Citi Ventures

Democratizing financial technology with a suite of API-based solutions

FinTech Infrastructure

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.

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.

Socure offers an automated machine learning and predictive analytics platform for enterprises to identify and prevent fraud. It offers a modular design and multiple products including anti-money laundering (AML) capabilities, through a single API. The platform primarily caters to industries that face a risk from “thin-file” clients, such as e-commerce firms, retailers, and lenders. The company has three offices in the US and one in Chennai, India. Socure uses a range of information sources to authenticate people including email, phone, address, social media, etc. from over 310 sources, and in August 2020 reported that its platform reduced fraud rates by about 80% and manual review costs by around 90%. The company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19717">acquired Berbix </a>, a platform that verifies identities by scanning IDs in real-time, in June 2023, and integrated Berbix in version 3.0 of its Predictive Document Verification service (DocV 3.0). Moreover, in July 2021, Socure launched what it claims to be the first identity verification and fraud solution built specifically for the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) industry. The solution is built on the Socure ID+ platform and leverages deep identity and transaction data used by more than 100 BNPL providers, alternative payment providers, fintechs, banks, and credit card issuers. Key customers and partnerships Socure’s customer base has grown to around 1,800 enterprises as of July 2023 across several industries, including financial services, government, gaming, healthcare, and telecom, among others. Socure noted that its platform was used by four of the top five banks, 13 of the top 15 card issuers, and over 250 FinTechs, as of March 2023.Socure <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/20255">partnered with digital lending platform MeridianLink </a>in July 2023. The solution combined Socure ID+ with MeridianLink One to help Meridian's customers, including credit unions, banks, and FinTechs, verify identities to onboard clients. Funding and financialsSocure <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16937">received a USD 95 million </a>three-year credit facility from J.P. Morgan, Silicon Valley Bank, and KeyBanc Capital Markets, in March 2023. The funds were earmarked to strengthen the company’s financial position and for potential future acquisitions.

DriveWealth provides an API-based white-label infrastructure platform for FinTechs to access the US securities market and build FinTechs. The platform can be used by online stock brokers, digital advisors, and mobile online financial service companies to embed investment experiences on their mobile apps to serve retail investors. It runs on the company’s patent-pending “Fracker” technology, which is cloud-based and provides the ability to invest in real-time fractional shares on a dollar equivalent basis.In February 2022, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8311">the company announced plans to offer cryptocurrency trading </a>access to partners and retail investors. The roll-out was to take place through the launch of two subsidiaries, DriveLiquidity and DriveDigital, together with the acquisition of the crypto firm, Crypto-Systems.As of May 2022, DriveWealth powered over 100 customers including Block, Revolut, GBM, and Navy Federal, which provided millions of retail investors in over 150 countries access to the US securities markets. It also partnered with Access Softek in 2020 to bring its offering to community banks and credit unions. Drivewealth’s revenue and number of customers reportedly rose 100% YoY in 2021, as international business grew 140% YoY. The company has also expanded its senior management team with several C-level hires in April/May 2022, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10316">including Terry Angelos (CEO) </a>, Gayathri Rajan (CPO), and Harshal Deo (CTO). DriveWealth raised <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5083">USD 450 million in a Series D funding round in August 2021 </a>, co-led by Insight Partners and Accel, at a USD 2.85 billion valuation. The round came less than a year after the company raised USD 56.7 million in Series C funding in October 2020. The newly raised funds were earmarked for product and service expansions, recruitment, and technology innovations, as well as in launching self-clearing while entering strategic acquisitions and partnerships. Following the funding, Drivewealth partnered with two Latin American investment platforms, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6007">Grupo Bursátil Mexicano (GBM) </a>and Racional, to improve access to the US stock markets for Mexican and Chilean investors, respectively. It also <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6670">partnered with Chipper Cash </a>to offer US stock market access to Ugandan investors.

UK-based PPRO offers payment infrastructure through a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for payment service providers (PSPs), banks, and enterprises, to build payment gateways, payment processing, and merchant acquirer services.The infrastructure integrates localized payment methods, which enable cross border transactions and allows merchants to expand their operations globally. In essence, PPRO looks to mitigate the barriers to international trade caused by the fragmentation of payment systems, as popular payment methods tend to vary by country.PPRO noted that the transaction volume through its platform rose 60% year-over-year in 2020 to reach USD 11 billion in processed payments.The company expanded its operations to Indonesia and Singapore during 2020, and <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8970">subsequently acquired Alpha Fintech </a>, a cloud-based digital payment infrastructure provider primarily focusing on Asia Pacific (APAC), in March 2022. PPRO maintained its expansion momentum in the region in 2023, by broadening <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16445?industryIds=53">its presence to South Korea </a>, in February, and <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18050">partnering with NIPL </a>to enable access to UPI (Indian real-time payment system for cross-border transactions) in April.Key customers and partnershipsAs of March 2021, PPRO had over 100 large global customers, including PayPal, Mastercard Payment Gateway Services, Stripe, and Citi.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/30123">May 2024</a>, PPRO partnered with Denmark-based digital banking platform Lunar and Sweden-based mobile payment provider Swish to enhance payment capabilities and expand product reach in Sweden. In September 2022, The company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13080">partnered with Australian BNPL solutions provider ZIP</a>, as well as with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13262?industryIds=53">the most popular e-wallets in Malaysia</a> – GrabPay and Touch ‘n Go – to expand its global operations. In September 2022, The company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13080">partnered with Australian BNPL solutions provider ZIP </a>, as well as with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13262?industryIds=53">the most popular e-wallets in Malaysia </a>– GrabPay and Touch ‘n Go – to expand its global operations.Funding and financialsIn March 2021, PPRO raised USD 90 million in a funding round led by JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Eldridge shortly after receiving unicorn status through a USD 180 million funding round in January 2021. Alongside the funding, PPRO also partnered with JPM to enable the bank’s credit card business to gain more global traction as a payment method and to help JPM’s business banking customers expand in more markets worldwide.

Data Infrastructure & Analytics

InfluxData specializes in time series database technology. Its primary product, InfluxDB, is a purpose-built database designed for handling time-stamped data. The company offers various deployment options for InfluxDB, including cloud-based services (InfluxDB Cloud Serverless and InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated) and self-managed solutions (InfluxDB Clustered and InfluxDB Edge). These products cater to various use cases in observability, real-time analytics, and IoT/IIoT applications.As a storage platform, InfluxDB provides a scalable solution for storing and analyzing time series data. The release of&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/33367">InfluxDB 3.0</a> supports unlimited cardinality and can handle metrics, events, and traces in a single data store. It uses the Apache Parquet file format for efficient data compression and storage. InfluxDB offers different pricing tiers based on deployment type. The cloud-based InfluxDB Cloud Serverless operates on a pay-as-you-go model with a free tier, while InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated provides a capacity-based pricing model for larger workloads requiring dedicated infrastructure. The self-managed InfluxDB Clustered option is priced-based on the total CPU/RAM in the configuration, offering enhanced control and security for on-premises or private cloud deployments.Key customers and partnershipsIn June 2024, InfluxData partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to launch Amazon Timestream for InfluxDB. This collaboration aimed to provide a managed service for the open-source InfluxDB time series database on AWS, allowing AWS customers to run InfluxDB natively within the AWS Management Console and offering AWS infrastructure scalability, reliability, and security without the need for self-management.&nbsp;

Kinetica is the creator of a real-time analytical database designed for complex time-series and spatial workloads. The database uses native vectorization, where data is stored in fixed-size blocks called vectors, and query operations are performed on these vectors in parallel, enabling faster query execution and improved performance. Independent benchmarks showed that Kinetica is 5X faster than Google BigQuery and 12X faster than ClickHouse. The platform supports multiple genres of analytics across graph, time-series, and spatial data, allowing organizations to analyze sensor and machine data in real-time. In September 2023, Kinetica integrated native Large Language Model capabilities to enable natural language data analysis on real-time structured data within customers' environments. The database connects to various business intelligence tools like Tableau, Spotfire, PowerBI, ESRI, DBeaver, and Grafana through Postgres Wireline compatibility or ODBC/JDBC connectors. The company saw significant growth in 2023, achieving 90% Annual Recurring Revenue growth and a Net Dollar Retention Rate of 163%.
Key customers and partnerships
Kinetica serves major organizations across various sectors. In the public sector, key customers include the US Air Force and the US Postal Service. In the private sector, the company works with financial services firms, telecommunications companies, automotive companies, and sports organizations. In June 2023, Kinetica expanded its partner ecosystem by adding strategic global systems integrators. The company maintains technology partnerships with cloud providers, as well as hardware companies.

Datavolo offers a cloud-based, low-code data pipeline platform designed to capture and process multimodal data, including unstructured data, provide dataflow infrastructure without requiring custom coding, and enable the rapid creation, management, and observability of data pipelines for AI systems. The platform includes an intuitive visual interface, enabling users to design and deploy data pipelines through a drag-and-drop process that translates visual designs into real-time code.Key customers and partnershipsIn April 2024, Datavolo partnered with Vectara to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of RAG applications.

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 Datameer is an end-to-end analytics platform that allows analysts and data engineers to transform data sets, enabling them to find, explore, reuse, and create new data sets in a short amount of time. It combines SQL and no-code to be user-friendly to everyone, uses the Modern Snowflake-centric Data Architecture, and disposes of trusted data sets to deliver confident analytics to businesses. Datameer has customers in the healthcare, financial services, retail, tech, IoT, media and telecom, and travel and transportation industries, such as ScotiaBank, JCPenney, RCB, and First American.
 
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 Matillion specializes in data transformation, allowing users to transform data into usable information in the cloud to make successful business decisions. The company offers two products, Matillion ETL and Matillion Data Loader. The former enables the user to load, transform, and sync data effectively, while the latter offers speed, ease of use, and is economical. Matillion enables cloud data warehouses to be integrated into Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, and Microsoft Azure Synapse. It also unlocks the value of akehouses and offers integrations, universal connectivity, and security. The company is headquartered in the UK with an office in the US.
 
 
 
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New data privacy regulations have opened up space for a new wave of compliance-focused startups.

Digital Privacy Tools

Securiti emerged out of stealth in 2019 with the launch of its platform Privacy.ai, which enables companies to meet the compliance requirements of regulations such as GDPR and CCPA. The solutions are AI-driven automating processes such as data discovery, data subject rights management, and consent management, among others. The bot can also provide answers to queries and carry out tasks upon request through a natural language interface. Securiti.ai’s platform can integrate with 1,000+ data sources and comes pre-built with templates for privacy regulations to identify data, in line with regulatory requirements.In October 2022, the company launched Data Controls Cloud—a solution that acts as a centralized command center for businesses to monitor and control digital privacy workflows across typically siloed enterprise tools.Key customers and partnershipsThe company caters to notable organizations across various industries, including Cisco, Alaska Airlines, Skechers, DELL, Toyota, and Comcast.Funding and financialsIn October 2022, the company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13499">raised USD 75 million</a> in a Series C funding round led by Owl Rock Capital. In March 2023, Securiti <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17068">received undisclosed investments</a> for Capital One Ventures and Citi Ventures. The new funding was to be funneled towards bolstering Securiti’s DataControls Cloud platform.During FY2022, Securiti reported 4x growth in total contract value, more than tripled its annual recurring revenue and had plans to double its 370-strong workforce by 2023.

MOSTLY AI is a startup that uses AI to provide a structured synthetic data platform that creates data sets that look original but do not have the original personal data points by automatically learning statistical patterns, structures, and variations from the original data. This helps companies to freely process, analyze, and share anonymous data while being compliant with privacy regulations such as the GDPR, CCPA, and CPRA. MOSTLY AI 2.0 is the first synthetic data platform that automatically synthesizes complex data structures and can be deployed on-premise or in private cloud infrastructures. This also allows organizations to use sensitive data in cloud environments while eliminating data privacy issues. The synthetic data can be used for advanced analytics and AI training, including predictive algorithms, fraud detection, pricing models, and software testing.The company claims that its synthetic data technology can save larger companies over USD 10 million every year on data provisioning and internal overheads as well as accelerate data availability by 85%. The company reportedly became the first synthetic data provider to achieve an ISO certification in November 2021.Key customers and partnershipsMOSTLY AI serves several Fortune 100 banks, insurers, and telecommunication companies. As of September 2024, these included Citi, the city of Vienna, Merkur, Telefonica, Merkur, Nvidia, and Erste.&nbsp;MOSTLY AI partnered with data and analytics firm Databricks in April 2024 to integrate its synthetic data generation with the latter’s data processing infrastructure, providing customers a seamless solution for handling data at scale.

The company provides automated data governance solutions for organizations and integrates with existing enterprise applications. The platform is used by leading companies in the industries of finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. Some of the platform features include assigning access rights, implementing purpose-specific controls, and performing encryption or redaction on data to keep sensitive information secure.By leveraging the platform’s governance and security features and access controls, an organization can accelerate compliance with regulations such as GDPR. The company also has partnerships with compliance solution providers such as BigID to complement their privacy offerings.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsThe company’s platform is used by leading companies in the industries of finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. The company claims notable companies such as Swedbank, Thomson Reuters, and Instacart among its customer base.Immuta has a long-standing partnership with Databricks, a data infrastructure firm, and provides data security and access controls to users of the Databricks Unity Catalog governance platform.

Property owners and real estate companies are able to handle larger portfolios while offering faster and cheaper services.

Residential PropTech

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 DocuSign offers eSignature tools to facilitate the management of electronic agreements. These tools enable users to upload and send documents that require signatures, with other features such as checking the status, sending reminders, and storing documents online. The company offers its services to many sectors, including real estate, healthcare and insurance.&nbsp;
 
 
 For the real estate sector, DocuSign automates many transaction processes by providing electronic signing of documents, online notarizations, and a&nbsp; collaboration workspace for the relevant parties (buyers, sellers, agents, etc.). DocuSign claims it helps the property sector reduce paper costs and speeds up the process, while reporting that around 82% of documents sent through its platform get signed within a day.&nbsp;
 
 
 DocuSign has a specific plan for real estate purposes. The plan comes in three different tiers: Real Estate Starter, Real Estate, and Realtors, priced at USD 15, USD 45, and USD 35 per month, respectively.
 
 
 In May 2024, DocuSign 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29171">
 announced its agreement to acquire
 </a>
 Lexion, a contract management platform, for USD 165 million in cash, subject to customary adjustments. Through this acquisition, DocuSign planned to leverage Lexion&rsquo;s AI-based contract management technology and expertise to strengthen its position in the Intelligent Agreement Management (IAM) space and enhance DocuSign&rsquo;s IAM platform capabilities.
 
 
 DocuSign went public in 2018 and was valued at around USD 4.4 billion at the time of its listing.
 
 
 For FY2024, DocuSign reported total revenue of USD 2.8 billion (up 10% YoY), compared to a total revenue of USD 2.5 billion recorded for FY2023. The company reported a non-GAAP net income of USD 622.9 million for FY2023, compared to a non-GAAP net income of USD 418.9 million recorded a year ago.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of January 2024, the company had over 1 billion worldwide users since 2003 and over 1.5 million paying customers.
 
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Notarize provides an online notarization service and real estate closing platform. It connects clients (individuals and businesses) with notary agents via live video calls to sign and complete the notarization process remotely. In June 2023, the company launched <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19615">a digital identity verification platform, Proof</a>, which offers verification identity using biometric tech auditable identification with cryptographic evidence to issue digital certificates.&nbsp;Meanwhile, the real estate closing platform allows relevant parties to electronically review, sign, and notarize documents remotely. The platform can support different types of closings, cash payments, mortgages, refinancing, or direct buying by startups. Users only need to upload the documents, and the platform will prepare everything for the relevant parties to sign electronically. Many digital title and escrow providers have partnered with Notarize to provide online notarization services.The cost for notarizing personal documents is USD 25, with an additional fee of USD 10 for each extra seal required.Key customers and partnershipsIt partnered with Adobe Sign to integrate its services into its platform. This allowed users to initiate notarizations through video calls directly within Adobe Sign, cutting down the process from hours or days to minutes. Organizations can use their own notaries or access Notarize’s 24/7 service, aiming to speed up transactions, lower costs, and enhance security and user experience. Similarly, it integrated its services into HelloPrenups’ platform in February 2024.

HomeLight initially started as an agent matching platform for home buyers and sellers, but has expanded its product portfolio to provide title and escrow, home estimation, home loans, and other services.For the agent matching service, buyers and sellers answer online questionnaires to determine their specific needs. The platform then uses an algorithm to crunch historical transaction data to find the most suitable agents in its database, which included over 30,000 agents as of July 2024. The platform typically lists up to three agents for buyers/sellers to select from and offers a consultation service to refine the selection further and ensure clients get the most suitable agents.HomeLight also provides a trade-in service, where it will guarantee to pay a certain price for the client’s current home. This way, clients do not need to worry about home sale contingency (a new home transaction is contingent on the sale of an existing home) when they want to purchase a new home. In addition, clients will get additional cash (less any selling-related costs and trade-in fees) if HomeLight can sell their old homes in the market for more than the guaranteed prices (i.e., clients can get the full market value).The platform is available for free to buyers and sellers, but the agent matching service charges a standard referral fee of 25% to the gross commission of agents when they get selected. The platform stated that its recommendations are transparent and based solely on the agents’ performance metrics. In August 2020, HomeLight acquired a transaction management tool, Disclosures.io, that enables real estate professionals to manage transactions as well as market and sell homes in one place. In June 2022, HomeLight acquired Accept, a property financing platform, for an undisclosed amount. Through the acquisition, HomeLight leveraged Accept’s tech-based mortgage solution to offer clients a contingency-free transaction and provide homebuyers with pre-qualified mortgages to facilitate cash offers.The company expected its revenue to exceed USD 300 million in 2021, triple that of 2020. HomeLight’s Cash Offer, the service that allows homebuyers to make upfront cash offers through its certified agents, grew by 500% YoY in transaction volume and achieved USD 3 billion in combined referred transaction value with Accept.Inc in Q1 2022.Key customers and partnershipsAs of September 2021, the company had served over one million customers.

AI-based solutions for evolving digital threats

Next-gen Cybersecurity

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 Netskope provides cloud security solutions for enterprises that include cloud-delivered secure web gateways (SWGs), cloud access security brokers (CASB), and other solutions to manage access to cloud workloads. These solutions help companies monitor the use of cloud applications and identify suspicious behavior. Netskope&rsquo;s tools attempt to replace legacy solutions such as VPNs. The company introduced a unified solution in 2019 called &ldquo;NewEdge,&rdquo; combining its security technology offerings and providing them under secure access service edge (SASE) architecture. The rollout followed the acquisition of New Edge Labs in 2019 for an undisclosed amount, in line with its strategy of acquiring smaller startups to fuel expansion. Netskope also acquired Sift Security in 2018, which provides a machine learning-based tool to detect and respond to threats to cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) applications such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. Netskope joined the cohort of Solista&rsquo;s Zero Trust Alliance in July 2021, to assist Australian organizations in developing a toolset and framework in assessing their zero trust readiness while detecting and remediating internal and external threats.
 
 
 NewEdge is delivered using data centers in 40 regions worldwide including North America, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, and Asia Pacific, enabling a low-latency cloud security offering. As of March 2021, the company had invested in excess of USD 100 million to build the NewEdge infrastructure. The company claimed that its tools protected more than 10% of Microsoft Office 365&rsquo;s commercial users as of the same date.
 
 
 Netskope&rsquo;s product offerings were backed by more than 100 global patents as of January 2023, and the company served more than 2,400 customers globally including more than 25 of the Fortune 100 companies. Furthermore the company has a total employee headcount of more than 2,500 in more than 40 countries.
 
 
 In April 2023 Netskope announced 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17658">
 the addition of a new software-defined wide area network
 </a>
 (SD-WAN) service to its platform, designed to provide enterprises with the ability to ensure secure access to their infrastructure from endpoint devices in any location. Netskope planned to offer the new SD-WAN alongside its existing SSE product to provide a unified SASE client, which it claimed was an industry first.
 
 
 In June 2023, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19604">
 Netskope updated its secure service edge (SSE) platform
 </a>
 to help address data leakage risks of generative AI applications like ChatGPT. The updated platform allows organizations to track usage of generative AI applications, manage access controls, and automatically prevents leakage of sensitive information.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In July 2021, Netskope partnered with cybersecurity company, Chillisoft, to accelerate sales for cloud-based SASE protection to 1,250 resellers and integrators, including more than 100 managed service providers (MSPs) across New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
 
 
 Netskope 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10845">
 acquired the IoT security startup
 </a>
 WootCloud in June 2022 integrating WootCloud&rsquo;s HyperContext Security platform with its Intelligent Security Service Edge (SSE) platform to expand its SSE and Zero Trust capabilities. This was followed by the 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12036">
 acquisition of cloud networking vendor
 </a>
 Infiot in August 2022 to deliver an integrated single-vendor SASE platform to its customers by leveraging Infiot&rsquo;s technologies to offer a uniform security and quality of experience (QoE) policies to the Netskope Borderless WAN.
 
 
 Netskope 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15413">
 partnered 
 </a>
 with Stellar Cyber, a open extended detection and response (Open XDR) startup in December 2022, to provide a joint solution that incorporates rich user-centric data to improve control and visibility of risks and threats across incident investigations conducted by Security Operation Center (SOC) analysts.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In January 2023, the company 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15521">
 raised USD 401 million in convertible notes
 </a>
 led by Morgan Stanley Tactical Value. The funds were utilized to accelerate platform development and expand its go-to-market strategy.
 
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Stream.Security, founded in 2020 and based in Israel, is a cloud security platform provider formerly known as Lightlytics. The company specializes in cloud detection and response (CDR) along with posture management services. It offers real-time security monitoring, threat detection, and configuration management through its CloudTwin technology, serving organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies.Stream.Security's platform operates by creating a real-time digital twin of an organization's cloud infrastructure to monitor and analyze the security implications of configuration changes. The system uses AI-powered analysis to identify threats and generate remediation steps for security flaws. Its platform reduces investigation time by providing automated attack timelines and blast radius graphs while eliminating the need for multiple security tools by combining SIEM, threat detection, and configuration management in one solution. The platform's agentless deployment can be completed in minutes, and it has demonstrated practical benefits such as reducing false positives.Key customers and partnershipsStream.Security’s notable customers include Sony Group, TiVo, RingCentral, TC Energy, Cato Networks, and PennyMac Financial Services.

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 Traceable AI offers a platform to secure cloud-native applications, APIs, and web applications. The platform provides end-to-end protection, helping developers detect code-level security issues and vulnerabilities during the development of cloud-native applications. The platform also provides protection during runtime through insights and behavioral analytics on usage activities derived using its proprietary machine learning technology, &ldquo;TraceAI.&rdquo; Additionally, Traceable&rsquo;s platform allows enterprises to inventory all of their APIs, detect threats, and apply API security best practices.
 
 
 As of May 2022, Traceable AI had an employee headcount of 85, and it intends to expand this to 400 to 500 within 2025. The company has a number of paying customers, including Informatica, Bullish, Digital Ocean, Zolve, and Houwzer.
 
 
 In May 2022, the company 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10141?industryIds=51">
 raised USD 60 million
 </a>
 in a Series B funding round led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). The round valued the company at more than USD 450 million. The funds were expected to be utilized to accelerate its growth by further investing in R&amp;D, expanding sales and marketing headcount, and increasing global sales.
 
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Buy Now, Pay Later

ChargeAfter operates a marketplace where consumers receive access to point-of-sale financing from multiple lenders. ChargeAfter’s financing can range between 6-48 months at 0% interest. The platform’s merchant footprint includes US retailers across the home appliances, furniture, mattresses, consumer electronics, and automotive verticals. In addition, ChargeAfter offers performance reporting and backend services for merchants to offer self-branded BNPL solutions. The company also integrates with major e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento. ChargeAfter reports an 85% approval rate and claims that merchants can increase average order values by 45% and sales by 30% using its platform.Key customers and partnershipsIn April 2021, ChargeAfter established a partnership with Quadpay (owned by Zip Co), in which it will offer the latter’s BNPL solutions its platform. In June 2021, it announced a similar partnership with the BNPL provider Splitit. I In April 2023, ChargeAfter announced its partnership with Canadian Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) provider Tabit to expand its network of merchants in Canada.Previous partnerships include that with Visa (July 2020), to roll out its installment plan solution through ChargeAfter’s US platform, while ChargeAfter integration with Cybersource, Visa’s global payment management platform. ChargeAfter also partnered with Visa in February 2020, granting their network of sellers, acquirers and issuing banks the option of distributing point of sale financing and credit instruments to ecommerce and instore sellers globally via the ChargeAfter platform.2) MUFG (June 2020), to equip global ecommerce and brick-and-mortar retailers with tools to approve more applications for POS financing from multiple lenders in real-time.Funding and financialsIn its most recent funding round ( <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9278">March 2022 </a>), ChargeAfter raised USD 44 million in a Series B funding round led by The Phoenix.

PayJoy offers financing options, including flexible payments on smartphone purchases and other lending products for underbanked communities across emerging markets. The platform allows users to buy a smartphone with an initial payment of 25% or 30% and split the rest weekly over a three-, six-, or nine-month payment period. PayJoy does not charge any late fees; if a payment is missed, the phone will be locked until a payment is made.Key customers and partnerships PayJoy has partnered with several smartphone manufacturers, including Transsion Group, TCL/Alcatel, D.Light, and Hisense (October 2019), and has extended existing collaboration with Samsung and LG to provide affordable smartphones to underbanked consumers on installment payment plans. Funding and financials The company raised USD 360 million in a <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21562">funding round </a>consisting of USD 150 million in Series C equity led by Warburg Pincus and debt funding of USD 210 million led by Citi in September 2023. The funds were earmarked to serve customers in existing markets and expand its geographic and product footprint. As of October 2023, PayJoy had provided over USD 2 billion in credit to more than eight million customers across several countries.

DeFacto offers flexible financing solutions to businesses, helping them purchase stocks and meet marketing expenses and B2B receivables. The platform’s BNPL service offers short-term financing options such as flexible payment options to finance their supplier payments and stock. DeFacto’s financing solution is a pay-as-you-go service where businesses finance what they need, when they need it. Funding and financials In July 2023, the company raised EUR 167 million (USD 183 million) in <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/20088">debt funding </a>from CitiGroup as the senior lender. The funds were allocated for the flexible financing needs of small and medium enterprises and to grow its business operations.

Making banking work, without the paperwork

Neobanks

Based in the UK, GoHenry is a neobank offering a prepaid debit card to children and teenagers through a mobile app and web portal. It also allows parents to track, allocate, and control funds of their children. The bank aims to empower and educate kids on spending and money management. In 2018, GoHenry expanded its offering to the US, and the account is insured up to USD 250,000 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), while in the UK, the funds are held in segregated accounts that cannot be accessed by GoHenry.Customers opening a GoHenry account are provided a 30-day free trial and subsequently charged GBP 3.99 per month for the Everyday plan, GBP 5.99 per month for the Plus plan, and GBP 9.99 per month for the Max plan. Features of the account are tailored according to the age and financial literacy of the child, and the app allows parents to set up weekly allowances as well as chores to reward their children once completed. It also lets parents set control limits, block cards, and get real-time notifications on transactions. Teens who are working can get their wages directly credited to the account and can also link the account to Apple Pay to make payments. GoHenry also has built-in “Money Missions” to educate children on various financial topics that increase in complexity according to their age. In addition, it pays GBP 20 or USD 30 for each user for successful referrals.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11544">July 2022</a>, GoHenry acquired <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/753076">Pixpay</a>, a French digital bank offering similar services, aimed at children over the age of 10, for an undisclosed amount. It operated in France and Spain and had ~200,000 customers as of the same date. GoHenry commented that it had no plans to merge the two companies' brands and that the leadership teams and the headquarters would remain unchanged. Through the acquisition, it aimed to accelerate the growth and expansion of the two companies through the combined expertise. Moreover, Pixpay aimed to launch its services in Italy and Germany later in 2022.GoHenry was acquired by Acorns, a micro-investing platform, in an all-equity deal <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17496">in April 2023</a>. Following the acquisition, GoHenry would operate as GoHenry by Acorns in the US, while it would continue to operate under the GoHenry and PixPay brands in the UK and Europe.Key customers and partnershipsIts banking services are provided in partnership with IDT Financial Services in the UK and Community Federal Savings Bank in the US.In March 2022, GoHenry had more than 4.6 million paid subscribers.Funding and financialsThe company raised <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13736">USD 55 million in October 2022,</a> with participation from existing investors Edison Partners and Revaia (formerly Gaia), and new investor Nexi. It had geared the fresh capital to develop an individual savings account (ISA) and a new gamified educational experience called Money Missions, which it aimed to leverage to expand geographically in Europe.

BlueVine offers banking services to small businesses via a web portal and mobile app. The company offers both checking accounts and loans, in addition to direct payment services.The company’s checking accounts, inclusive of a debit card, do not require a minimum deposit or balance and do not charge monthly service fees. The company offers a 2.00% APY on checking accounts with balances up to USD 250,000. Moreover, customers have the option to choose between checking accounts that offer FDIC insurance up to USD 3 million or the standard USD 250,000. Under its credit segment, BlueVine offers invoice factoring, lines of credit, and term loans. Invoice factoring is offered for values up to USD 5 million, with interest rates starting at 0.25% per week. Meanwhile, lines of credit are offered for values up to USD 250,000, with interest rates starting at 4.8% bi-annually, with durations of six months or one year. In addition, it introduced <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/23835">BlueVine Premier</a> in November 2023, a new subscription plan priced at USD 95 per month. This plan offers Business Checking account users a high yield, along with 50% discounts on most standard payment fees, priority customer support, and additional benefits such as access to commercial services typically reserved for large corporations.Key customers and partnershipsThe company offers its banking services in partnership with Coastal Community Bank and Celtic Bank.In August 2021, the company ventured into the insurance segment by partnering with Next Insurance, a small business insurance provider, to offer insurance policies to BlueVine’s customers. This includes coverage for general liability, professional liability, and workers’ compensation, among others.As of December 2023, the company served over 500,000 small business owners, managed over USD 1 billion in deposits, and issued USD 14 billion in loans.Funding and financialsIn September 2020, the company received USD 75 million in funding from Atalaya Capital Management, in the form of a revolving credit facility. The funding was expected to be used to further enhance its product offering, particularly within the credit space.

Greenwood provides digital banking services via a mobile app catering specifically to individuals and businesses from African American and Latino backgrounds. The company was founded by civil rights leader Andrew J. Young; rapper and activist Michael Render; and Ryan Glover, founder of the Bounce TV Network.The neobank provides savings and checking accounts inclusive of debit cards, which can be used at over 40,000 ATMs, fee-free. It also facilitates peer-to-peer transfers and mobile check deposits and allows customers to integrate their debit cards with digital wallets such as Apple, Samsung, and Android Pay. The company also reports not charging hidden fees or overdraft fees. Additionally, the company introduced <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24589">Greenwood Invest</a>, a stock and ETF investing app, providing access to over 5,000 stocks and ETFs. It also allows customers to start investing with just 1 USD through fractional shares.Greenwood <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18148">acquired Kinly </a>, a neobank serving the African American community, in April 2023 for an undisclosed amount. The transaction consolidates two of the largest neobanks serving this community, with Greenwood being able to extend its services to over 300,000 Kinly customers.Moreover, the company made several other acquisitions to better serve the African American community and help facilitate the building of generational wealth. It acquired <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10297">The Gathering Spot </a>(in May 2022), a private membership network catering to young professionals and entrepreneurs, and <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11263">Valence </a>(in June 2022), a recruitment and professional development services. It provides access to these facilities to its members through a membership program called “Elevate".Key customers and partnershipsThe neobank does not possess its own banking license and provides its products in partnership with Coastal Community Bank. As of November 2022, Greenwood had over 100,000 banking customers and more than a million community members across The Gathering Spot and Vance networks.Fundings and financialsGreenwood raised <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/14952">USD 45 million in Series B </a>funding in November 2022 led by Pendulum, making it the largest investor on a dollar basis. The round also witnessed participation from other notable investors such as Cohen Circle, NextEra Energy, Bank of America, Citi Ventures, and Wells Fargo. It did not disclose the use of proceeds.

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

Tealium offers a unified customer data platform (CDP) that gathers data from a multitude of touchpoints (web, social media, mobile, POS terminals, and IOT applications). It is then enriched and analyzed, providing marketers with customer profiles to help deliver targeted marketing campaigns.. In July 2022, the firm launched a <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11877">CDP solution specialized for pharmaceuticals</a> which it claimed to be the industry-first HIPPA-compliant CDP. In January 2023, the company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16164">launched iQ Events,</a> a no-code solution that enables users to better gather and analyze zero and first-party data. In December 2023, Tealium launched a tool called <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24732">Insights </a>to improve business monitoring.Tealium claims to be a pioneer in introducing customization options, which as of August 2024, consisted of 1,300+ built-in integrations supported by the platform allowing Tealium’s data to be shared across marketing and sales teams. For instance, in July 2021, Tealium introduced a new free add-on to its platform known as Functions, through which firms can customize their existing integrations in order to better fit specific customer use cases. In January 2022, research by Forrester claimed that Tealium’s platform results in a 363% ROI over three years and an 8.5% increase in campaign engagement.&nbsp;&nbsp;Tealium also claimed to have&nbsp; crossed the USD 100-million revenue mark in the fiscal year for 2020.Key Customers and PartnershipsAs of July 2022, the firm served more than 850 business users including New Balance, Barclays, Hotwire, and Bed bath &amp; beyond.&nbsp;In June 2022, Tealium partnered with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11042">Merckle</a> to add identity resolution to its platform, enabling cookieless customer identification with the flexibility to add up to 10,000+ offline attributes of customers. In November 2022, the firm partnered with identity providers including Epsilon, Acxiom, Merkle, Okta, and Neustar and launched an <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/14875">Identity Partner ecosystem</a>, enabling users to activate first and third-party data on Tealium’s CDP platform to create enriched customer profiles to deliver personalized experiences. In July 2024, Tealium entered a strategic collaboration agreement with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/31570">Amazon Web Services (AWS)</a> to accelerate global customer data and AI innovation.

Braze (formerly known as Appboy) is a customer engagement platform that allows marketers to connect to its customer data to map out the customer journey and deliver customized experiences via many channels including email, SMS, and web-based push notifications. Braze offers machine learning-powered behavioral analytics tools to provide insights that facilitate dynamic customer segmentation and personalized customer campaigns. In July 2022, the firm launched <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11580">Braze Canvas Flow</a>, a customer journey orchestration tool enabling brands to build multi-channel customer experiences. In June 2023, the firm announced the beta launch of <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19778">Braze Instant Insights,</a> a suite of Snowflake Native Apps on Snowflake Marketplace. In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/34074">September 2024,</a> Braze unveiled an AI agent and other product innovations to improve the customer experience.According to a study by Forrester (in October 2021), Braze’s customers are reported to experience an 840% return on investment (ROI) delivered over three years and a three-month payback period.&nbsp;In March 2023, the company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17481?industryIds=62">acquired North Star,</a> its exclusive reseller in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), to have direct presence in the ANZ market, as well as the benefit of the North Star team's local market knowledge.Key customers and partnershipsBy September 2024, 2,100+ brands were reported to be using Braze’s platform, including HBO, Dominos, Roku, IBM,&nbsp; and Sephora.Braze’s platform also offers a range of integrations and verified partners connecting its platform to the rest of a firm’s marketing stack. In 2021 alone, the firm added many partners and integrations to its platform, including Adobe, Amperity, Rudder Stack, and Shopify.

Platforms to make the most of cloud infrastructure

Cloud Optimization Tools

Pepperdata provides a cloud-based platform for continuous, real-time, and automated cost optimization solutions specifically designed for Kubernetes and big data environments.The company specializes in enhancing the performance of cloud-based data systems, particularly on platforms like Amazon EMR and EKS. According to the company, its technology allows organizations to achieve significant cost savings (up to 47%) without requiring any changes to application code or manual tuning.&nbsp;Pepperdata’s flagship offering, Capacity Optimizer, continuously monitors and adjusts the performance to enable cloud cost savings and cluster efficiency by maximizing resource utilization based on actual demand, deploying autoscaling solutions in real time for adding new instances, and reclaiming capacity from over-provisioned applications. Further, the platform offers a single-pane-of-glass visibility for comparison and observation of application-level metrics, along with optimized recommendations for increasing efficiency.Pepperdata operates a direct sales model.Key customers and partnershipsPepperdata’s customer base includes enterprises with large and highly-scaled clusters. Some notable clients are Citibank, T-Mobile, Autodesk, Securonix, and Royal Bank of Canada.

Immuta provides an automated platform that can be integrated with existing enterprise applications for data governance and security.Immuta’s data security platform integrates data discovery, security, and detection for a unified view of the data posture. It continuously scans cloud environments, allowing users to tag and classify data, creates policies for protection, and prioritizes and addresses risks to improve data security posture management. Further, users can write data policies in plain language, which are then automatically enforced in query time natively to accelerate compliance with regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA.Several notable features of the platform include automated, dynamic access controls, zero-trust architecture, encryption and redaction, and differential privacy.Immuata operates a direct sales model.Key customers and partnershipsImmuta is used by companies in the finance, healthcare, public, technology, media, and manufacturing sectors. Some notable customers are Mercedes Benz Group, Sony, Thomson Reuters, US Customs and Border Protection, ModMed, and Roche.Immuta has several technology alliances (Snowflake, Databricks, Starburst, and Okta) and cloud integrations (AWS, Google BigQuery, Microsoft Azure) to aid enterprises simplify its operations and derive value from data.

Harness is a cloud-based end-to-end software delivery platform that provides cloud cost management (CCM), among other modules.Harness CCM offers a holistic set of features to facilitate cost optimization of the development pipeline. It provides a single customizable dashboard to unify data and insights across multiple departments and cloud vendors. Further, it delivers automated anomaly detection and resource allocation to optimize continuous delivery (CD) workflows and allows for seamless integration with existing monitoring tools for an overview of cloud spend.In <a href="http://v">January 2024</a>, Harness acquired Armory, a continuous delivery platform company, for USD 7 million, with plans to integrate some of Armory’s technology into its products. Furthermore, in <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29964">May 2024</a>, it acquired Split Software, a company specializing in feature management and experimentation, for an undisclosed sum. Harness aimed to integrate Split's feature management and experimentation capabilities into its software delivery platform to offer a comprehensively integrated solution that allows software teams to build, deploy, test, and refine software features efficiently and effectively.Harness operates a consumption-based sales model with pricing based on the annual cloud spend.Key customers and partnershipsHarness CCM’s clientele ranges from individuals to large-scale enterprises across various industries, including healthcare, IT, finance, service, and SaaS. Notable customers include Synopsys, Relativity, Discover Dollar, and Carvana.Harness collaborates with many industry leaders to ensure wide service provision and integrations with various tools and platforms. Some of its key technology partners are HashiCorp, Benchmark, and Insight.

Building future-ready applications in the cloud

Cloud-native Tech

Harness is a software delivery platform that provides tools to build, test, deploy, and maintain software and applications. It claims to be the first software delivery platform to use AI to simplify DevOps processes.Harness offers a holistic DevOps platform that simplifies and accelerates the software delivery process. It includes features like continuous verification, feature flags, smart variables, and advanced analytics and supports multi-cloud and hybrid environments. Harness stands out with its machine learning-driven verification, ensuring reliable and high-quality software releases for organizations of all sizes.Harness offers its products as a subscription-based service.In 2023, Harness acquired OverOps, a software analytics company, and Propelo, a provider of real-time engineering metrics. In 2022, Harness acquired ChaosNative, a solutions provider for engineering and cloud-native reliability. The company continues to operate separately. Harness also acquired open-source continuous integration company Drone.io in 2020. Drone.io still operates independently.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25477">January 2024 </a>, Harness acquired the assets of Armory, a continuous delivery platform company, for USD 7 million. Harness plans to integrate some of Armory’s technology into its products.Harness also acquired Split Software in <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29964">May 2024</a> to integrate Split's feature management and experimentation capabilities into its own software delivery platform, offering an integrated solution that allows software teams to build, deploy, test, and refine software features.Key customers and partnershipsHarness has hundreds of customers in industries such as IT, finance, health, service, and SaaS. Customers include Siemens, Kroger, Vodafone, LexisNexis, PicPay, Shipt, Synopsys, Rakuten Card, Ulta Beauty, SquareSpace, Ancestry, The Warehouse Group, and Genentech.Harness’ partners include Google Cloud, Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Insight, Jems, HashiCorp, Ahead, Altoros, Benchmark, Digital Architects Zurich, Grid Dynamics, and Lucernys.

Docker, Inc. is a technology company developing productivity tools centered around Docker, a software container platform that automates the deployment of code inside containers.Docker, Inc's major commercial products include Docker Hub, a central repository for containers, and Docker Desktop, a GUI application that enables Windows and Mac users to manage containers.Docker's ease of use, portability, resource efficiency, scalability, and strong ecosystem has made it a popular solution for deploying and managing applications in various environments.Docker has a subscription-based sales model. Docker also collaborates with various channel partners, including technology resellers, system integrators, and value-added distributors to expand its reach.Moreover, Docker has made several strategic acquisitions to enhance its capabilities: AtomicJar (2023), Nestybox (2022), SocketPlane (2015), and Tutum (2015), among others.Key customers and partnershipsAs of December 2022, the platform was used by more than 18 million developers. As of March 2022, the company served more than 56,000 commercial customers, including Adobe, Netflix, PayPal, Verizon, and Target.In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27771">March 2024</a>, Docker expanded its partnership with Red Hat to integrate Testcontainers Cloud into the Red Hat OpenShift platform. This partnership aimed to streamline the process of building cloud-native applications and facilitate real-world testing using Docker containers.Docker’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) was more than USD 50 million in 2021.

Progress Chef (formerly Chef Software) provides infrastructure automation solutions to automate the configuration, deployment, and management of cloud infrastructure.One of their key offerings is Chef Infra, an open-source automation platform that allows users to define and maintain their infrastructure as code. By describing desired system configurations using a domain-specific language (DSL) called Chef DSL (built on top of Ruby), organizations can automate the provisioning and configuration of servers, ensuring consistency across environments.In addition to Chef Infra, Chef offers other products in its portfolio, including Chef Automate for continuous automation and compliance, Chef Habitat for application automation, and Chef Workstation for managing Chef code and workflows.Chef follows a subscription-based model and is available through cloud marketplaces such as Azure and AWS.The company was acquired by software developer Progress in 2020 for USD 220 million. Despite the renaming, the company continues to operate independently.Key customers and partnershipsChef Infra’s key customers include IBM, Meta, Rakuten, Target, and SAP.Chef has partnerships with most major cloud service providers. These include AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and VMware.

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

Identity & Access Management

<div>
 
 Silverfort provides a Unified Identity Threat Protection platform that delivers Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) and Identity Threat Prevention (ITP) capabilities. The platform operates as a unified layer on top of a customer's existing Identity and Access Management (IAM) infrastructure, including both modern and legacy solutions.
 
 
 Silverfort's technology achieves protection without requiring modifications to the customer's endpoints, servers or applications. It enables customers to extend security controls such as Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) from any vendor to previously unsupported resources and environments. The platform also allows customers to consolidate their hybrid IAM stack by combining legacy systems and protocols into modern identity platforms like Azure Active Directory.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In January 2024, Silverfort raised USD 116 million in a Series D funding round led by Brighton Park Capital, with participation from Acrew Capital, Greenfield Partners, Citi Ventures, and General Motors Ventures, among others. The funds were earmarked to expand its platform with new product modules and accelerate its go-to-market strategy.
 
 
 
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<div>
 
 Socure provides digital identity verification and fraud prevention solutions. The company has developed an AI-powered platform that leverages predictive analytics and machine learning techniques to verify identities in real time. Socure's platform uses over 17,000 features and 8 billion rows of data from diverse sources, including online and offline data intelligence, to deliver highly accurate identity assessments.
 
 
 Socure's proprietary identity verification graph analyzes and correlates every aspect of a digital identity, enabling the company to automate the verification process. The company offers several other products, including Sigma Identity Fraud for detecting synthetic fraud, DocV for automated document verification, and an accurate and inclusive KYC solution. Socure has also expanded its offerings globally, with services now available in Canada, the UK, and Europe.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of May 2024, Socure served more than 2,300 customers across various sectors, including finance, gaming, healthcare, telecom, and ecommerce. Key customers include Chime, SoFi, Robinhood, Gusto, Public, Stash, and DraftKings, Poshmark, and Capital One.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In March 2023, the company received a USD 95 million credit facility with J.P. Morgan, Silicon Valley Bank, and KeyBanc Capital Markets to strengthen its financial position.
 
 
 In 2021, it raised USD 100 million in a Series D funding round and USD 450 million in a Series E round. Its valuation for the Series E round was USD 4.5 billion.
 
 
 
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<div>
 
 Jumio is a leading provider of automated identity verification, risk assessment, and compliance solutions. The company's core offering is Jumio Identity Verification, which leverages biometrics, AI, and machine learning to automate the identity verification process. This helps organizations combat online identity fraud, simplify KYC/AML compliance, and deliver a simplified onboarding experience.
 
 
 Jumio Identity Verification checks the validity of identity documents and ensures that the person holding the document matches the photo through liveness detection and provides a definitive answer within seconds. The system supports ID-wise document authentication by checking against known templates and uses advanced face-based biometric technology for spoof-proofing.
 
 
 In October 2023, Jumio unveiled Jumio 360&deg; Fraud Analytics, a fraud prevention technology that uses AI-driven predictive analytics to identify fraud patterns across Jumio's cross-industry network. By analyzing billions of data points and employing graph database technology with machine learning, it groups identity transactions into clusters to determine their fraud risk.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of March 2024, Jumio had processed over 1 billion identity verification transactions spanning over 200 countries and territories from real-time web and mobile transactions. The company counts companies like WeWork, HSBC, Uber, and Monzo Bank among its key customers.
 
 
 In August 2023, Jumio formed a notable partnership with Monzo Bank, a challenger bank based in the UK. As Monzo pursued growth and expansion into new markets, the collaboration with Jumio aimed to improve the experience for its banking customers while reducing financial crimes.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In March 2021, the company secured a USD 150 million investment from Great Hill Partners for product development. 
 
 
 
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Empowering Tomorrow's Innovations with Generative AI Infrastructure

Generative AI Infrastructure

<div>
 
 Docker is an open-source software platform designed for constructing applications using containers, which are compact and efficient execution environments. Docker offers a range of developer tools that allow users to create, evaluate, and deploy AI applications.&nbsp;
 
 
 Among its product offerings are:&nbsp;
 
 
 1) Docker Desktop: A containerization software for developers providing a toolkit to build, share, and run applications
 
 
 2) Docker Hub: A container registry catering to developers, enabling them to discover, utilize, and distribute their container images
 
 
 3) Docker Scout: A tool for software supply chain management providing actionable insights and improvements for development workflows.
 
 
 4) Docker Build Cloud: Offers cloud-based services for developers and DevOps teams to build applications faster and more securely.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 In October 2023, Docker unveiled a new GenAI Stack, a comprehensive solution that simplifies AI development using containerization. This stack combines advanced GenAI technologies and tools, partnering with Neo4j, LangChain, and Llama, to address various use cases, including support agent bots with RAG capabilities, Python coding assistance, and content generation.
 
 
 Docker simultaneously introduced Docker AI, a generative bot designed to assist users in working with Docker. This AI is trained on Docker's Compose files and an extensive library of errors associated with Docker's products and tools. Its purpose is to seamlessly integrate into the developer workflow, aiding developers in resolving issues and bugs effectively.
 
 
 Among its strategic acquisitions to enhance its product offerings are AtomicJar (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24816">
 December 2023
 </a>
 ), Mutagen (June 2023), Infinit International (2016), and several others from 2014 to 2015​​​​​​​​.
 
 
 The platform is offered through a SaaS subscription model with packages ranging from free subscriptions for personal users up to USD 24 per user per month for businesses (March 2024).&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 Docker claims that its customer base features more than 70% of Fortune 100 companies, with notable clients such as Adobe, AT&amp;T, Yale, and Virginia Tech. As of October 2023, Docker had an estimated 79,000 customers and 20 million developers in its portfolio.
 
 
 Key partnerships include its collaboration with AWS to introduce deep integrations between Docker's developer tools AWS' container services to improve container workflows (July 2020) and with RedHat to improve interoperability between Docker's hosted services and Red Hat-certified container hosts and services (April 2014).
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In March 2022, Docker raised USD 105 million in Series C funding led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from Atlassian Ventures, Citi Ventures, Vertex Ventures, and Four Rivers Group, among others. The company noted that the funding would be invested in product development and geographic expansion.
 
</div>

Lakera is a company specializing in real-time Generative AI (GenAI) security solutions. The company's platform is designed to protect AI applications against security threats while maintaining optimal user experiences. Lakera's flagship product, Lakera Guard, is designed to enhance the security of large language model (LLM) applications against&nbsp; cybersecurity threats. It provides a single API that enables developers to implement real-time security controls with minimal latency, ensuring that applications remain secure without requiring code changes.In addition, it offers Gandalf, a gamified AI educational platform enabling&nbsp; users to test their prompt injection skills and is the world's largest AI red team. Gandalf generates a real-time database of AI threats, accumulating hundreds of thousands of uniquely new attacks daily to keep Lakera's software up-to-date and ensure continuous protection for customers. As of October 2024, Gandalf had over 1 million users worldwide and had generated more than 40 million data points. This extensive database, combined with the founding team's expertise in building AI systems with real-time requirements, enables Lakera to provide its customers with advanced threat protection.&nbsp;In <a href="https://www.lakera.ai/news/gandalf-new-ui-and-enhanced-ai-security-education">July 2024</a>, the company enhanced its product Gandalf with new&nbsp; UI and enhanced AI security education. Key customers and partnershipsNotable customers included Dropbox and a top three US bank. Reportedly more than 35% of Fortune 100 companies had expressed interest in Lakera's services. Microsoft also uses Gandalf in its security training programs. Dropbox, in addition to being a customer, has strengthened its relationship with Lakera by investing in the company through Dropbox Ventures.

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.

Travel Tech

Kasa Living provides technology-equipped apartment and hotel room booking services across 45+ cities in the US. The company partners with multi-family and hospitality property owners to convert their properties into professionally managed "Kasas," catering to both business and leisure travelers. Depending on the location and property type, the cost per night for an apartment stay is ~USD 180. The apartments come equipped with a fully-stocked kitchen, guest amenities like high-speed Wi-Fi, pet-friendly facilities, and a 24/7 virtual guest contact center. Additionally, some properties offer fitness and recreation amenities, parking space, and a pool. The apartments come equipped with a smart lock and noise sensors, which alert the guest services team in case of excessive noise. Many of its buildings have IoT technology integrated for front door codes and garage gates. Kasa has integrated these systems into its API to provide guests with a single code to access the building, apartment, and garage. Additionally, Kasa employs a task management system to schedule housekeeping and ensure that the correct number of amenities are available for each unit. The company incorporates technology into its units and booking process, such as a user ID verification system to ensure legitimate bookings.According to Kasa, its hotel operating model generates NOIs that are 50%–75% higher than traditional operating models, with GOP margins ranging from 60%–65%. To make its services accessible to a wider audience, Kasa Living lists its properties on several platforms, including Airbnb, Expedia, and Booking.com, and accepts direct bookings through its website and mobile application. In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18477">May 2022 </a>, Kasa Living ventured in the luxury single-family vacation rental market, starting in the Fort Lauderdale, Miami, area through its partnership with an undisclosed real estate investor.The company generates revenue through rental income, as well as a 35% revenue-share from partnerships with multi-family properties from managing over 75 properties in the US.

Hopper is a travel booking startup that allows users to book flights, hotels, and cars. In January 2022, it additionally launched short-term home rentals, similar to Airbnb and VRBO. The platform was initially established as a free app that predicts the best time to purchase a flight. It has since expanded its offerings to provide additional services, which it dubs “travel FinTech,” that includes a unique program where customers can pay a fee (usually 10–20% of the ticket price) to lock a flight's price for a week. If the fare increases and the customer buys the ticket, Hopper covers the difference. Hopper Cloud—the company's effort to expand its business by creating a larger B2B platform for companies already utilizing its B2C platform—was launched in March 2021, enabling travel companies to integrate Hopper's travel services and FinTech offerings.Hopper generates revenue through commissions on bookings and licensing its proprietary travel FinTech software to businesses. As of February 2022, travel FinTech products accounted for ~70% of Hopper's air travel sales, while Hopper Cloud contributed 15% to total sales. As of November 2022, Hopper reported around 80 million downloads of its free app, supporting its claims of being the third-largest online travel agent in the US.Hopper acquired the Paris-based airline merchandising and customer care platform, Smooss, in February 2022. Hopper intended to expand HopperCloud’s adoption among airlines through the acquisition. Other acquisitions include of PlacePass (October 2021) to build a new division focused on traveller experiences, Journy (May 2021) and GDX Travel (November 2019) to expand to Latin America, and the dynamic restaurant-pricing app, Gravy (September 2019).In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/20054">July 2023 </a>, Hopper ended its supply relationship with Expedia having been accused by the latter of exploiting consumer anxiety and confusing customers, leading them to purchase services they neither need nor fully understand. Hopper refuted these claims, stating that Expedia Group views Hopper as a significant competitive threat.Key customers and partnershipsIn <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates?industryIds=101">August 2024,</a> the company partnered with Tripadvisor to launch an in-app hotel booking feature on the Tripadvisor app. Previously in August 2023, Hopper entered into a partnership with Air Canada, to introduce "Cancel for Any Reason" policies, allowing customers to cancel non-refundable fares up to 24 hours before departure.Older partnerships included that with:1) CommBank to integrate travel features via Hopper Cloud into the bank’s app (<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18833">May 2023</a>)2) RateGain Travel Technologies to link Hopper to hotels and hospitality companies worldwide, allowing reservations made through selected Hopper Cloud partners to be processed through RateGain's Connectivity Switch platform (February 2022)3) Capital One to launch Capital One Travel, a travel reservation platform powered by Hopper Cloud, to offer perks and FinTech features such as price lock, price decline coverage, and flexible cancellation insurance for Capital One cardholders (December 2021)

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

LegalTech

<div>
 
 DocuSign is a leading provider of electronic signature solutions, enabling individuals and businesses to securely sign, send, and manage documents digitally. The company's core product, DocuSign eSignature, allows users to upload documents, add signature fields, and request signatures from multiple parties. DocuSign's technology supports various document types and integrates with popular cloud storage platforms.
 
 
 
 
 As of 2024, DocuSign reported over 1 billion users across 180 countries. The company's platform is designed to streamline document workflows, reduce paper usage, and accelerate business processes. DocuSign's technology ensures the confidentiality of transactions and provides a comprehensive audit trail for each completed signature event. In addition to basic e-signature capabilities, DocuSign offers features such as templates, bulk sending, and automated reminders to enhance efficiency.
 
 
 
 
 DocuSign has expanded its offerings beyond e-signatures to include contract lifecycle management tools. In May 2023, the company acquired Lexion, an AI-powered agreement management firm, to enhance its capabilities in this area. DocuSign's platform also supports features like payment collection, advanced form fields, and PowerForms for embedding signable documents on websites.
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 
 DocuSign serves a diverse range of industries, including real estate, healthcare, financial services, and technology. The company has partnerships with major technology firms to enhance its integration capabilities. For instance, in March 2024, DocuSign announced a partnership with Microsoft to integrate its e-signature solution into SharePoint, allowing users to initiate signature processes directly from Microsoft 365 applications.
 
 
 
 
 DocuSign also collaborates with Google, offering integrations with Google Workspace applications such as Google Drive, Docs, and Gmail. In July 2023, DocuSign partnered with Sandbox Banking to enhance and automate agreement workflows for financial institutions, integrating DocuSign's Maestro tool with Sandbox's Glyue platform.
 
</div>

Notarize is a company that provides online notarization services, allowing individuals to have documents notarized remotely through a video meeting with a commissioned notary public. Their platform utilizes advanced identity verification technologies, including knowledge-based authentication and government-issued ID verification, to ensure the identities of signers. Notarize offers a secure and convenient solution for notarizing various legal documents, such as powers of attorney, affidavits, mortgage documents, and more.
The company's online notarization process involves three main steps: verifying the signer's identity, observing the signature, and affixing the notary's digital seal. This process is designed to be compliant with state laws and provides a tamper-evident seal and a robust audit trail for added security and enforceability. Notarize's services are available 24/7/365, with some limitations for mortgage-related transactions on weekends.
In June 2023, Notarize rebranded as Proof, signifying the company's evolution and expanded offerings beyond online notarization. However, the Notarize platform remains a core service under the Proof umbrella.

Digitizing the commercial real estate value chain

Commercial PropTech

Reonomy is a commercial real estate data platform that aggregates and analyzes information from over 100 sources, including proprietary and public data feeds as well as crowdsourced details. It utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to process this vast data and generate market intelligence insights. As of 2024, Reonomy's database encompasses over 50 million properties across the US, covering nearly all commercial real estate inventory nationwide. This includes details on 80 million businesses, 300 million associated individuals, 38 million mortgages, and 68 million property sales transactions.
The platform offers two main product offerings – the web application and data solutions. The web application enables users to search and filter through Reonomy's extensive property database using over 200 parameters such as location, asset type, ownership details, debt status, and more. It leverages interactive mapping tools and provides a "likely to sell" score based on predictive analytics to identify potential investment opportunities. The data solutions offering allows clients to integrate Reonomy's data directly into their internal systems via APIs or customized data feeds, providing a personalized experience.
A key differentiation of Reonomy is its ability to pierce through ownership layers using machine learning to uncover true property owners and connect them across related LLCs. This ownership tree is a valuable resource for investors and brokers seeking to directly engage property owners for potential acquisitions or listing opportunities. The company claims around 80% data accuracy overall.

Lev is a commercial real estate financing platform that aims to transform the industry's complex lending process into a digitized experience. Its proprietary AI technology and deep industry expertise streamline the application process with automation and deal management tools for borrowers and brokers. Lev offers an end-to-end digital lending platform that specializes in permanent, non-recourse loans on single-tenant net lease (NNN) properties. As of February 2022, Lev had originated nearly USD 1 billion in loans via its marketplace in 2021 and reported a 10x year-over-year growth in its second year of operation.
In June 2024, Lev launched Lev Pipeline Management, an AI-powered tool allowing sponsors to track potential acquisition targets, share details across teams, convert pipeline properties into financing transactions, and access interactive loan sizing, lender matching, and automated material creation features. Through this expansion into additional parts of the CRE workflow, Lev aims to become the nexus of all CRE transactions.

Automation to improve business efficiency

Workflow Automation Platforms

HighRadius offers an accounting platform that provides a range of specialized solutions for users to optimize cash flow forecasting, manage B2B payments, and automate financial reconciliations. The platform leverages a combination of AI/ML and robotic process automation (RPA) technology to analyze historical financial data and user behavior to make predictions, identify patterns, and enable proactive decision-making. Users can manage their entire order-to-cash flow, which includes collections, deductions, and invoicing, and automate account reconciliation, accounts payable, and financial close, among many other processes.In March 2024, the company launched <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27401">GenAI-Powered AP Automation</a>, to streamline the accounts payable process. Key features include supplier connect, instant query responses, response interpretation and resolution, an exception task generator, and AI-powered invoice automation.In February 2024, HighRadius <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26507">acquired Cforia Software</a>, a billing and collections automation software provider, for an undisclosed sum. After the completion of this acquisition, HighRadius intended to extend its resources, support Cforia operations, and integrate Cforia Software’s working capital and accounts receivable automation technology into its own platform.Key customers and partnershipsAs of February 2024, the company served a network of over 850 enterprise customers which included large enterprises, such as 3M, Unilever, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Sanofi, and Engie GBS Solutions.The company has an extensive partner ecosystem that includes a range of companies, such as EY, PWC, Deloitte, and Microsoft, among many others. As of February 2024, HighRadius also offered pre-built integrations with a number of third-party platforms, including ERPs such as SAP, Workday, and Netsuite, as well as payment processing platforms, such as Stripe and Fiserv.

<div>
 
 Anvil offers a workflow-building platform that allows users to transform paper processes and PDF documents into digital workflows, using a no-code building tool as well as an API suite with more technical features for developers. The no-code workflow-building tool named &ldquo;Workflows&rdquo; enables users to convert PDF and paper forms into logic-driven web forms to streamline digital data collection and request signatures. Users can then share the completed, signed PDFs and/or data from a secure link.&nbsp;
 
 
 The tool eliminates the repetition of information in entries on multiple documents by using a logic engine that ensures interlinked forms are filled out properly. Moreover, Anvil&rsquo;s own &ldquo;Etch E-sign&rdquo; features, as well as integration with DocuSign, allow users to share and sign forms directly on the platform.&nbsp;
 
 
 In March 2023, Anvil launched a new suite of enterprise products, which include APIs and no-code tools, to enable users to collect data, generate PDFs, and gather signatures within any application. These tools include conditional logic, lists, hidden fields, multi-field editing, single sign-on (SSO), and the ability to embed workflow and template builders.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 Anvil&rsquo;s integration with Zapier allows users to connect &ldquo;Workflows'' to over 6,000 applications. Anvil provides targeted solutions for the banking and wealth management industries with clients such as Citi, Ameritrade, and Catalyst Wealth Management.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In March 2023, Anvil 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17421">
 raised USD 10 million
 </a>
 in Series A funding from Craft Ventures and Gradient Ventures to secure more enterprise customers, grow its market, and expand its employee base.
 
</div>

Using AI to mimic and understand human language

Natural Language Processing Tools

Pindrop is a leader in voice authentication and fraud detection technology, providing security solutions for voice interactions. Founded in 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia, the company specializes in developing patented technology that extracts intelligence from voice interactions to protect against fraud and enhance customer experiences. Pindrop's core offerings include voice authentication, fraud protection, and deepfake detection technologies. Their platform utilizes machine learning, voice recognition, and behavioral analytics to assess voice characteristics, caller behavior, device attributes, and live interactions. This enables Pindrop to reliably distinguish between authentic human voices and synthetic or fraudulent attempts.
Pindrop's solutions are designed to serve various industries, with a particular focus on contact centers, financial institutions, insurers, and retailers. The company's technology helps detect fraudsters and authenticate genuine customers, reducing fraud and operational costs while improving customer experience and protecting brand reputation. In 2023, Pindrop reported that contact center fraud had surged by 60% in the previous two years, with one in every 730 calls to a contact center expected to be fraudulent by the end of 2024. To combat this, Pindrop introduced the Pindrop Pulse Deepfake Warranty in May 2024, offering reimbursements for synthetic voice fraud events undetected by their product suite.
Key customers and partnerships
Pindrop's customer base includes eight of the ten largest banks and five of the seven largest insurance companies in the US. The company has also expanded its reach to serve retailers, with retail fraud, including refund abuse, quadrupling among Pindrop's customer call centers through 2023.
In May 2022, Pindrop announced a partnership with Google Cloud to scale its operations and develop new capabilities. This collaboration enables Pindrop to offer its SaaS platform on Google Cloud, providing customers with the ability to deploy Pindrop's solutions at a global scale on secure and performant cloud infrastructure. Additionally, Pindrop plans to integrate its voice security technology with Google Cloud's Contact Center AI capabilities to enhance call center experiences.

Deepgram is a leading provider of automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology that uses deep learning to accurately transcribe and analyze audio data. The company's AI-powered platform offers both speech-to-text and text-to-speech capabilities, with a focus on high accuracy, low latency, and cost-effectiveness. Deepgram's ASR technology can handle complex audio environments and diverse accents, supporting transcription in over 36 languages as of March 2024. The platform is designed to operate at scale, allowing it to process large volumes of audio data efficiently.
Deepgram's technology incorporates advanced features such as speaker diarization, sentiment analysis, topic detection, and language detection. The company's audio-first approach allows it to capture nuances of intonation and inflection, setting it apart from traditional text-based natural language processing methods. As of November 2022, Deepgram had transcribed over 1 trillion words from raw audio data.
In March 2024, Deepgram launched Aura, a new real-time text-to-speech API that combines highly realistic voice models with low-latency processing. This technology enables developers to build conversational AI agents for applications such as customer service and interactive voice response systems. Deepgram's pricing for its text-to-speech service is competitive, with rates starting at USD 0.015 per 1,000 characters as of March 2024.
Key customers and partnerships
Deepgram's technology has been adopted by a diverse range of enterprises and startups. Notable customers include NASA, Spotify, Auth0, and Citi. The company's solutions cater to various industries, including customer support, media, education, and healthcare.
In the education sector, Deepgram's technology is used to assist in language learning and provide resources for students. In healthcare, the platform helps transcribe doctor-patient conversations for improved record-keeping and compliance. Media companies utilize Deepgram to generate subtitles and closed captions for videos in multiple languages.
Deepgram has also established partnerships to enhance its offerings. The company is part of the NVIDIA Inception program, which has allowed it to leverage NVIDIA GPUs to improve the speed and scalability of its platform. This collaboration has enabled Deepgram to process hundreds of audio files in seconds using NVIDIA V100 GPUs on the Amazon Web Services cloud.

Tools that streamline software development

DevOps Toolchain

InfluxData is the creator of InfluxDB, a leading time series platform for storing and analyzing time-stamped data. InfluxDB is designed to handle high write and query loads, making it suitable for various use cases including IoT sensor data, DevOps monitoring, and real-time analytics. The platform offers features like high-speed data ingestion, real-time querying, and flexible data retention policies. In April 2023, InfluxData announced InfluxDB 3.0, a major update rebuilt as a columnar database leveraging Apache Arrow. This version promises significant performance improvements, including 100x faster queries against high cardinality data and 10x higher ingest performance. InfluxDB 3.0 also introduced SQL language support alongside its existing InfluxQL time-based functions.
InfluxData offers multiple product options to cater to different deployment needs. These include InfluxDB Cloud Serverless, a fully-managed elastic service, and InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated, which provides dedicated cloud infrastructure for large-scale workloads. For self-managed deployments, InfluxData offers InfluxDB Clustered for on-premises or private cloud use, and InfluxDB Edge for local or edge deployments.

Harness is a software delivery platform that provides continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) solutions for enterprises. Founded in 2017 by Jyoti Bansal, the company offers a suite of tools designed to automate and streamline the software development lifecycle. Harness's platform includes modules for CI, CD, feature flags, security testing orchestration, service reliability management, and chaos engineering. The platform leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect deployment quality and automatically roll back failed deployments. Harness aims to simplify the DevOps process by reducing the need for custom scripting and manual oversight in software delivery pipelines. The company's CD solution allows developers to deploy code changes within minutes of a pull request being merged, with necessary tests and scans run during the pipeline. Harness also provides cloud cost management capabilities, offering visibility into cloud resource consumption with hourly granularity. In January 2024, Harness reported surpassing USD 100 million in annual recurring revenue and serving over 600 enterprise customers. The platform facilitated over 44 million code deployments for customers in 2023, more than double the previous year's figure.
Key customers and partnerships
Harness counts some of the world's largest retailers and banks among its customers. Notable clients include Ancestry, which reported an 80-to-1 reduction in developer effort for implementing new features across pipelines. Ulta Beauty credited Harness with saving months of time in bringing their ecommerce platform to market. Other key customers include Citi Bank, National Australia Bank, Booking.com, United Airlines, and Yum! Brands. In February 2023, Harness announced its acceptance into Platform One, the US Air Force's DevSecOps platform, making its CI, CD, and Security Testing Orchestration modules available to US government agencies. This certification enables government agencies to increase speed-to-mission and reduce the burden on developer teams. In January 2024, Harness acquired Armory Inc., a competitor focused on automating continuous deployment workflows, in an all-cash deal valued at approximately USD 7 million.

The toolkit to build machine learning applications at scale

Machine Learning Infrastructure

Docker is an open-source platform that enables users to build, test, and deploy AI applications. The platform packages and runs AI applications into containers that comprise components such as the libraries, system tools, and code. Docker helps to train and run ML models on different operating systems and streamlines the containerization and implementation process to deploy ML models into production. The company also offers an open-source desktop application that allows developers to create applications and test code and an app store that allows developers to download application components which are packaged as containers.The platform is available under a SaaS subscription model starting from USD 5 per user per month and includes a free plan with limited features. In addition, it offers <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25894">Docker Build Cloud</a>, a service that allows development teams to complete their image builds in the cloud, starting at USD 5 per seat/month for 200 build minutes. It utilizes smart caching and predictive technology to improve build speeds by up to 39x.In June 2023, Docker acquired Mutagen IO, the developer of the open-source Mutagen file synchronization and networking technologies. Mutagen’s technologies, when combined with Docker’s existing developer tools, enable developers with local and remote containerized development. In addition, Docker acquired <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24816">AtomicJars</a>, an early-stage startup that has built a commercial container testing platform. Through the acquisition, Docker aimed to strengthen its position in the market and expand its offerings to developers working on projects before they go into production.The company launched Docker Build Cloud, a service that allows development teams to complete their image builds in the cloud, with build speed improvements of up to 39x. These speedups are achieved through smart caching and predictive technology. Additionally, the system provides transparency around cache utilization, with the potential option of selecting different cache sizes. Other planned features include the ability to track time savings made from remote builds as well as integrated functionality with other Docker products for enhanced security and efficiency.Key customers and partnershipsAs of January 2024, the platform was used by more than 20 million developers, with notable customers such as Adobe, Netflix, PayPal, Stripe, Splunk, Verizon, and Target. As of March 2023, the company served more than 70,000 commercial customers, including more than 79% of the Fortune 100 and a majority of the top technology companies, banks, retailers, media, and healthcare companies.Funding and financialsIn March 2022, the company raised USD 105 million in a Series C funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures at a valuation of USD 2.1 billion. The funds were utilized to accelerate investments in its product and go-to-market initiatives, such as increasing investments in developer productivity, trusted content, and ecosystem partnerships and investing in new channels and geographies.In March 2023, Docker reported that its annual recurring revenue (ARR) increased more than 30x in the past three years.

MOSTLY AI is a synthetic data provider for AI model development, software testing, and data sharing. The company’s test data generator uses AI to learn the business rules embedded in production data and the correlations between columns and tables in order to generate data that matches the properties of the actual dataset. It also ensures compliance with privacy regulations, such as the GDPR. The company does not view or retain any uploaded data and deletes the original dataset once the job is completed. Furthermore, the generated synthetic data can also be employed to create benchmark datasets for evaluating the performance of various algorithms or systems.The solution is available under a SaaS subscription model and includes a free basic plan for generating up to 100,000 rows of data per day.Key customers and partnershipsThe company clientele mostly comprises companies in the banking, insurance, and telecommunication industries across the US and Europe.The company entered into a three-year strategic partnership with Merkur Insurance in November 2022 to enable the latter to share customer data internally and assist with data-driven innovations with the help of AI.Funding and financialsIn January 2022, the company raised USD 25 million in a Series B funding round led by Molten Ventures. The funds were utilized to expand product capabilities, recruitment, and increase its customer base in the US and Europe

Distributed workforces require new solutions for office operations, HR, payment, and more.

Remote Work Infrastructure

<div>
 
 Centrical is an employee engagement platform which offers a gamut of employee-centric AI-backed tools, including&nbsp; personalized microlearning, continuous feedback, real-time performance management (KPI visibility) advanced gamification (rewarding employees with points, badges and redeemable coins for tasks completed), and employee engagement (pulse checks and micro-surveys). The company also offers AI-backed coaching through its MegAI chatbot, capable of improving employee knowledge retention on tasks and suggesting recommendations for improvement.
 
 
 The company generates revenue via subscriptions on a per-user basis.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of March 2021, the platform has 100,000 users across its 130 customers. Notable enterprises using the platform included Microsoft, Webhelp and SwissLife.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In March 2021, the company raised USD 32 million in a funding round led by Intel Capital and the company&rsquo;s largest shareholder, JVP. Funds were earmarked to accelerate market engagement, enter new markets, and product development in the form of creating additional solutions for remote or hybrid teams. 
 
</div>

Facial recognition delivers incredible convenience to consumers, as well as serious risks.

Facial Recognition

<div>
 
 Jumio offers an AI-based identity verification and electronic know your customer (eKYC) platform. Jumio helps companies to combat fraud and financial crime, onboard trustworthy customers, and ensure compliance with regulations such as and general data protection regulation (GDPR). Its products include ID verification, identity verification, document verification, and video verification.
 
 
 Jumio uses a proprietary mix of AI, ML, and biometrics like facial recognition to perform verification and authentication tests. For example, it checks whether an ID produced online is authentic and valid, checks whether the person holding the ID is the same person shown in the ID, and checks for liveness to identify whether the person holding the ID was physically present during the transaction. Users are required to take a selfie from any device and create a biometric template. This template is then used by Jumio&rsquo;s platform to provide scores on validity/liveness and similarity with produced IDs and documents.&nbsp;
 
 
 In December 2021, Jumio acquired 4Stop, a company offering compliance and fraud prevention technologies, to integrate its data marketplace and orchestration capabilities.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 Jumio&rsquo;s customers include Bank ABC, Paysafe, WeWork, Airbnb, easyJet, Novibet, EverUp, GetGo, Modyo, and Monzo. Jumio has entered into distributor partnerships with Cuberlinx and Netpoleon. Its technology partners included Microsoft, iProov, Fountain, Mambu, and Nucoro as of May 2023.
 
 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/22559">
 In October 2023
 </a>
 , Jumio expanded its partnership with NextWealth, a data services provider, to obtain identity verification services, improving service quality for customers.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 Jumio raised USD 150 million in funding from Great Hill Partners. The company intended to use the funds to introduce more tools on its platform and to expand the customer base. In 2022, the company recorded more than USD 200 million in bookings driven by the advancements in online businesses. 
 
</div>

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

Retail Trading Infrastructure

<div>
 
 Betterment is a robo-advisory platform that offers both digital-only and hybrid investment management services for individuals and businesses. For individuals, the company offers automated investing services through ETFs linked to stocks and bonds based on preferences and risk appetite. The platform also offers cryptocurrency portfolios for retail investors, along with individual retirement accounts and banking products such as high-yield savings and checking accounts, pursuant to a license from FDIC member bank nbkc.
 
 
 Betterment&rsquo;s platform for businesses and employers allows them to provide and manage 401(k) benefits, investment services, and student loan management services. In addition, the company has a platform for investment advisors to build and manage custom portfolios on the back of Betterment&rsquo;s automated trading features. 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19833">
 In June 2023
 </a>
 , the company&nbsp; launched Betterment for Advisors product offering which includes tax optimization, streamlined client onboarding, customizable drift thresholds tools to support advisors with offering customized tax-efficient investment management services at scale.
 
 
 The platform charges a fee of 0.25% per annum for standard automated services and requires no minimum account balance. Access to human advisors is available at a higher fee of 0.40% per annum and a minimum deposit of USD 100,000. For investing in crypto assets, the platform charges a 1% fee per annum and includes a feature to impose a 5% crypto exposure limit on users&rsquo; investable assets. Betterment had USD 33.8 billion in assets under management (AUM) and a little over 692,000 clients as of October 2022. The company had 397 staff as of the same date.
 
 
 Betterment 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/28758">
 agreed to acquire
 </a>
 Marcus Invest's digital investing accounts from Goldman Sachs in April 2024. It planned to strengthen its position in the digital investing space by transitioning the acquired accounts to its platform, providing customers with automated investing, diversified portfolios, tax-smart tools, and access to human advisors. 
 The company acquired the US clientele of Toronto-based Wealthsimple in March 2021 for an undisclosed amount. In February 2022, the company also announced the 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8337">
 acquisition of cryptocurrency robo-advisor Makara
 </a>
 for an undisclosed sum which was to be used as a foundation of its own cryptocurrency investment offerings.
 
 
 Key customers and partnership
 
 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19833">
 In June 2023
 </a>
 , Betterment partnered with Ascensus, a financial tech solutions provider, to introduce employee wellness offerings that include 401(k), student loan management, personal retirement and investing, financial coaching, and educational savings. In September 2022, Betterment announced a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13357">
 partnership with Gemini
 </a>
 , a crypto exchange and custodian, to offer curated crypto portfolios with listed digital assets on Gemini&rsquo;s exchange. It also planned to use Gemini&rsquo;s custodian services to allow its users to invest in cryptocurrencies and digital assets.
 
 
 Funding and financials&nbsp;
 
 
 In September 2021, the company secured a total of 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5741">
 USD 160 million in funding
 </a>
 in a combination of equity and debt financing. The round includes USD 60 million in Series F funding, led by Treasury, valuing the company at almost USD 1.3 billion and USD 100 million in the form of a credit facility from ORIX Corporation USA&rsquo;s Growth Capital Group and Runway Growth Capital. The new funds were to be used for further developing its core retail investment products and advisor solutions, with a particular focus on its 401(k) offering for SMEs.
 
</div>

More important now than ever, telehealth will long outlast the pandemic that drove its growth.

Telehealth

<div>
 
 California-based virtual cardiac recovery platform Moving Analytics provides at-home intervention, virtual consultations, and monitoring for high-risk cardiac patients. The company offers a 12-week recovery program for users to follow and provides health coaches, educational material, and remote monitoring devices such as scales, blood pressure cuffs and fitness tracker.
 
 
 The company operates a B2B2C business model offering its services through insurance partners and as of July 2022 operates in 14 states serving around 4,000 patients.
 
 
 Funding and Financials
 
 
 The company received its most recent investment in July 2022 when it raised USD 20 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Wellington Access Ventures and Seae Ventures along with participation from Philips Ventures. The funds were allocated to expand the company&rsquo;s geographical footprint across all 50 states, hire additional staff, and incorporate additional language options for marginalized communities. 
 
</div>

A new industry proving that digital connectivity and mental health can co-exist.

Digital Wellness

Centrical, formerly known as gamEffective, is a business-to-business (B2B) focused employee engagement and performance enhancing program developer. It leverages adaptive microlearning and advanced gamification techniques to deliver targeted content that the company claims can reduce absenteeism and improve productivity. It also tries to help employees achieve personalized health and learning goals, such as cycling or walking to work, or attaining some occupational license. The Centrical platform can be integrated with many enterprise application programs such SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce. In May 2020, Centrical integrated with Microsoft Teams to allow organizations on Teams to access Centrical. As of November 2020, the clients of Centrical included Adobe, Hilti, Singtel, Microsoft, Unilever, SwissLife, Telia, Verizon, and Novartis.In March 2023, the company launched AI Microlearning, an integration with OpenAI's ChatGPT which allowed content creators to auto-generate microlearning content including summaries, related questions, answers, and knowledge check quizzes. Key customers and partnershipsCentrical’s clientele includes global enterprises such as Microsoft, Teleperformance, Synchrony Financial, Webhelp, and Swiss Life. These organizations use Centrical’s platform to optimize frontline operations, enhance employee engagement, and improve overall performance. As of March 2021, Centrical has a user base of 100,000.

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

Financial Wellness Tools

Swedish-based Anyfin is a financial planning and savings tool that allows users to track expenses, budget savings, manage personal debt, and maintain an overview of personal finances. The platform currently operates in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Germany.&nbsp;As of January 2023, Anyfin's mobile app recorded over a million downloads and more than 500,000 downloads during 2022. It also reported a 15% monthly average user growth and an overall 5x user growth in 2022.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsAnyfin partnered with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/107094">AXA</a> to offer security insurance that provides healthcare coverage for workers during involuntary unemployment and sick leave. The platform also integrates with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/512793">Minna Technologies</a> to offer subscription management and allows users to track, manage, and cancel subscriptions directly through Anyfin.

Modern tools to train and motivate staff, and bridge emerging skill gaps.

EdTech: Corporate Learning

Founded in 2017 by James Hadley, Bristol-based Immersive Labs is the developer of a platform for gamified cybersecurity skills training using real threat intelligence for organizational preparedness. The platform aims to provide training to employees across business functions instead of siloing cybersecurity expertise with a few employees. The company reports growth of more than 100% YoY. Its customers span the financial services, healthcare, and government sectors and include HSBC, Vodafone, the NHS, the British Army, and the McLaren Racing Formula One team.Key customers and partnershipsIn May 2022, the company partnered with CREST, a professional certification provider in the technical information security industry, to enhance cybersecurity skills development.Funding and financialsIn October 2022, the company raised <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13735?industryIds=46">USD 66 million in a funding round </a>led by Ten Eleven Ventures, to use the funds to strengthen its Cyber Workforce Resilience platform. The round follows its <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3375">USD 75 million Series C </a>funding round in June 2021, where it planned to use the funds to expand the platform’s reach to the US, tapping into the increasing demand for cybersecurity in the wake of pandemic-driven remote working trends. It also planned to triple its headcount to 600 over the next two years and expand operations to new regions across Asia-Pacific and Europe.

Revolutionizing construction with sustainable practices to build faster

Prefab Tech

<div>
 
 Factory_OS is a developer of multifamily residential units which are manufactured off-site and installed on-site. The company, based in Vallejo, California, has two manufacturing facilities in Mare Island, California, and operates throughout the west coast. The company reports its houses can be built 40&ndash;50% faster than a traditionally built home, developing a 100-unit apartment building in less than 10 days, at a 20&ndash;40% lower cost. According to the company, these houses generate around 40% less waste through advanced material cutting and storage while reducing carbon emissions due to fewer transportation requirements.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company&rsquo;s houses comprise smart home features such as security and temperature control. The company has its own &ldquo;Housing Innovation Lab&rdquo; (HIL) in partnership with UC Berkeley&rsquo;s Terner Center for Housing Innovation. This identifies ways in which the efficiency of the manufacturing process can be continuously improved. The lab gathers ideas from architects, engineers, developers, corporations, public officials, and academics, to identify how environmental and community benefits can be maximized and delivered at prices that are affordable to middle-class families. The company uses technologies such as building information modeling (BIM), digital prototyping, and precision manufacturing for construction.
 
 
 In November 2020, the company raised USD 55 million in Series B funding, bringing its total funding to USD 77.7 million. The round was led by Lafayette Square Holdings with participation from Google, Facebook, Morgan Stanley, Autodesk, and Citi. The funds were used to expand to Los Angeles and open the HIL. By April 2021, the company developed more than 1,000 apartment units.
 
</div>

Autonomous and connected technologies shaping the future of the auto industry

Auto Tech

<div>
 
 Car IQ offers a contactless in-car payment solution called &ldquo;Car IQ Pay&rdquo; for vehicles and fleets. Its platform enables vehicles to autonomously initiate, validate, and complete payments for services such as tolls, fueling, parking, etc. without the need for debit/credit cards or additional hardware. The payment is done via its patent-pending &ldquo;Know Your Machine (KYM)&rdquo; technology&mdash;a machine identity verification process that allows vehicles and machines to connect directly to payment networks/banks, physical infrastructure, and mobility platforms. KYM is accepted by a number of payment networks and is reportedly the first machine payment network that uniquely authenticates vehicles, facilitating direct vehicle-initiated transactions. Car IQ Pay is claimed to be the first in-car payment solution for vehicles and fleets.
 
 
 &nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 Car IQ has several service and product partnerships with companies such as digital bank and payments company Discover to build a payment platform for machine-initiated payments for automotive fleets (August 2020); car wash membership platform EverWash to facilitate cardless payment for car washes at EverWash locations (May 2022); toll management and smart mobility technology provider Verra Mobility to offer a toll payment suite for fleet customers (December 2022); software company PDI Technologies to utilize its mobile payment technology to process cardless payments at convenience stores 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19681">
 (June 2023); 
 </a>
 and Visa to enable payment over Visa network 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/20062">
 (July 2023).
 </a>
 &nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 As of February 2024, Car IQ Pay covered fuel stations nationwide and 98% of toll gates in the US with plans to extend the solution for repair, maintenance, parking, and insurance payments. The technology was accepted at 21,500+ fuel stations across the US including Shell and Sunoco as of February 2023. In January 2024, Car IQ Pay expanded its merchant network to include over 12,000 Exxon and Mobil stations to the portfolio, and partnered with Huck&rsquo;s Convenience Store 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27273">
 in March 2024,
 </a>
 to facilitate payments for commercial fleet drivers across 128 store locations of Huck's.
 
 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16244">
 In February 2023,
 </a>
 Car IQ raised USD 15 million in an extended Series B round led by Forte Ventures for further product development to meet the rising demand and to add new commerce categories, including electric vehicle (EV) charging, repairs, registration, and insurance.
 
 
 
</div>

Alternative Living

Kasa Living, Inc. is a tech-powered, flexible accommodations brand and operator founded in San Francisco in 2016. The company partners with real estate owners to transform units at multi-family and hospitality properties into professionally managed accommodations called Kasas. Kasa leverages proprietary technology and operational expertise from industry veterans previously with firms like Airbnb, KKR, and Apollo to deliver high-quality experiences to guests.
Kasa operates a diverse range of accommodations, including multi-family apartments, single-family homes, and boutique hotels across over 40 US cities as of 2023. The company's model involves signing revenue-sharing management agreements with property owners rather than long-term leases. This asset-light approach has enabled Kasa to consistently improve profitability at properties by over 50% after taking over operations while also enhancing guest satisfaction scores.
In May 2023, Kasa expanded into offering luxury single-family vacation rentals, beginning in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area. The new venture aligned with the company's core value proposition of unlocking the potential of real estate assets for owners and guests. By September 2023, Kasa had earned the trust of major real estate firms like Greystar, AMLI Residential, and Starwood Capital through its ability to drive strong financial results.
In October 2023, Kasa closed a USD 70 million Series C funding round led by Citi Ventures and FirstMark Capital, bringing its total funding raised to USD 126.3 million. The capital influx positioned Kasa with a robust balance sheet to accelerate growth without requiring additional fundraising. In February 2024, Kasa continued expanding by opening a new 16-unit property in Downtown Asheville, North Carolina.

Embedding environmental, social, and corporate governance factors into investments

Sustainable Finance

Doconomy is a Swedish fintech company founded in 2018 that provides solutions to help banks and financial institutions engage their customers in sustainable consumption and climate action. The company's core offering is the Åland Index, a cloud-based service that calculates the CO2 footprint and water consumption associated with financial transactions. This index is utilized by over 100 financial institutions across 40 countries, enabling their customers to understand the environmental impact of their spending habits.
Doconomy's innovative tools aim to bridge the gap between consumers' intentions and actions regarding sustainable living. By integrating environmental impact calculations into digital banking experiences, the company empowers users to make more informed and eco-friendly choices. In addition to the Åland Index, Doconomy offers a range of products, including carbon footprint tracking, sustainable savings solutions, and educational resources to promote climate-conscious lifestyles.
Through strategic partnerships with organizations like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Mastercard, S&P Global, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Doconomy has established itself as a leader in the climate fintech space. The company's acquisition of Dreams Technology in February 2023 further strengthened its capabilities by incorporating behavioral science expertise to drive sustainable behavioral change among banking customers.

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

Business Expense Management

<div>
 
 Soldo offers a business card and complementing expense management platform to issue physical, virtual, and one-time cards (issued by Mastercard) for employees. Moreover, it offers virtual cards for businesses to manage their subscriptions and online ad spend. The cards essentially automate the approval, compliance, and expense reporting processes for employees and also offer visibility and insight on business expenses.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 Soldo also offers smart fuel cards that work at service stations across the UK and Europe which can be assigned to users or vehicles to manage and track expenses in real-time.
 
 
 
 
 The company operates through a freemium model, and charges its employees a monthly subscription fee (starting at EUR 30 per month), with charges varying based on the number of cards issued, virtual card payments, recurring payments, and the use of multi-currency digital wallets.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 
 Users can also use APIs to integrate with several accounting platforms, including NetSuite, QuickBooks, Zucchetti, and Xero. Moreover, Soldo cards can be integrated with over 50 expense management platforms, such as Concur and 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/8387">
 Expensify
 </a>
 . The cards can also be added and used to make payments through Google Pay wallets. The company operates through several offices across Europe, including the UK, Dublin, Milan, and Rome.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 As of July 2021, Soldo had around 26,000 customers across all sizes, in over 30 countries, including Mercedes Benz, GetYourGuide, Gymshark, and Brooks Running. Moreover, the spend volume handled by the platform reportedly grew by 4x from July 2019 to July 2021. Soldo partnered with travel and expense management solutions provider TravelPerk in March 2022 to enable TravelPerk customers to sync invoices to the Soldo platform.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 The company also partnered with open banking infrastructure platform 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/628166">
 Yapily
 </a>
 in July 2022, to enable Soldo users to top up their cards directly from bank accounts, without leaving the Soldo app. Moreover, it 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16396?industryIds=76">
 subsequently partnered
 </a>
 with 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/492258">
 Form3
 </a>
 , in February 2023, to gain technical access to the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) clearing system through Form3&rsquo;s account-to-account payment platform.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 Soldo was 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15635?industryIds=76">
 selected by Crown Commercial Services
 </a>
 in January 2023, to be used by public entities across the UK. This enables entities such as local authorities to disburse funds to people in need so they are able to pay for goods and services through prepaid cards.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 Soldo raised USD 180 million in Series C funding in July 2021, led by Temasek, to invest in international expansion - particularly in Germany, France, and Benelux - and product developments.&nbsp;
 
</div>

AI, robotics, and IoT to streamline the flow of goods and information

Logistics Tech

Cart.com provides unified commerce and logistics solutions for retail and ecommerce needs, including storefront creation, customer engagement, growth marketing, channel management, fulfillment, unified analytics, inventory and order management (via <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26820">Constellation OMS)</a>, warehouse and and transport management (via <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/31921">Constellation WMS and TMS).</a> The company pitches its products toward B2B companies, consumer brands, and public sector agencies. It operated ~14 omnichannel facilities across the US, as of April 2024, with offices in the US, Mexico, and Poland.The company’s pricing strategy differs based on the product offering. For example, online storefront services are offered for a base subscription and a percentage of sales, while fulfillment services are charged on a per-order basis.The company has made several acquisitions to expand its capabilities and market reach including 1) Amify, an Amazon optimization and advertising solutions provider <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/28162">(April 2024),</a> DataFeedWatch, a data-feed management solution provider <a href="https://cart.com/newsroom/cart-com-acquires-datafeedwatch-expands-to-europe-and-increases-brand-access-to-2000-channels">(March 2022);</a> 2) SellerActive, a provider of SaaS multichannel ecommerce tools <a href="https://cart.com/newsroom/cart-com-acquires-selleractive-bolstering-multichannel-ecommerce-software-capabilities">(January 2022);</a> 3) FB Flurry, a technology-driven fulfillment and customer care operator for direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cartcom-acquires-fb-flurry-tripling-fulfillment-footprint-and-enabling-next-day-delivery--to-majority-of-us-301457300.html">(January 2022);</a> 4) 180Commerce, an online sales partner <a href="https://cart.com/newsroom/cart-com-acquires-180commerce-to-fuel-marketplace-growth-for-sellers">(November 2021);</a> 5) Sauceda Industries, a fulfillment services provider for ecommerce brands <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cartcom-acquires-sauceda-industries-to-provide-full-service-3pl-support-for-ecommerce-brands-301342299.html">(July 2021);</a> 6) DuMont Project, an omnichannel growth marketing consultancy firm <a href="https://cart.com/newsroom/cart-com-acquires-leading-digital-consultancy-dumont-project-to-accelerate-dtc-growth-marketing">(July 2021);</a> 7) Cheap Cheap Moving Boxes, a DTC moving box brand <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210203005315/en/Cart.com-Acquires-Cheap-Cheap-Moving-Boxes">(February 2021);</a> and 8) AmeriCommerce, an enterprise ecommerce storefront software platform <a href="https://cart.com/newsroom/new-player-in-the-ecommerce-space-completes-acquisitions-of-americommerce-other-strategic-assets-to-build-out-ecommerce-ecosystem">(January 2021).</a>As of January 2024, Cart.com handled more than USD 8 billion in gross merchandise value and witnessed a 50% YoY business growth in 2023.Key customers and partnershipsAs of July 2024, Cart.com provided services to over 6,000 multichannel merchants, including <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32156">City Chic,</a> <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/31338">Represent,</a> <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29285">ModCloth,</a> Janie and Jack, Adidas, Guess, Swarovski, Under Armour, Pandora, Toms, Portland Leather, ADM, Pacsun, and Luminess.

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

Capital Markets Tech

London-based Acin provides operational risk management solutions for the financial services industry. The company's core offering is a digital platform that enables financial institutions to digitize their operational and non-financial risk analysis using data analytics. Acin's technology automatically collates data from multiple sources to create a unified view of the operational risk environment. Using proprietary AI, the platform securely reviews organizational data and compares it to the wider industry, generating a unique picture of the organization and its relation to the broader sector.&nbsp;The company's platform does not replace existing Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) systems but takes Operational Risk Control data from GRC and other sources and matches it into the network. Acin's natural language processing (NLP) applies AI to analyze and match large amounts of new data entering the network as well as match regulations with each bank's individual Risk Controls.Key customers and partnershipsAcin has built an Operational Risk Control data network comprising 14 of the world's largest banks, such as J.P. Morgan and Citi.

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.
 
 
 
</div>

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

Next-gen Email Security

Tessian is an email security company that focuses on protecting enterprises from threats arising due to human error. It leverages machine learning to build behavioral models for all employees and automatically detect security threats such as business email compromise, data exfiltration, phishing, and accidental data loss. Tessian's platform, referred to as "human layer security," notifies employees of these issues to help improve individual security behaviors.
In May 2021, Tessian had raised a total of USD 123.7 million in funding and was valued at USD 500 million. At that time, the company planned to invest in research and development, expand its product offerings beyond email security, and grow its workforce globally.
Tessian's approach proved effective, as evidenced by a report from July 2022 that found US employees sent an average of four emails to the wrong person each month in the first nine months of 2021. Nearly one-third of employees who reported such incidents indicated their business lost a client or customer due to the error.
In December 2023, Proofpoint, a leading cybersecurity and compliance company, acquired Tessian. The acquisition aimed to combine Proofpoint's threat and data loss protection technology with Tessian's AI-powered behavioral and dynamic detection capabilities. This integration was expected to provide organizations with a comprehensive defense against human-targeted threats and prevent data loss across various collaboration channels.

Using autonomous, green, IoT, and digital technologies to shape the future of ocean-based transportation

Shipping Tech

Forto is a leading provider of digitized freight forwarding and supply chain solutions. The company offers transportation and technology solutions that extend beyond the mere movement of goods from origin to destination. Forto's intuitive logistics technology provides customers with visibility and insights, enabling them to optimize their supply chain activities. The company's platform technologies streamline the entire process, from obtaining quotes and booking shipments to document management, tracking and tracing, proactive exception handling, and analysis. Leading brands across industries such as fashion, furniture, and electronics trust Forto to manage the transport of their goods.
Forto's business model revolves around developing data-driven technology solutions and services for the entire logistics industry, empowering customers to gain control over their supply chains. The company's proprietary order management solution, FortoX, allows users to manage their supply not just on a container or shipment level but on a product level down to the stock-keeping unit (SKU). By eliminating friction from complex and non-transparent logistics processes, Forto aims to make the daily work of logisticians and supply managers more reliable, efficient, and easier.
In April 2020, the company rebranded from FreightHub to Forto, reflecting its evolution and vision to increase global prosperity while driving sustainability. Forto is committed to fortifying global trade by providing reliable, transparent, and efficient solutions that facilitate the smooth movement of goods around the globe. The company has expanded its reach worldwide, with a presence in multiple locations across Europe and Asia, including offices in Berlin, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Ho Chi Minh City, Madrid, Rotterdam, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. As of March 2022, Forto has raised over USD 600 million in total investment and achieved a valuation of USD 2.1 billion.

A decentralized version of the web powered by the blockchain

Web3 Ecosystem

Blockdaemon is a blockchain infrastructure company providing node management services. It offers node-as-a-service for developers to connect to several blockchain networks through its Ubiquity API without requiring them to own and manage nodes in-house. The company also provides access to native blockchain APIs, which allows developers to explore a network in detail, along with node infrastructure for blockchain networks and validators to stake and scale operations. Blockdaemon supports more than 40 blockchain networks globally through cloud and bare metal servers.The company also provides RPC archival nodes for zkSync, a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum. These nodes are designed to improve the stability, security, and resilience of the zkSync network by providing better infrastructure services.In July 2022, Blockdaemon acquired Sepior, a data and digital asset security company focused on institutional-grade cryptographic key management and protection services, for an undisclosed sum. Through the acquisition, Blockdaemon aimed to improve its staking services by providing institutional customers the option of custodial and non-custodial wallet solutions for digital assets.Funding and financialsIn January 2022, Blockdaemon raised USD 207 million in Series C funding co-led by Sapphire and Tiger Global at a post-money valuation of USD 3.25 billion. It aimed to use the new capital to complete its node-stack product suite and for strategic acquisitions. The company had also planned to use the funds to launch its own DeFi fund to make structured investments in the crypto and blockchain ecosystem.

Threat Prevention Toolchain

Endor Labs is a software company that specializes in dependency lifecycle management for open source software (OSS). Founded in 2022, the company offers a platform designed to help organizations safely evaluate, maintain, and update dependencies in their software development processes. Endor Labs' technology employs deep program analysis and graph analysis to understand how dependencies are being used within an organization and create indicators of risk. The platform provides tools for measuring security and operational risk, as well as removing unused or unmaintained dependencies. It also helps generate and analyze accurate Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs) to provide a single source of truth for an organization's software inventory.
The company's approach goes beyond traditional Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools by offering context on how developers are using dependencies. This helps reduce false positives and allows for better prioritization of vulnerabilities. Endor Labs' platform performs deep analytics on each OSS dependency to uncover potential security and operational risks beyond known vulnerabilities. The company reported that even though 71% of typical Java application code comes from open source components, applications use only 12% of imported code. Endor Labs' technology enables organizations to eliminate or de-prioritize up to 60% of remediation work by providing insights into which code is actually reachable throughout an application.
Key customers and partnerships
Endor Labs has engaged with significant customers and prospects during its development phase. Over 75 major organizations provided feedback that was incorporated into the product during its first year. As of October 2022, the company was in private beta with several companies ranging from 200 to 35,000 employees.
In July 2023, Endor Labs announced its integration with Google Cloud, aiming to help organizations secure their software supply chains. This partnership allows customers to use Endor Labs' Dependency lifecycle Management solution on Google Cloud, enabling security and development teams to accelerate development by safely maximizing software reuse.

Foundation Models

Writer AI offers "full-stack"&nbsp; large language models (LLMs) that enable businesses to integrate AI into content creation and business functions like marketing, sales, HR, and operations. Writer's platform includes customizable language models that can be fine-tuned for specific industries and use cases. The platform allows customers to connect the AI models to their own business data sources to improve research, fact-checking, and question-answering abilities.&nbsp;Its flagship model, Palmyra, comprises three models: Small (128 million parameters), Base (5 billion parameters), and Large (20 billion parameters) for tasks such as content generation, research, question answering, and data analysis.In July 2024, Writer introduced two new LLMs <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32211">named Palmyra-Med-70b and Palmyra-Fin-70b </a>for healthcare and financial services.Key customers and partnershipsThe company’s notable customers include Intuit, United Healthcare, UiPath, Spotify, L'Oreal, Uber, and Accenture.&nbsp;

Writer is a full-stack generative AI platform that helps businesses use large language models to generate writing and content that can be used across different departments, including operations, products, sales, human resources, marketing, and more. Its platform provides an integrated system of LLMs, graph-based RAG, AI guardrails, and development tools for organizations to deploy AI apps and workflows that deliver impactful return on investment.

Wildfire Systems offers a white-label platform that enables businesses to implement shopping rewards and cashback programs. The platform features customizable tools for integrating rewards into customer journeys, enhancing loyalty and revenue. It ensures compliance with security standards while providing access to a vast network of merchants for cashback and coupon offers.

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.

Concentric’s Semantic Intelligence solution delivers data risk insights across the entire inventory of sensitive documents in the cloud and on-premises. Its deep learning technology examines each document’s content and context for efficient actionable security. It scans the documents, identifies sensitive or business-critical data, evaluates the risk each document poses, and highlights critical concerns that need immediate attention.  The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in San Jose, California.

Stream Security provides real-time cloud threat and exposure detection solutions, helping SecOps teams manage security in cloud environments. The Stream Security platform empowers SecOps teams with unmatched visibility, enabling them to identify vulnerabilities and threats by comprehending the past, present, and future of their cloud infrastructure. The AI-powered platform assists in determining attack paths and blast radius across all cloud infrastructure components, helping to eliminate gaps, accelerate MTTR through streamlined investigations, reduce knowledge gaps, maximize team productivity, and mitigate burnout.

Galileo provides Evaluation Intelligence for AI developers to ship trustworthy AI apps fast.

Poolside is an artificial intelligence platform that offers foundation concepts and infrastructure. It aims to unlock humanity's potential by pursuing AGI for software creation, with the fundamental belief that the transitional path for humanity to AGI is by building specific capabilities instead of a general-purpose approach. It also helps users utilize the power of software creation and understand future systems.

UJET is a cloud contact center platform for smartphone-era CX. In addition to modernizing digital and in-app experiences, UJET eliminates customer channel switching between voice, digital, and self-service channels. The platform infuses AI across its services, which helps to automate processes and improve efficiency in customer interactions.  UJET is designed to unify various customer service channels, making it easier for businesses to manage customer relationships.

Point.me is an award travel discovery tool and points concierge service that enables loyalty program members to find better flights for fewer points. The company's proprietary algorithm searches over 150 airlines to uncover the best flight deals, including first and business-class travel, along with guided instructions for booking them. POINT.ME works with over 30 loyalty programs, including major credit card rewards, and enables customers to filter search results based on their preferred programs, airlines, routes, and balances.

Wealth is a comprehensive estate planning platform that empowers people to create, manage and visualize their plans digitally. Creating an estate plan with Wealth gives your loved ones a holistic view of all your assets, visualized and securely stored in one place. Because life is unpredictable, Wealth makes it easy for you to access your plan anytime and offers guidance to keep it current and valid. And should the unthinkable occur, your trusted beneficiaries are granted emergency access to your plan. Wealth is available to companies as an employee benefit, allowing employers to offer their workforce a meaningful financial wellness opportunity.

Sepio has created the first asset risk management platform that operates on asset existence rather than activity. Using physical layer asset DNA profiling, our solution provides customers with actionable visibility, policy enforcement and mitigation capabilities. These allow our customers to gain better control of all assets at scale. With trafficless monitoring, our solution is asset agnostic - whether your infrastructure is connected to IT/OT/IOT. Within 24 hours, Sepio's solution will report what assets you actually have with their respective asset risk factor and help you achieve a stronger cybersecurity posture.

Setpoint is building trust in our credit system. An operating system for capital markets functions that drives capital and operational efficiency, while offering peace-of-mind to Capital Providers. Our platform unlocks speed, efficiency and accuracy for borrowers and lenders.

Lakera is a real-time GenAI security company. The company is dedicated to ensuring the safe and responsible development and deployment of artificial intelligence technologies. To accelerate the secure adoption of AI, the company developed Gandalf, an educational tool that has taught over one million users about AI security. Lakera leverages AI to continually evolve its defenses, enabling customers to stay ahead of emerging threats.

Endor Labs focuses on improving application security, particularly in managing open-source software dependencies. The company assists developers in adopting safe Open Source Software (OSS) to accelerate development while spending less time addressing security concerns. Its Dependency Lifecycle Management Platform is intended to address the weakest link in software supply chain security: the enterprise's ungoverned sprawl of open-source software. The company's engineering team includes 7 PhDs and senior engineers from Meta, Uber, Amazon, and Microsoft. Endor Labs was founded by industry veterans Varun Badhwar and Dimitri Stiliadis, with funding from Lightspeed and Dell Technologies Capital and executives from Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, Zoom, Google, and others.

Norm AI provides an AI-powered regulatory compliance platform for the legal and compliance industries. It also provides solutions for sludge problem by enabling compliance teams to delegate tasks to Regulatory AI via high-level instructions, while at the same time validating the resulting work product.

Colendi, the leading financial technology group with a digital banking license in Türkiye, is planning to raise more than USD 150m in a Series C round by the end of 2024.

Traceable is an API Security company that helps organizations achieve API protection in a cloud-first, API-driven world. With an API Data Lake at the core of the platform, Traceable is the only intelligent and context-aware solution that powers complete API security – security posture management, threat protection, and threat management across the entire Software Development Lifecycle – enabling organizations to minimize risk and maximize the value that APIs bring to their customers.

Island is a cyber startup that provides a web browser for the enterprise to allow work to flow freely while remaining secure. It gives organizations complete control, visibility, and governance over the last mile helping the enterprise with improved performance and helping businesses to minimize their cyber footprint and create a safe space for work to flow, boosting both security and productivity.

Datavolo is a SaaS company that allows organizations to harness the power of their unstructured data.

Tuum is a cloud-native banking platform that is spearheading the next generation of digital innovation in the financial services industry. Built around a microservices architecture, the platform consists of flexible and independent modules covering all retail and business banking capabilities. The platform is API-based for quick and easy integration and can run on all major cloud providers, as well as on private clouds.  Founded by a team of banking and technology experts in 2019, Tuum combines technological excellence with in-depth banking knowledge and packages it into a sophisticated, cutting-edge platform.  Tuum currently employs over 60 people with offices in Tallinn, Berlin and Malaga.

PPRO is a fintech company that provides digital payments infrastructure to businesses and banks so that they can scale their checkout, acquiring, and risk services through one connection. Payment platforms, acquirers, and merchants that plug into PPRO’s infrastructure can access payment methods, fraud screening tools, and other essential products from multiple providers. Every product can be deployed and controlled with clicks, not code. With the company's orchestration layer directing process flows and data like clockwork, PPRO’s partners can rest easy knowing they’re delivering seamless end-to-end services to their customers. Citi, PayPal, and Stripe are just some of the names that depend on PPRO to accelerate their roadmaps, boost their conversions, and eliminate the complexities of digital payments.

CapStack is a banking system that encourages collaboration among banks and financial services providers in order to boost asset profitability and diversification.

Silverfort offers a revolutionary agentless and proxyless authentication platform for enterprises. It extends Multi-Factor Authentication, Risk-Based Authentication and Zero Trust policies in a unified, AI-driven manner across all corporate users, devices and systems, both on-premise and in the cloud, without requiring any modifications to endpoints and servers. That includes systems that couldn't be protected before, such as homegrown applications, legacy systems, IT/OT infrastructure, file shares, command-line tools, machine-to-machine access (service accounts) and more. Silverfort allows companies to detect and prevent identity based attacks (including account compromise, lateral movement, brute force, password spraying and more), achieve compliance with regulations like PCI DSS, NIST and HIPAA, and securely migrate servers and applications to the cloud without modifying them.

Defacto is a fintech firm that offers credit infrastructure using an API for small and medium companies. The platform of the company solves the working capital requirement, provides loans, and lets businesses to return when consumers pay, allowing businesses to finance any invoices and offer early payment to suppliers, as well as automate payments and reconciliation.

Arch manages private investment operations for leading investors and investment advisors, reinventing private portfolio management through a digital solution that replaces traditionally paper based processes.

Kasa Living is a real estate company that focuses on building a global accommodations brand. The company partners with owners of multifamily and boutique hospitality properties, transforming underutilized real estate into professionally managed units that cater to business and leisure travelers. Kasa Living was founded in 2016 and headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Vibrant Planet provides land management services and technology solutions to accelerate land restorations. The company collaborates with scientists, land management leaders, and policymakers to build a cloud-based system that informs and facilitates collaborative planning. Vibrant Planet was founded in 2004 by Allison Wolff and is based in Incline Village, Nevada.

Vega is to change wealth management through the application of cutting-edge technology. We aim to bring together the private and institutional sectors with a platform that streamlines wealth creation for high-net-worth individuals and their advisors by using our team's financial and technical knowledge.

Automated Investigation and Response Platform Powered by Digital Forensics

PayJoy's mission is to deliver access to credit to the next billion people in emerging markets worldwide. Our unique mobile security technology gives customers the ability to afford their first smartphone on credit, using the phone itself as collateral, and then provides further access to credit to help weather life's unexpected financial surprises and climb the ladder of economic well-being. Founded in 2015, today PayJoy has reached over 10 million of customers in emerging markets around the globe, including Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and South Africa, and is solidly profitable and growing.

Endowus is a supplier of financial advice and customized investing services designed to help clients develop their money. The company's services enable investors to access institutional share-class funds at institutional-level fees, charging a single access fee that includes advice, investment, rebalancing, transfers, and brokerage.

Loft is a transactional marketplace for residential real estate that helps manage the home buying and selling process. Founded by repeat entrepreneurs in 2018, Loft is Brazil’s first transactional marketplace for residential real estate, facilitating the purchase and sale of properties on behalf of individuals, brokers, and two publicly listed REITs managed by the company. By leveraging proprietary transaction data and an end-to-end digital workflow, Loft is bringing the Brazilian homebuying experience into the e-commerce age while integrating a multitude of adjacent service offerings. Loft was founded in 2018 and is based in São Paulo, Brazil.

IVIX is a platform that helps authorities prevent and reduce tax evasion. IVIX builts an AI-driven platform that can automatically synthesize both tax authorities’ internal data and publicly available information to identify instances of tax evasion.

Unlimited specializes in democratizing alternatives through return replication technology. It employs machine learning to create solutions that mimic alternative investment index returns.

Clara is a spending management platform for companies in Latin America. Their end-to-end solution includes their locally-issued corporate cards, Bill Pay, financing solutions, and their software platform used by companies across the region. They're backed by global and regional investors such as Coatue, DST Global, General Catalyst, monarchies, Kaszek, Canary, A*, BoxGroup, SV Angel, GFC, Picus Capital, Avid Ventures, ICONIQ Growth, Goldman Sachs, and prominent angel investors. They're creating the future of how company finances are run and helping their customers be more successful. They aspire to empower companies to operate with agility and financial clarity, ultimately increasing the economic competitiveness of Latin America.

Lexion developed a contract management system that organizes all contracts in one place. The company's system automatically reads and interprets legal terms, policies, and documents, as well as finds and gains insights about the contracts in a unified system powered by artificial intelligence, while also integrating business, storage, and signature systems and syncing all work in an integrated contract hub, allowing businesses to save time and money while automatically tracking critical contract obligations.

Clerkie is an AI financial planner that provides financial knowledge, personalized answers, and actionable plans.

Securiti is the pioneer of the Data Command Center, a centralized platform that enables the safe use of data and GenAI. It provides unified data intelligence, controls and orchestration across hybrid multicloud environments. Large global enterprises rely on Securiti's Data Command Center for data security, privacy, governance, and compliance. Securiti has been recognized with numerous industry and analyst awards, including ''Most Innovative Startup'' by RSA, ''Top 25 Machine Learning Startups'' by Forbes, ''Most Innovative AI Companies'' by CB Insights, ''Cool Vendor in Data Security'' by Gartner, and ''Privacy Management Wave Leader'' by Forrester. For more information, please visit Securiti.ai and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Masttro is a multinational financial technology organization offering state-of-the-art solutions to significantly wealthy families, family offices, and financial advisors. The business was founded in 2010 by asset owners with more than 25 years of experience using advanced proprietary technology to control diversified, multi-generational capital. Their goal is to create a new norm for wealth platforms: the most open, easy to use, and timely access to information needed by families and advisors to manage and monitor wealth over decades, and the peace of mind that comes from understanding that the highest standards of protection and confidentiality protect their information.

Quantifind provides AI solutions for anti-money laundering and fraud detection that uniquely discover risk by combining internal financial institution data with public domain data. Founded in 2008 by two atomic physics Ph.D.s, the company has offices in Silicon Valley, New York, and Washington, DC.    For more information, please visit http://www.quantifind.com.

InfluxData is the creator of InfluxDB, an open-source time series database and platform. The technology is purpose-built to handle the massive volumes of time-stamped data produced by IoT devices, applications, networks, containers, and computers. InfluxData is on a mission to help developers and organizations, such as Cisco, IBM, PayPal, and Tesla, in storing and analyzing real-time data, empowering them to build transformative monitoring, analytics, and IoT applications quickly and to scale.

We want to help as many as possible, to the best possible financial situation. Using new technology we develop fair, simple and smart services that help you get more from your finances. So that you can do more of what makes you feel good. We saw that many paid unnecessary high interest and fees for part-payments, credit cards and private loans. So that’s where we started out. Through smart technology and skipping unnecessary middlemen we could offer the lowest possible rate. And we decided straight away: we would always try to help you improve your finances. Never give an offer if we can’t improve your situation. Only make things better. You could say we started out by helping you deal with your financial past. That was in 2018. In 2020 we launched more services, for instance helping you keep track of subscriptions and plan your finances. Ways to simplify your financial everyday life. So that we can help you build your financial future. And we’re just getting started. Anyfin is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.

Acin is a market-defining fintech company that is on a mission to make banks safer and transform the financial industry’s approach to non-financial risk, through the use of data.

Deepgram's voice AI platform provides APIs for speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and language understanding. From medical transcription to autonomous agents, Deepgram is the go-to choice for developers of voice AI experiences.

Greenwood Bank is a digital banking platform for Black and Latinx people and business owners. It features best-in-class digital banking services and innovative ways of giving back to the community. The company's initial products are savings and spending accounts that come with a stunningly designed black metal debit card for customers who sign up by the end of the year. Greenwood Bank was founded in 2020 and is based in Atlanta, GA, USA.

Founded in 2019, Lentra is enabling banks in democratising digital lending through its SaaS platform. It empowers banks (& NBFCs) to create custom loan products and enhance customer experiences, through its API-driven modular architecture. Currently, Lentra's digital lending platform serves over 50 banks, has processed over $20 billion worth of loan applications, with 2 million loans being processed every month. Lentra supports its customers in expanding their reach, reducing non-performing assets, optimising operational efficiencies, and using Pay-as-you-go pricing for their growth. Lentra is backed by investors like BVP, Citi, HDFC, MUFG, SIG & Vy. To read more, please visit: https://Lentra.ai/

Kyte is a technology and operations company that offers on-demand cars delivered to customers for as long as they need them — for a day, a few days or a few weeks or months. Kyte is operating in 10+ cities in the US and growing at rapid pace.  Francesco Wiedemann, Ludwig Schoenack, and Nikolaus Volk formed the company in San Francisco, California in 2019.

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.

Onward is on a mission to improve the lives of co-parents and their children. With Onward, divorced and separated parents can track and mange shared expenses for their children more easily and streamline the often tense communication about shared finances.

Nammu21 is a developer of a digitization and analytics platform that deconstructs, digitizes, and analyzes complex interconnected transaction documents across the finance ecosystem to help stakeholders to access, extract, and use data to generate new value.

Immersive Labs develops a platform that measures and improves cybersecurity skills across businesses. It builds cyber skills content that rewards critical thinking, problem-solving, and curiosity. Immersing teams in challenges covering everything from spelling the word cyber to using technical tools, threat hunting, and reverse-engineering malware. All seamlessly accessed from the browser with no installation needed. Allowing users to complete objectives from anywhere and on any device. Immersive Labs empowers businesses to continuously develop skills, including ethical web hacking; ethical infrastructure hacking; reverse engineering; IoT/firmware security; and advanced cyber warrior CTF Challenges for enterprises, government, defense, and law enforcement agencies. The company was headquartered in Bristol, England in 2017 by James Hadley.

Xalts is a financial technology firm providing enterprise grade, real time connectivity between financial services & businesses by leveraging modern technology stack including APIs, Blockchains & Orchestration layers to digitalize complex workflows and financial processes. Leading global banks, Fortune 500 corporations and some of the most innovative technology companies use our products to simplify financial connectivity & reimagine modern financial products.

Rupert, the leading analytics distribution platform, solves the last mile problem in the analytics chain, cutting time from analytics to business outcome.  Rupert’s platform connects analytics sources (e.g. BI tools, metric layers), operational applications (e.g. Salesforce, ad campaign managers, Jira), and communications tools (e.g. Slack, Teams, email). Through a no-code tool, it enables analytics and operations teams to deliver hyper-personalized insight alerts to business stakeholders via their preferred communications tool. Alerts are prompted by intelligent data triggers and accompanied by “Action Modules” that allow users to immediately act on critical insights. This ensures that every business improvement opportunity that is surfaced from the data is capitalized on.

Belvo is the open finance API platform that enables users to connect their accounts to an app. The platform lets financial innovators to access and interpret data from their end-users in an easy and scalable way. The company was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Mexico City.

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