Page 89 - Forbes - USA (February 2018)

Metromile SAN FRANCISCO Ripple SAN FRANCISCO Symbiont NEW YORK CITY
TransferWise LONDON
Sells car insurance in seven states Employs blockchain technology for Provides blockchain technology to the
with a low, flat monthly fee, plus an cross-border payments. Transactions capital markets. App matches unrelated customers’ or-
additional per-mile charge, tracked can be done with the XRP token. BONA FIDES: Working with Delaware ders to execute international money
via signal from car. BONA FIDES: 100-plus banking cus- on using blockchains to track share transfers, while limiting how much
BONA FIDES: Says it saves drivers an tomers, including Santander, UBS issuance and ownership currency actually crosses borders,
average of $500 a year COFOUNDER: Chris Larsen, 57 (see FUNDING: $15.4 million thus chopping costs.
FUNDING: $205.5 million “Prophets of Boom,” p. 60) BONA FIDES: $2 billion in transfers
done on its platform each month
FUNDING: $93.6 million
Symphony PALO ALTO, CA COFOUNDER & CEO: Estonian Kristo
Plaid SAN FRANCISCO Käärmann, 37
FUNDING: $397 million; latest valuation
Platform allows traders and portfolio of $1.6 billion
Its tools are used by other fintech managers to securely message each
firms to connect to users’ bank other, share screens, etc., without vio-
account information. lating compliance rules.
BONA FIDES: Robinhood, Betterment, BONA FIDES: Used by 303,000 em-
Venmo and Coinbase are customers ployees in 270 organizations, includ-
FUNDING: $60 million ing BlackRock and big banks
FOUNDER & CEO: David Gurle, 51
FUNDING: $234 million; latest valuation
Qapital NEW YORK CITY
of more than $1 billion
Banking app prods Millennial users to
save and invest more with customiz-
able behavioral triggers devised with
help of economist Dan Ariely.
Trumid NEW YORK CITY
BONA FIDES: 387,000 users
FUNDING: $17.3 million
Robinhood PALO ALTO, CA
Electronic-trading platform for corpo-
rate bonds offers anonymous liquidity.
Quandl TORONTO
Mobile app offering basic stock trades BONA FIDES: 380 institutions have
for free and no-interest margin loans traded $19 billion in bonds on it
for $10 a month. Soon to offer free FUNDING: $82 million
Tracks and tests thousands of alter- trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
native data sets (e.g., growth of inter-
net-connected devices) to find those BONA FIDES: 3 million users
that provide insights into a company’s COFOUNDERS & CO-CEOS: Baju Bhatt, Upstart SAN CARLOS, CA
performance. 33, and Vlad Tenev, 31 (above)
BONA FIDES: Its 250,000 users, includ- FUNDING: $176 million; latest valuation Online lender uses alternative data
ing seven of ten biggest quant funds, of $1.3 billion Tala SANTA MONICA, CA points to underwrite loans, approving
download 10 million data sets daily
47% without human intervention.
FUNDING: $20 million
Shapeshift ZUG, SWITZERLAND BONA FIDES: $1.5 billion in loans origi-
Approves developing-world borrow- nated to 120,000 borrowers
ers for microloans of between $10 and
$500 by crunching data from an ap- FUNDING: $110 million
Exchange allows users—a fifth are in plicant’s smartphone.
the U.S.—to trade between 70 crypto- BONA FIDES: 4.5 million loans made,
currencies without establishing an ac- with repayment rate above 90% Veem SAN FRANCISCO
count or wallet. To maximize privacy,
doesn’t link to bank accounts or take FOUNDER & CEO: Shivani Siroya, 34
fiat currencies. FUNDING: $44 million Undercuts bank fees as it sends busi-
BONA FIDES: When it was hacked by ness-to-business payments around
an employee, no crypto was lost, since the world, some on the blockchain.
it doesn’t hold customer funds BONA FIDES: 40,000 customers in 60
FUNDING: $12.2 million countries
FUNDING: $40 million
Remitly SEATTLE
Stripe SAN FRANCISCO
Xapo PALO ALTO, CA
Enables residents of U.S., U.K., Cana- Its technology allows businesses large
da and Australia to send money to in- and small to accept payments from Provides secure offline storage for
dividuals in ten developing countries. every major debit and credit card, in individual investors and family of-
Recipients without bank accounts can more than 135 currencies. fices holding Bitcoin as a form of
pick up cash at 200,000 locations, digital gold. Also offers Bitcoin wallets
e.g., Walmarts and Elektras in Mexico. BONA FIDES: Hundreds of thousands
of users, including Lyft & Salesforce for consumers, mainly in developing
BONA FIDES: $4 billion a year moved world.
FUNDING: $450 million; latest valua-
COFOUNDER & CEO: Matt Oppenheimer, tion of $9.2 billion BONA FIDES: Secures Bitcoin underly-
35, worked for Barclays in Kenya ing the Bitcoin Investment Trust
FUNDING: $200 million FUNDING: $41 million
FEBRUARY 28, 2018 FORBES | 87
BLOCKCHAIN INVESTING PERSONAL PAYMENTS LENDING DATA & WALL STREET CONSUMERS SMALL
& BITCOIN FINANCE ANALYTICS & ENTERPRISE BUSINESS