Who to Know: Fintech in NYC

New York’s long cemented status as a financial hub has led to its natural progression into a hotspot for innovative financial technology startups. Here’s who you need to know in fintech in NYC.NEW YORK NETWORKSFinTech Startups Meetup: A huge meetup group with over 3,000 members, this meetup hosts monthly events in a variety of formats including demo days, panels, and networking happy hours.Finovate: One of the world’s biggest financial technology conference series, Finovate was launched in New York City in 2007. Since then, it has expanded to include conferences in San Francisco, London, and Singapore. The New York conference takes place each fall. Over the course of the two-day program, attendees network with industry professionals, leaders and startups, and hand-picked companies demo their products.Fintech Startups Conference: This conference series unique to New York brings together investors, startups, entrepreneurs, executives and more to showcase Silicon Alley fintech and discuss the latest trends in the industry. The day includes panel discussions, presentations, selected demos, and networking opportunities.Fintech Hackathon: An event for the coders and developers of the fintech world to come together for 24 hours of brainstorming and coding, followed by a day of demoing to a panel of investors and executives.FINTECH INCUBATORS AND ACCELERATORSFintech Innovation Lab: First launched in NYC in 2010 as a joint venture by consulting and technology firm Accenture and the Partnership Fund for New York City, this twelve-week mentorship program accepts six fintech companies every spring. Once accepted, the startups receive mentoring, access to the lab’s entrepreneurs and industry advisors network, product feedback, office space in Manhattan, and tools to develop further. The program ends in a demo day in front of top level executives and investors.  The program has been so successful since its launch that it has since expanded to London, Hong Kong, and Dublin.Value Stream Labs: Unlike many of the fintech incubator and accelerator programs that have large corporate sponsors, Value Stream Labs is an independent entity that nurtures the development of early stage companies. Though only a few years old, the accelerator program has already aided in the success of rising stars in fintech such as Estimize. At six months, VSL’s program is longer than many others, giving participating companies the time they need to get off the ground.Mastercard’s NYC Technology Hub: A brand new, six-month-old initiative, Mastercard’s NYC Technology Hub in the Flatiron district focuses on payment innovation. Housed in the 60,000 square foot space are various teams within the MasterCard company as well as companies coming from outside—early stage startups can apply to Start Path, MasterCard Lab’s incubator program. It’s about “looking ahead three to five years, taking risks, failing smart, quick, cheap, and learning something along the way,” MasterCard’s head of innovation management, John Sheldon, said in a Fast Company interview last year.Barclay’s Accelerator: The latest in corporate accelerators opens in New York this July, sponsored by Barclay’s. Their partnership with TechStars has already been proven successful with their London accelerator and they’re now expanding to New York using the same model. Participating companies receive investment from TechStars, mentorship, business networking opportunities, and co-working space.FINTECH INVESTORS IN NEW YORKNyca Partners: A venture capital and advisory firm that invests in five to ten early-stage companies each year. They focus especially on startups in the payment, alternative credit, and risk and infrastructure sectors. Their portfolio includes big players such as Lending Club and Indiegogo.FinTech Collective: A fintech investment firm started in 2012 by two long-time business partners and fintech entrepreneurs themselves, Brook Gibbons and Gareth Jones. The collective invests in seed and series-A companies.IA Capital Group: This investment group looks for innovative companies making a social impact with their financial service or product.Citi Ventures: Citi is a global entity, but their venture capital arm has offices in New York and Palo Alto. They invest in a broad range of fintech companies, with a portfolio that includes Square and Betterment.RRE Ventures: Though not exclusively fintech-focused, the financial expertise of select team members such as James D. Robinson III (former CEO of American Express) makes this one impossible to leave off the list.NOTABLE NYC FINTECH STARTUPSOnDeck: OnDeck’s online platform quickly assesses the credit of small businesses to approve loans faster than traditional lenders. The company went public at the end of 2014 and has a current market value of $1.43 billion. CEO Noah Breslow was just named as one of Crain’s 40 under 40 for 2015.LearnVest: One of the few fintech companies with a female founder, Alexa Von Tobel, LearnVest is a program that aims to make financial planning affordable and accessible with a series of easy to use tools. Just two weeks ago, LearnVest was acquired by Northwest Mutual for $250 million.Dataminr: Big data is big in the finance industry. Although they’re involved in data collection from several sectors, Dataminr has a strong focus on finance, delivering the latest financial information by analyzing Twitter streams. Their latest (Series D) round of funding raised $130 million, closing at the end of last month adding up to $179.6 million total.Betterment: Betterment is a goal-based online automated investing service that allows people manage their money for themselves. The company just closed Series D funding last month and has raised $105 million to date.SecondMarket: SecondMarket simplifies private securities transactions with an online portal and software that gives companies and investment funds easy control over their transactions. They’ve raised $33.8 million in three rounds of funding.Kapitall: Using video game mechanics to appeal to the playfulness in all of us, Kapitall makes investing easy for everyone. Users learn about investing and then start investing themselves by dragging and dropping. With $20.3 million invested in the company so far, it’s clear that the model has widespread appeal.Moven: Moven is a debit account that tracks your money in real time. Described by Wired, Forbes, and the New York Times as a "bank of the future,” they’ve raised $12.3 million in three rounds of funding.StockTwits: StockTwits created the $TICKER tag to enable and organize “streams” of information around stocks and markets across the web and social media, providing new forms of insight, ideas and information that are used by investors, analysts, media and others as they research stocks and manage their investments. They’ve raised $8.6 million in funding.