Lab created by Accenture and Partnership Fund for NYC continues to accelerate adoption of innovative technologies in New York City, including artificial intelligence, internet of things and virtual reality
Eleven emerging technology companies will debut their innovations at the FinTech Innovation Lab New York’s Demo Day today at the Bank of America Tower at Bryant Park.
Founded in 2010 by Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and the Partnership Fund for New York City, the FinTech Innovation Lab New York provides early- and growth-stage fintech companies with access to the world’s leading financial institutions. The Lab was established to help make New York a leader in fintech and grow technology jobs by leveraging the concentration of large financial services institutions and deep domain expertise that exists in the city. Since the New York Lab’s inception, its alumni companies have raised more than US$665 million and completed 170 pilot programs, and four of the companies have been acquired.
The 11 companies in this year’s Lab leverage a variety of technologies — including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, the internet of things, predictive analytics and virtual reality — to address challenges related to cybersecurity, IT infrastructure flexibility, payment collection and risk mitigation, among other areas. The Lab was expanded this year to include a dedicated InsurTech track.
“Interest in innovation and emerging technologies by the financial services community continues to expand, and our new InsurTech track was launched to address the growing demand by the insurance sector in new solutions,” said Maria Gotsch, president and CEO of the Partnership Fund for New York City and co-head of the FinTech Innovation Lab. “The tremendous support by leaders of New York’s business community is what powers the FinTech Innovation Lab and makes it so unique. Having the innovators working in collaboration with the financial institutions and venture community is a key part of what is driving New York City’s leadership in fintech.”
Selected by senior technology executives from among the Lab’s 43 participating financial institutions, the companies have spent the last 12 weeks receiving intensive product and business-development advice, as well as mentoring, from senior executives in the financial, technology and venture capital sectors.
“We saw yet another year of increased energy and engagement from our partner financial institutions in the Lab,” said David Treat, a managing director in Accenture’s Financial Services practice and co-head of the Fintech Innovation Lab New York. “Rapidly maturing technologies including AI, cloud, machine learning, predictive analytics and internet of things are enabling banks and insurance companies to accelerate their digital journeys. This year’s participating companies offer financial services firms a wide array of innovative solutions to enable deeper insights into their data, greater efficiency and better customer experiences.”
The following 2018 FinTech Innovation Lab New York participants will present their innovations today to an audience of more than 250 financial services executives and venture capitalists:
- Alpha Vertex – develops world-class analytical solutions to improve how investors predict and plan for the future. Its advanced AI automates the forecasting of asset returns.
- Cutover – helps financial services organizations successfully deliver more technology improvements for their customers and regulators while reducing the risk of outages.
- Diffeo – whose AI-powered research assistant connects everyday tools — including the web, email, shared drives and enterprise data portals — to uncover relationships across vast amounts of disparate data and present valuable insights.
- Galactic Fog – provides an easy-to-use platform for enterprise development and ops teams to rapidly build, deploy and manage cross-cloud serverless and container technologies, while driving improved security through seamless audit and governance capabilities.
- Habit – uses real-time consumer data—sourced from smartphones and IoT devices—to create behavioral profiles that enable insurance companies to improve risk models and offer better products and services.
- Liveoak Technologies – whose secure, digital collaboration platform enables financial institutions to engage with customers remotely, reducing the time to onboard new customers and increasing the number of digital transactions performed each year.
- Open Data Nation – uses predictive analytics and machine learning to assess and mitigate risk events, helping insurers tap into public records across hundreds of U.S. cities to extract insights that evaluate risk.
- StrongArm Tech – uses wearable IoT sensors and AI-driven cloud computing to collect, analyze, predict, and deliver actionable insights on how to mitigate the risk of injury for the industrial workforce.
- Uplevel Security – uses graph analysis and machine learning to help security teams resolve threats faster and more effectively.
- Virtualitics – provides advanced data analytics software that merges AI with virtual reality, where the AI finds the insights in data and the visualization of those insights provided by VR expands the ability to make smart decisions based on data. Built on 10 years of research at Caltech.
- YayPay – whose software automates the accounts receivable process—including communication and collections—and provides predictive analytics around credit and collection risk. YayPay makes collecting money, fast, easy and highly predictable.
The selection committee for the New York FinTech Innovation Lab added eight new insurance partners this year to support the InsurTech track, and comprises executives from the following participating financial institutions: Ally Financial; American Express; American International Group, Inc.; AON; Bank of America; Barclays; BlackRock; Capital One; Chubb; Citi; Credit Suisse; Goldman Sachs; The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America; The Hartford; JPMorgan Chase & Co; Marsh & McLennan Companies; MetLife; Morgan Stanley; New York Life; RBC Capital Markets; The Travelers Companies, Inc.; USAA; Wells Fargo; XL Catlin; and Zurich.
Supporting venture-capital firms include Anthemis, Bain Capital Ventures, Canaan, Contour Venture Partners, Nyca Partners, Rho Ventures, RRE Ventures and Warburg Pincus.
Following the success of the FinTech Innovation Lab New York, Accenture established three other FinTech Innovation Labs: the FinTech Innovation Lab London, founded in 2012, and the FinTech Innovation Lab Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong and the FinTech Innovation Lab Dublin, both founded in 2014. The FinTech Innovation Labs are now a leading venue for introducing financial services firms to breakthrough technologies that improve efficiency, security and customer experience. The Labs’ alumni have raised a total of nearly US$1.2 billion in venture capital financing since participating in the Lab.
Participating financial institutions and venture-capital firms commented on their involvement in the FinTech Innovation Lab New York:
“Ally has been proudly supporting the New York FinTech Innovation Lab for six years, helping to support and shape early stage companies and technologies for the future,” said Michael Baresich, chief information officer at Ally. “As a digital financial company, technology plays a key role in both the development of our products and the delivery of unique customer experiences, and events like Demo Day allow us to closely explore the latest innovations.”
“The FinTech Innovation Lab plays a critical role in strengthening New York’s fintech ecosystem and fostering a mutually supportive community of investors, entrepreneurs, financial institutions and service providers,” said Matt Harris, managing director at Bain Capital Ventures. “No other program rivals the Lab in its breadth and depth of industry support. We continue to be impressed by the Lab’s ability to help financial services institutions gain access to innovation at a time when the industry is so eager for new ideas.”
“Bank of America is proud to be a founding sponsor of the FinTech Innovation Lab,” said David Reilly, Bank of America Global Banking & Markets CIO. “The innovation ecosystem built through the collaboration between financial services companies like ours and fintech startups ultimately benefits how we service and interact with our customers and clients.”
“Disruption of the insurance sector is inevitable. At Chubb, we want to continue to be part of that disruption as we strive to serve our customer’s needs,” said Monique Shivanandan, Chubb’s Global CIO. “Working with the start-ups and our peers in the FinTech Innovation Lab is a way for us to be part of shaping that future. It’s key that we have diversity of thought and talent in IT and the business.”
“Citi is proud to be a founding sponsor of the New York FinTech Innovation Lab. We value the opportunity to engage with leading start-ups and institutions on technologies that will advance our future capabilities and Demo Day is a great event to see these innovations first-hand,” said Motti Finkelstein, CTO, Global Strategy Planning and Americas, Managing Director, Citi.
“Credit Suisse values our partnership with the FinTech Innovation Lab program and the many interesting opportunities it has afforded us to work with innovative startups,” added Adrianne Dicker, Global Innovation Lead for the Credit Suisse Group Chief Information Officer.
“JPMorgan Chase is proud to partner with the New York Fin Tech Innovation Lab in order to continue to foster the start-up ecosystem in New York City. We are constantly looking at innovation across all areas of emerging technology that can help create transformational business value for our clients, our people and our Firm and we’re pleased to mentor the breakthrough companies in this year’s lab,” said Larry Feinsmith, Managing Director and Head of Global Technology Strategy, Innovation & Partnerships, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
“At Morgan Stanley, we believe in a holistic approach to innovation that is inspired by external entrepreneurs in collaboration with our internal experts and innovators,” said Shawn Melamed, Managing Director and Head of the Technology Business Development and Innovation Office, Morgan Stanley. “We are honored and excited to support these promising entrepreneurs as they build their companies here in New York, where financial acumen adds additional fuel to fintech innovation.”
“Since its initial launch in 2011, the FinTech Innovation Lab has had a tremendous impact on the fintech ecosystem in New York City, and has attracted support from most financial services companies in the area. We are delighted to see the growing interest in the sector, as well as the increasing high quality of the participating companies,” said Habib Kairouz, Managing Partner, Rho Ventures.
“The Fintech Innovation Lab does an exceptional job at working with startups and corporations to ensure that technology is being used to solve a real use case and not a theoretical problem, while providing key mentorship to early stage teams. We are glad to be a part of the program and we’re especially delighted to see them open up an Insurance track this time around,” added Stuart Ellman, General Partner at RRE Ventures.
“We’re focused on innovation across every aspect of our business, particularly by leveraging data, analytics, artificial intelligence and the internet of things,” said Bruce Gifford, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Travelers. “We’re pleased to participate in FinTech Innovation Lab New York. It’s a great opportunity to connect with technology start-ups that can help us continue to improve the services and experiences we provide to our customers and partners.”
About the Partnership Fund for New York City
The Partnership Fund for New York City is the $160 million investment arm of the Partnership for New York City, New York’s leading business organization. The Fund’s mission is to engage the City’s business leaders to identify and support promising entrepreneurs—in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors—to create jobs, spur new business and expand opportunities for New Yorkers to participate in the City’s economy. As an “evergreen” fund, realized gains are continuously reinvested. The Partnership Fund Board is led by Co-Chairmen, Charles R. Kaye and Tarek Sherif. Maria Gotsch, President and CEO, leads the team. More information about the Fund can be found at www.pfnyc.org.
About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions – underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network – Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With approximately 442,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.