of public and private sources to offer a holistic view of the revenues, growth, and detailed firmographic information of SMBs.
Enigma's core offering is its advanced data analytics and risk modeling solutions for financial institutions. By leveraging Enigma's data insights, lenders can make more informed decisions when extending credit to SMBs, a segment that has traditionally faced challenges in securing financing due to the lack of reliable data on their business health. Enigma's solutions empower community and regional banks to efficiently originate, monitor, and securitize small business loans, ultimately lowering the cost of capital for SMBs.
In January 2022, Enigma spun off a new lending platform called Prime to further broaden access to its data analytics capabilities. Prime provides a dashboard that allows banks to upload their loan books and access advanced indicators like Enigma's data on business revenue and growth, enabling them to make risk and lending decisions more efficiently and confidently. Prime launched with a funding commitment of USD 49 million from partners including Capital One, Third Point Ventures, Customers Bank, and NEA.

Bringing the benefits of blockchain to the enterprise

Enterprise Blockchain Solutions

<div>
 
 TRM Labs offers a suite of products for financial and governmental institutions that cater to different aspects of financial security and crime prevention. These include TRM Transaction Monitoring, an automated and risk-based transaction monitoring solution for crypto assets; TRM Know-Your-VASP (virtual asset service providers), a tool to measure and monitor the risk of cryptocurrency businesses; TRM Forensics, a product to trace the flow of funds and link suspicious activity to real-world entities; and TRM Tactical, a tool to collect, investigate, and triage blockchain data on the frontline​​. Additionally, the company provides training through TRM Academy, offering courses for certified investigators, crypto fundamentals, crypto-compliance specialists, and advanced crypto investigators​​.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 TRM Labs announced a partnership with K2 Integrity in November 2022, aiming to deliver a combined solution to the public and private sectors, enhancing connectivity between traditional finance, virtual asset service providers, and public sector agencies. The collaboration supported financial institutions, governments, regulators, virtual asset service providers, Web3 startups, NFT marketplaces, DeFi platforms, and other emerging service providers in proactively managing the risks of virtual assets and their related technologies​​.
 
 
 TRM Labs&rsquo; solutions were integrated by Binance Custody in October 2022 to enhance regulatory compliance and risk mitigation for client holdings. TRM's analytics and intelligence technology will assist Binance Custody in screening high-risk wallets, monitoring suspicious transactions, and managing regulatory and reputational risks associated with digital assets. The integration strengthened Binance Custody's commitment to secure and compliant services for clients in the rapidly growing digital economy.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 The company raised USD 70 million in Series B funding in November 2022 led by Thoma Bravo, with participation from new investors like Goldman Sachs and existing investors such as PayPal Ventures and Citi Ventures. The proceeds were used for investment in product development and talent and to meet the growing demand in response to fraud incidents in the crypto space.
 
 
 
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Simplifying the insurance experience for businesses using technology

InsurTech: Commercial Lines

Next Insurance provides digital insurance solutions tailored specifically for small businesses. The company’s product offering includes a range of insurance policies, including general liability, professional liability, commercial auto, and workers’ compensation. The company leverages AI and machine learning to streamline the insurance process, claiming to process policy requests within 10 seconds. It incorporates factors such as risk level, location, and other business-specific factors to provide policy proposals.&nbsp;In March 2021, Next Insurance acquired AP Intego, a digital agency specializing in small business commercial insurance. The acquisition was intended to expand Next Insurance’s reach to more customers in new business classes. In December 2020, the company acquired Juniper Labs, a startup that automates underwriting for sellers insurance to small businesses, to expand its product offering.&nbsp;In October 2024, the company launched standalone&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/34864">professional liability coverage</a> for consultants, offering protection against risks such as errors and omissions, personal injury, and property damage. The coverage can be customized with options for extended reporting periods and prior acts coverage.Key customers and partnershipsAs of November 2023, Next Insurance reported around 500,000 active policyholders, spanning a diverse base of small businesses across various industries, from construction and retail to professional services and fitness.In March 2021, Next Insurance partnered with Amazon to offer insurance solutions to Amazon Prime Business members, providing tailored insurance coverage through the platform​​.&nbsp;In September 2023, Next Insurance partnered with Bold Penguin, an integrated digital solution platform that offers commercial insurance. Through this collaboration, independent insurance agents can access Next Insurance's tailored policies for small businesses, expanding the company's distribution channels.In November 2023, Next Insurance partnered with Allstate and Allianz X. The partnership with Allstate provided Next Insurance’s products to Allstate’s customers and collaborated on developing a new product for commercial auto insurance. The collaboration with Allianz X aimed to strengthen Next Insurance’s reinsurance relationship with Allianz X.In March 2024, it partnered with Tensorflight, a property intelligence platform, to leverage Tensorflight’s property data and risk models to enhance Next Insurance’s underwriting process.&nbsp;

AI-based solutions to level the playing field against email threats

Next-gen Email Security

Menlo Security provides cloud-based security solutions centered around its patented Isolation Core technology. This technology creates an "air gap" between users and the internet, isolating the browsing process in the cloud to protect against web-based threats like phishing, drive-by exploits, and zero-day attacks. The company's Cloud Security Platform leverages this Isolation Core to enable secure internet access and browsing without compromising user experience.
Menlo Security's solutions aim to eliminate malware infections, including ransomware, by moving the fetch and execute functions of web browsing away from users' devices and networks. Only safe, non-executable content is rendered on users' devices, providing a seamless browsing experience while mitigating risks. The platform is designed to help organizations embrace cloud transformations securely without sacrificing data visibility, control, or user experience.
In March 2019, Menlo Security partnered with By Light to deliver a cloud-based internet isolation (CBII) solution for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), protecting over 3.5 million users worldwide across the US Department of Defense and its branches. This solution leverages Menlo's Cloud Platform and Isolation Core to secure internet access for defense officials deployed globally.
In January 2023, Menlo Security's Cloud Security Platform powered by its Isolation Core received Authorization to Operate (ATO) at the moderate level under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). The company also announced the detection of "Highly Evasive Adaptive Threats" (HEAT) that bypass traditional security defenses, highlighting the need for its Zero Trust approach.
Additionally, Menlo Security acquired an undisclosed company in February 2023, expanding its capabilities to address the evolving threat landscape.

Empowering Tomorrow's Innovations with Generative AI Infrastructure

Generative AI Infrastructure

Galileo is the leading Generative AI Evaluation &amp; Observability Stack for enterprises. It offers a suite of products designed to help organizations rapidly iterate, evaluate, and monitor generative AI systems for various use cases. The Galileo GenAI Studio comprises three modules: Galileo Evaluate, Galileo Observe, and Galileo Protect. Galileo Evaluate enables rapid evaluation of prompts, chains, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems. It allows experimentation with complex prompts, numerous models, context data, embedding model parameters, vector stores, chunking strategies, and chain nodes to identify the optimal 'GenAI System' for a specific use case. Galileo Observe provides real-time observability for generative AI applications and models. It monitors live traffic, identifies vulnerabilities, and facilitates debugging and re-launching of applications. Galileo Protect offers real-time request and response interception, preventing harmful responses from reaching users and protecting generative AI systems from attacks. A key differentiator of Galileo is its proprietary research-backed Guardrail Metrics, which enable best-in-class hallucination detection, security threat vector identification, data privacy protection, and auto-prompt optimizations. These metrics are powered by the centralized Galileo Guardrail Store. In addition to its generative AI evaluation and observability stack, Galileo AI also offers a text-to-UI platform that generates mobile and desktop user interfaces using AI. This platform, introduced in February 2023, empowers users to design beyond imagination at lightning speed by generating stunning UI designs from text prompts.

InsurTech: Infrastructure

<div>
 
 Trellis Technologies is an InsurTech that offers an automated pre-fill solution called Trellis Connect for property and casualty insurers via an API. It works by connecting to a customer&rsquo;s existing insurance account by simply using their username and password and obtaining nearly 100 permissioned data points required for providing quotes, automating the application process, and better underwriting.
 
 
 In addition, the company offers an end-to-end embedded insurance marketplace called Savvy for financial institutions and other fintechs to offer personal insurance lines such as auto and home insurance. Savvy can be integrated with a company&rsquo;s platform through an API, SDK widget, or hyperlink, and it also incorporates Trellis Connect.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company reported that it had connected over 1.4 million insurance accounts using Trellis Connect and had more than 9 million visitors for Savvy as of August 2022. In addition, it reported that over 150 insurers were using Savvy as of the same date, including four of the top five digital banks and seven of the top 50 personal finance apps.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 The company received USD 5 million in venture funding from Amex Ventures in May 2022. It had earmarked the fresh capital for growth.
 
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Galileo provides Evaluation Intelligence for AI developers to ship trustworthy AI apps fast.

Mindtrip operates as an AI assistant that provide travel data that includes maps with suggested places to visit.

Sedric is a compliance excellence platform for next-gen fintech companies. With AI-based real-time monitoring, detection and analysis of all customer interactions,  Sedric ensures customer protection, minimizes risks, and expedites business growth. Sedric empowers compliance teams to quickly apply new laws and regulations across their growing businesses and enables them to focus on the events with the highest dollar value across all channels: voice, chat, email, social, and more.

HQ delivers the technology that powers ground transportation with our unparalleled ride booking, billing, and payment platform. HQ caters to a wide range of mobility services, from private taxis and chauffeured cars to ride-sharing and corporate shuttles. It was founded in 2021 and is located in New York, New York.

Superlogic is the creator of a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) blockchain-based platform for the music industry. The company's platform allows customers to buy NFTs at a low cost or for free, market their businesses as environmentally, socially, and governance friendly, and target conscious music consumers, all while allowing them to use credit or debit cards in fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies, and stablecoins.

Wonder is a food delivery startup that operates truck-based restaurants from which consumers can order food through a mobile app. Wonder trucks drive to a location near the user’s home and prepare an order on-site to ensure fresh deliveries.

Handle.com powers the largest credit and finance teams in construction. Fortune 500 material suppliers and contractors trust Handle software on a daily basis to provide their credit and finance departments with an end-to-end solution. Handle is the new modern technology approach to better manage online payments, waivers and lien management for construction.

DUST — the Diamond Unclonable Security Tag — is a proprietary technology which utilizes nanodiamonds to create an unclonable identity layer on any object. An optical scanner and cloud-based infrastructure provides an interface to the object identity and provenance. DUST ensures that trusted data and verifiable products are used and traced across their full lifecycle.

Candex is a fintech consolidator for large organizations so that they can make purchases from one-time, irregular, and low-risk suppliers using existing P2P processes. Candex operates globally managing setup, support, tax, and regulatory complexity - making it simple, fast, and compliant to pay suppliers even across borders and cross currencies.  Available in multiple deliveries, Candex works directly within existing e-procurement systems, via bulk uploads, or integrated into any workflow via API.  In the end - Candex completely takes care of the 70-80% of vendors getting 3-5% of spend; ''No PO, No Pay'' becomes achievable; and the efficiency is so remarkable that our clients enter a sort of procurement zen.

Blackbird Labs is a web3 hospitality technology platform that should directly connect restaurants and customers. Founded by Ben Leventhal in 2022, Blackbird Labs is based in New York, United States.

Sensible Weather is a climate risk technology company that is de-risking weather for travelers and travel partners. It offers a partner-branded Weather Guarantee service that automatically reimburses travelers when bad weather impacts their in-trip experience through its proprietary climate data and risk analytics platform that calculates Weather Guarantee pricing in real-time, generates new revenue for partners, and enhances experiences for travelers.

Knot is the first merchant connectivity platform offering card-on-file switching for hundreds of online merchant accounts. Major financial institutions and startups embed Knot’s SDK to power customer experiences. Headquartered in New York City, Knot was founded in 2021 by Rory and Kieran O’Reilly and is backed by leading investors, including Nava Ventures, 8VC, American Express, Plaid, and many more.

Odeko is building an enterprise-grade software platform for small businesses to realize their own unique visions of the world. Using the power of data, the company's platform analyses sales data and discovers trends to construct an automatic ordering model.

Rock The Bells is an online store for hip-hop culture merchandise.

Shef is a homemade food marketplace that helps local cooks to make a meaningful income from home by selling authentic, homemade dishes to their neighbors. The company was founded by Alvin Salehi and Joey Grassia in 2019 and operates in seven markets, including San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Trust & Will is simplifying estate planning and settlement with attorney-approved, legally valid documents and processes designed to adhere to individual state guidelines. Since 2017, we’ve helped hundreds of thousands of Trust & Will members leave their legacy with an affordable way to create an estate plan or settle the estate of a loved one. Our platform uses bank-level encryption that protects customer data and complies with the highest security standards, including SOC 2 and HIPAA. Trust & Will is the official estate planning benefit provider for AARP members, along with several leading financial institutions, who all believe in our mission of helping every family leave their legacy. To learn more, visit trustandwill.com. Trust & Will is an online service providing legal forms and information. Trust & Will is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.   Trust & Will was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in San Diego, CA.

Selfbook offers an easy and secure way to pay for a hotel stay. Selfbook develops a technology-first payment platform designed to help users pay for their hotel reservations seamlessly and securely. The platform enables hotels to accept one-tap payments, supporting all global credit and debit card brands as well as digital wallets and alternative payment methods. Selfbook removes barriers to direct bookings, enabling the hotel industry to drive better conversions, capture mobile bookings, increase revenue and unify the payment flow by effortlessly connecting all their existing reservation systems.

TRM Labs is a blockchain intelligence company that helps financial institutions, crypto businesses and government agencies detect and investigate crypto-related financial crime and fraud. Our products are trusted by leading companies including PayPal, Visa, FTX, Uniswap, Anchorage, and federal agencies such as the FBI and IRS. Every day, we tackle challenges in data engineering, data science, and threat intelligence to advance our mission to build a safer financial system for billions of people.  To accomplish our mission, we have raised over $79M from JPMorgan Chase, Visa, Citi, PayPal, Block, Tiger Global and Bessemer. Our team is made up of world class experts from the FBI, U.S. Secret Service, US Treasury Department, McKinsey, Coinbase, and top-tier tech companies. TRM is a remote-first workplace, with hubs in San Francisco, Washington, DC and London.

At DataGrail, we believe in a world where people are in control of their privacy and identity. The world's most trusted brands like Salesforce, Overstock.com, Restoration Hardware, NETGEAR, and MyFitnessPal use DataGrail.  DataGrail is a Gartner Cool Vendor and has 4.8/5 stars on G2.

Finix is a developer of a B2B payment processing platform designed to let businesses own, manage and monetize their payments. Their platform uses modular, workflow-driven architecture and a real-time interface to track transactions, consolidate disparate payment processor data and underwrite merchant accounts, enabling banks, acquirers, and enterprises to send money anywhere in the facilitate push payments over debit cards.

Cardless partners with brands across sectors including sports, travel, and retail to bring loyalty and rewards credit cards to market. Brands choose Cardless for a rapid launch, embedded technology, and extensive program support, as well as expertise launching programs on the Mastercard and American Express networks. Cardless was founded in February 2019 by Michael Spelfogel and Scott Kazmierowicz, and is backed by top venture capital firms including Accomplice, Greycroft, Pear Ventures, Activant Capital, Clocktower Ventures, as well as American Express Ventures.

Klasha is a global technology company, building a platform and APIs to move money to and from emerging markets frictionlessly. With Klasha, businesses can collect, send money and hold exotic and hard currencies through our extensive API stack. Enterprise businesses use our rails and infrastructure to power their cross-border payments. Founded in 2021 by Jess Anuna, Klasha collects and sends over 120 currencies, saving merchants time and money.

Trellis makes insurance easy by meeting consumers where they are–and helping them find the right personal insurance to meet their needs.  Powered by consumer-permissioned data, Trellis Connect is a property and casualty pre-fill solution that delivers a simplified user experience, unlocks the full value of data in personal insurance accounts, and protects users’ security and privacy. Trellis Technologies was established in 2019 by Daniel Demetri in San Francisco, California.

Glean is the all-in-one spend management solution for small and mid-market companies. It is an AI-powered spend intelligence solution that saves companies money by analyzing expense drivers and finding line-item level insights often overlooked by finance teams and budget owners. The company is based in New York, United States.

Skipify is a technology company based in California whose mission is to eliminate friction in the shopper's journey and help merchants build even stronger relationships with their customers. Skipify streamlines the entire checkout process by instantly connecting shoppers with their payment options, rewards, and points. That means fewer abandoned carts and a better experience for everyone.

Airbase is a software development company. They provide spend management software for bill payments, reporting, corporate cards, and AP automation. Their software combines accounts payable automation, expense management, and corporate cards.

Finmark is financial planning software for startups; making it simple for companies to manage their runway, hiring, and cash. The platform takes complex financial concepts and calculations and distills them down into a simple to use interface so companies can easily update, inspect, and share their financial metrics. Companies, from pre-revenue to pre-IPO, rely on Finmark to align teams, drive collaboration, reduce costs and resources, and build the next generation of great startups. Greg Lissy, Jeremy Neuberger, and Rami Essaid founded the company in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2020.

Pinwheel is the market-leading payroll data connectivity platform. Fintechs and financial institutions alike trust Pinwheel to access the data and controls within traditional and non-traditional payroll platforms to update direct deposits, streamline income and employment verification, improve underwriting, power earned wage access, and build innovative new products.  With consumer permissioning, Pinwheel connects to the majority of these providers, covering over 1,400+ platforms and nearly 80% of anyone receiving a paycheck in the US, to enable market-leading fintechs, like Block (formerly Square), to easily access and update the payroll data of more than 100 million US-based employed people. Pinwheel is the only provider that handles both direct deposit switching and the provision of income and employment data to be Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA) compliant with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). To learn more, visit www.pinwheelapi.com.

Philanthropi utilizes technology to implement, manage, and measure philanthropic initiatives for organizations. Its technology provides turnkey solutions that foster internal and external charitable giving across all acts of philanthropy.  The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Firework offers video commerce solutions built for websites, apps, and stores. They operate a storytelling platform intended to live stream videos directly on the website. The company's platform features in-video shopping, lead generation, and live streaming events and allows importing and editing videos, enabling brands to engage and convert their website visitors.

Halo Investing is a financial technology startup that provides an independent multi-issuer platform focused on an investment product known as Structured Notes. Structured Notes are a pre-defined outcome investment product offering downside protection, previously only available to the ultra-high net worth. Halo is empowering and democratizing access to the product by building technology to analyze, purchase, and manage the full lifecycle of the product while building efficiencies for issuing banks.

Spotnana is the travel platform that connects humanity. We are modernizing the infrastructure of the travel industry in order to bring freedom, simplicity, and trust to travelers everywhere. Our groundbreaking Travel-as-a-Service platform revolutionizes travel for corporations and consumers, modernizes how travel suppliers sell their inventory, and enables any company to provide the world’s best global travel experiences to their customers. To learn more, visit spotnana.com.

Established in 2014, Abra is on a mission to create a simple and honest platform that enables millions of cryptocurrency holders to maximize the potential of their assets. Abra enables both individuals and businesses to safely and securely buy, trade, and borrow against cryptocurrencies – all in one place. Abra’s vision is an open, global financial system that is easily accessible to everyone. Based in the United States, Abra operates in over 150 countries and makes it easy to convert between crypto and a wide variety of local fiat currencies. With over 2MM customers and $9B in transactions processed, Abra continues to grow rapidly. Abra is widely loved and trusted – in April 2022, pymnts.com reviewed and rated Abra amongst the top 5 most popular crypto wallets in the market. Abra is backed by top-tier investors such as American Express Ventures and First Round Capital.

Melio is a fintech company that gives small businesses a way to digitally manage their business-to-business payments and receivables. It was built to help small businesses keep up with business. A B2B payments experience that not only saves time but also significantly improves cash flow. A payment workflow is so simple it helps businesses focus on their customers, not their back office.

Plaid is the technology platform providing the tools and access needed for the development of a fully modern, and digitally-enabled financial system.  Plaid makes it easier and safer for developers from the smallest startups to the largest financial institutions to build innovative financial services and applications. Plaid offers beautiful consumer experiences, developer-friendly infrastructure, and intelligence tools that give everyone the ability to build the future of financial services. Plaid was launched by William Hockey and Zach Perret in 2012 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Today, accounting teams keep their books in sync with customers and vendors by manually transcribing paper, email, and PDFs into their accounting system. This manual transcription is slow and error-prone creating cash traps in receivables and cash leaks in payables. We believe there is a better way to keep books up to date and cash flowing. At Lockstep, we're re-imagining how accounting teams work by transforming the current network of emails into trusted connections between accounting systems. Lockstep makes accounting more accurate and timely, improves cash flow, and frees staff to focus on high value activities.

FalconX is a cryptocurrency brokerage and digital asset trading platform. It specializes in the fields of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and fintech. Its platform provides reliable execution using data science to eliminate slippage and hidden fees. It was founded in 2018 and is based in San Mateo, California.

Extend provides digital card solutions for businesses. Using their existing credit card, companies and innovators everywhere can now access the full power of virtual cards for their businesses, products, and clients. Extend offers several products, including a suite of aggregated virtual card APIs, a digital corporate card app, and an industry-first card tokenization service.

BodesWell provides self-service financial planning software so financial institutions can extend the benefits of planning to the millions of people who don’t already have an advisor. Deployed as part of your existing online experience, BodesWell helps established financial services companies bring the benefits of planning to millions of under-served customers. BodesWell was acquired by American Express in June of 2022.

Codat is the universal API for SaaS and financial service providers. The company provides real-time connectivity to enable software providers and financial institutions to build integrated products for their small business customers. Codat handles the heavy lifting of integrations, leaving providers free to focus on how integrations can improve their products for their small business customers. Codat is backed by Tiger Global, PayPal Ventures, Index Ventures, and American Express Ventures.

Trulioo operates a digital identity network that provides instant online identity, document, and business verification services.

Divido is a global white label consumer lending platform for financial institutions and multinational retailers. Rapidly build new revenue streams, improve the customer experience and increase conversion by offering finance at the point-of-purchase with Divido. The platform is omnichannel, available online, in-store and via mobile, and works across multiple countries through one integration. Over 1000 partners work with Divido including Nordea Finance, BNP Paribas, BMW, Lenovo and last minute. Divido offers financial services for merchants, lenders, and intermediaries that want to offer instant new credit as a payment option to their end-consumers and corporate clients. Backed by the investors behind Skype, WorldPay, and TransferWise the company launched late 2015 and currently has 300+ partners using its platform including some of the world's well-known brands. By the end of 2017. Divido will operate in 9 countries. Divido was founded in 2014 and is based in London, England, United Kingdom

Extend is an API first company that allows any merchant to offer extended warranties and protection plans, both online and offline, while also providing the merchant's end customers with a vastly improved and modern support experience that eliminates many of the issues customers face today with legacy underwriters. Their intelligent decision engine uses machine learning to optimize warranty offers in real-time, thereby improving warranty and cart conversions and generating the most revenue for the merchant.  Extend platform is integrated into leading eCommerce solutions including Shopify, Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, BigCommerce, and others so that they can be up and running quickly, with no technical requirements. They also provide custom API integrations for larger merchants who have their own eCommerce platform. It stores all the details of an individual's product purchase and warranty plan for them, while also assisting throughout the claim process to create a seamless experience from start to finish. It was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Orum is the simplest API for fast, reliable payments. Orum’s API solution delivers access to all major rails – RTP, FedNow, Same Day ACH, ACH, and Wires – and now instant bank account verification. Orum allows businesses to launch instant payments and instant bank account verification in just days, without costly bank integrations or prolonged compliance. This in turn empowers businesses and banks to launch new payment experiences that attract and monetize more customers. Founded by Stephany Kirkpatrick and led by expert fintech operators from LearnVest, Square, N26, Klarna, Marqeta, and Stash, Orum has raised over $82M from leading investors, including Accel, Canapi, Bain Capital Ventures, Inspired Capital, Homebrew, Acrew, BoxGroup, Clocktower Ventures, Primary Ventures and American Express Ventures. We provide the technology and expertise required to power a better financial system where everyone has the freedom to build to their potential. To learn more, visit Orum.io.

Mirato’s TPRM intelligence platform elevates existing TPRM programs and tools by streamlining an entire operation’s data into one smart platform. Using natural language processing (NLP) and advanced artificial intelligence (AI), Mirato validates and enriches this data, turning it into actionable insights.  What was previously multi-destination, manual-intensive labor is now replaced by the Mirato platform and is easily managed from one dashboard. This saves time and money (up to 60% of assessment cost) while increasing an organization’s ability to mitigate risk in an ever-evolving risk landscape.

Engine by MoneyLion provides embedded finance and marketplace platforms for financial services. The company offers a range of services, including a search, comparison, and recommendation engine for financial products and a suite of tools for offer management and optimization. Its services enable businesses to add financial products to their operations, providing personalized financial product offers to clients. It was formerly known as Even Financial.

Boom Supersonic is a commercial airplane manufacturer that builds 65- to 88-seat supersonic airliners. Boom Technology is making supersonic passenger travel into reality by making a supersonic airliner. Boom was founded on the philosophy that they need to overcome the challenges to supersonic passenger flight, not surrender to them. They're making supersonic aircraft affordable for business travel. Their ultimate goal is a routine supersonic flight for everyone. Boom Supersonic is redefining what it means to fly in a commercial aircraft by building Overture, its Mach-2.2.

Truework is a one-stop platform that helps banks, lenders, and others verify income and employment. It uses for employment and income verification that puts consumers in control of the data. Truework specializes in the fields of financial services, fintech, and developer APIs.

Menlo Security provides a cloud-based isolation platform that protects organizations from cyberattacks by eliminating the threat of malware from websites, documents, and emails. Menlo Security is trusted by major global businesses, including Fortune 500 companies and financial services institutions, and backed by Vista Equity Partners, Neuberger Berman, General Catalyst, Sutter Hill Ventures, Engineering Capital, Osage University Partners, American Express Ventures, Ericsson Ventures, HSBC, and JP Morgan Chase.  Menlo Security was founded in 2012 and headquartered in Mountain View, California.

Better.com democratized the home-financing ecosystem, replacing it with a digitized process that eliminates commissions, fees, unnecessary steps, and time-wasting branch appointments. In addition to providing mortgage rates in seconds, Better.com’s platform offers a digital marketplace featuring competitive quotes from an array of insurance providers for the seamless purchase of a homeowner's insurance policy and instant access to leading real estate agents across the country. To date, Better.com has done $7.9B in home loans and $1B in insurance.

Cyrus is here to protect people from cybercrime. Our mission is to democratize security and make people safer. Cybercrime is an enormous threat to society, bigger than any one person or group and much harder to trace. Cyrus puts the person in the center and is here to protect you from this threat. Cyrus was founded by cybersecurity experts Oren Arar, Jonathan Livneh, and Shahak Shalev combining their vast knowledge and experience to create the most accessible and world-class personal cybersecurity product.

EverC is focused on powering growth for the online seller ecosystem. With the world’s first fully automated, AI-driven cross-channel risk management platform, we are transforming the internet into a safe and trusted place for ecommerce. Our easy-to-use solution rapidly detects, identifies, and removes high-risk merchants; online money laundering; and fake, illegal, and dangerous products and services. We also continually monitor activity to mitigate ongoing and evolving risk. Founded in 2015, the EverC team comprises domain experts in risk intelligence, data science, fintech, payments, and financial risk. To learn more about how EverC can help your organization manage ecommerce risk to attain safe, sustainable growth, please visit www.everc.com.

Guideline an all-inclusive 401(k) technology designed for growing businesses. Guideline handles all plan administration, including set-up, participant enrollment and education, recordkeeping, investment management, compliance, and reporting. Guideline is the first full-service 401(k) with straightforward pricing of one flat fee per participant, in contrast to the asset-based fee model predominant in the industry.

Splyt is a B2B mobility marketplace that connects institutional supply and demand for ground-based transport. It makes mobility inventory available through its single API, without the users of its demand-side partners needing to download or register with additional suppliers. The company was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in London, England.

BioCatch is the leader in Behavioral Biometrics which analyzes an online user’s physical and cognitive digital behavior to protect individuals and their assets. Our mission is to unlock the power of behavior and deliver actionable insights to create a digital world where identity, trust and ease seamlessly co-exist. Leading financial institutions around the globe use BioCatch to more effectively fight fraud, drive digital transformation and accelerate business growth. With over a decade of analyzing data, over 60 patents and unparalleled experience, BioCatch continues to innovate to solve tomorrow’s problems. For more information, please visit www.biocatch.com

Albert is a financial technology company aiming to democratize money management by making financial advice accessible and affordable. Its financial advisory platform enables customers to chat directly with financial experts about any money issue, build a personalized financial plan, and access automated investing. The company’s free features include automatic savings, financial health monitoring, budgeting, detailed spending reports, and Albert Instant, which offers customers an advance against their paychecks to help avoid overdrafts. Albert is backed by investors General Atlantic, along with 500 Startups, Financial Solutions Lab, CapitalG, Portag3, and QED. Yinon Ravid and Andrzej Baraniak established the fintech company in Culver City, California in 2015.

Toast is an all-in-one point-of-sale and restaurant management platform for businesses in the foodservice and hospitality space. As a cloud-based system built specifically for restaurants, Toast offers advanced functionality including tableside ordering, quick menu modifications, real-time enterprise reporting, online ordering, and labor management on an easy-to-use interface. The company powers successful restaurants by combining point of sale, front of house, back of house, and guest-facing technology with an unequaled commitment to customer success. It enables the community of restaurateurs to delight guests and thrive.

Flow provides a turn-key platform for e-commerce companies to go global, capturing international demand for their products. The platform enables merchants to simply configure their cross-border supply-chain requirements and immediately fulfill their overseas demand. Flow can be used by e-commerce companies of any size and both as a complete, end-to-end solution or as a modular unbundled product. Using the Flow platform the experience of buying and selling internationally is as easy as domestic for both merchants and consumers.

At Voca.ai, we’re passionate about helping companies deliver happier customers at scale, through natural, intelligent and empathetic spoken conversations, delivered by our extraordinary AI-powered and EQ-enabled Voca Agents. We’re dedicated to creating a win-win collaboration between humans and AI, freeing up human agents to be their creative best, so great customer experience (CX) and great employee experience (EX) can work hand-in-hand. With simple integration and self optimized algorithms, Voca Agents can be implemented in a flash, without loads of data and complex processes. Voca is able to handle the most prevalent workflows, using end-to-end speech neural models. This allows us to automate a vast amount of conversations – from outbound to inbound calls – within an array of industries. Voca’s Virtual Agents sound so natural that your customers will never know the difference.

Next Insurance is an online-based insurance company for entrepreneurs and small businesses. The company's services feature claims investigation as soon as possible, with many being decision within 48 hours that helps its clients to get transparency. They use technology to eliminate agents and other expensive extras and give prices that are incredibly affordable. It also offers policies to a range of small businesses from general contractors to personal trainers.  Next Insurance was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California..

MishiPay has  invented a new retail payment technology, which allows shoppers in retail stores to use their app to simply pick up a product they want to buy, scan the barcode with their phone, pay within the phone and just walk out. No more queuing or waiting at the Point of Sale.

Drum is a new gig economy platform that aims to improve the lives of millions. Set to launch in the third quarter of 2019, Drum allows any business to stand up a sales force faster and easier than it is to launch an AdWords campaign.

Clip is the leading commerce and digital payment platform that is empowering businesses in Mexico to interact and transact with its consumers more effectively through innovative technologies, best-in-class customer service, and the ability to accept all payment methods digitally.

Pilot offers bookkeeping, tax, and CFO services for growing businesses. The company's platform offers accurate financial reports and automated accrual basis bookkeeping to produce on-demand and error-free reports, enabling businesses to reduce time, cost, and labor associated with traditional outsourced bookkeeping practices.

Cloud Elements is a developer of an API integration platform used to integrate and manage digital products and applications. It features end-to-end functions such as data transformations, API provisioning, usage monitoring, events, and notifications for tracking and troubleshooting that enables developers to integrate multiple apps into different CRM and marketing automation platforms in an easy manner. Cloud Elements was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

American Express Ventures is American Express's strategic investment group. They invest in innovative startups in order to enhance American Express’s core capabilities and accelerate the company’s efforts in consumer commerce and B2B services.

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