3 Startups to Watch: YingBank, Upgrade, and Teampay
With fintech funding on the rise, new startups that want to make their mark on the financial ecosystem are sprouting up every day. From those that focus on payments or mobile, to the ones leveraging social media, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, there’s a global hoard of startups that want to muscle into the banks’ territory just waiting to put their seed funding to good use (once they have it in hand, of course).
Below are just a few of the startups that are making innovative moves: take a look at Bank Innovation‘s top three startups to watch this month below.
Thus far, the traditional problem with using cryptocurrency as an actual method of transaction has been that, well, no one really wants to do that in case they become the next Bitcoin Pizza guy: but that doesn’t mean fiat will be the currency of future. Why not make it time? YingBank, a Los Angeles-based startup, is putting that theory to the test.
Rather than relying on either a fiat or a cryptocurrency, YingBank is providing its customers with “Time Credits.” These, according to the company, are an IRS-validated form of currency, which customers can earn by employing the skills they already have. Once they’ve created an account on the Ying app, users are “matched” with others who might have need of their skills for which they will receive credits. They can then use those to “pay” others on the platform for their skills.
Officially founded last year, YingBank has received an undisclosed amount of seed funding (also last year) from Halogen Ventures.
Bank Innovation has been keeping a close eye on Upgrade, the brainchild of Renaud Laplanche, since its official launch one year ago. A startup that also offers personal loans (like LendingClub, where Laplanche previously served as CEO, and which is currently going through some troubled times), Upgrade is looking to provide consumers with a greater amount of transparency into their finances.
This can be seen from its most recent financial product shows: a line of credit that enables users to borrow a fixed amount, and to pay off the interest only on the exact amount of credit used, Laplanche told Bank Innovation earlier in the month.
The startup is a bit beyond seed funding at this point (it has $60 million in funding), something that should position the company for a solid amount of growth as the year continues. We’ll be around to see. The startup is reported to be originating $100 million in loans per month.
As cryptocurrency and time credits have yet to really hit the mainstream, for now consumers (and businesses) are stuck dealing with the fiat methods of payment. That doesn’t mean companies should stick with the same old thing, however, as Teampay is offering.
With advanced data analytics and software, the company is looking to provide businesses with a new type of corporate credit card: the company makes use of virtual credit numbers (safer, obsensibly, than their older physical cousins) and mobile apps to make sure each and every business transaction is tracked and approved in real-time.
That means businesses can do away with all of the drudgery that typically comes along with corporate credit cards, including individual expense reports and the eternal process of approving and accounting such reports.
Officially launched in 2016, the company just received $4 million in seed funding in November of this year, with the lead on the round being Crosscut Ventures.
These are just three of the many startups that Bank Innovation will be watching for their impact on fintech. Stay tuned for more!
