On Thursday, May 11, 2017 Benzinga Global Fintech Awards celebrated the innovation that's transforming the finance industry.
A judging panel of over 30 leading fintech VCs, executives, and entrepreneurs selected the 24 companies pushing the forefront of finance from a list of over 300 finalists.
One winner in particular, Futurefuel.io, appeared on CNBC alongside Benzinga founder Jason Raznick to discuss its BZ Awards win.
Meet the winners and runners-up of the 2017 Benzinga Global Fintech Awards below.
Overall winners:
Champion: AlphaPoint
AlphaPoint creates blockchain technology for financial institutions, and has seen significant adoption of its tech.
Runner-up: Unison Home Ownership Investors
Unison increases access to home ownership by allowing those without the funds for a down payment to purchase a home--Unison puts up the money and profits off any increases in the home's value.
Honorable Mention: WiseBanyan
WiseBanyan is a rapidly-growing roboadvisor that focuses on helping its clients meet specific financial goals, such as a down payment on a home
Best in Show: Unison Home Ownership Investors
Winners by category:
Best Alternative Investments Platform, Tool or App:
SAF Platform
What does it do?
Helps digitize the handshake process for alternative investments
Runner-up: YieldStreet
Best Analysis Platform, Tool or App:
TradingView
What does it do?
A social platform for sharing customizable charts and analysis
Runner-up: YCharts
Best Digital Mortgage or Real Estate Platform, Tool or App:
Rocket Mortgage
What does it do?
The first mobile-native mortgage product that overhauled a multibillion dollar business--$7B in
loan volume in 2016
Runner-up: PeerStreet
Best Education & Personal Finance Platform, Tool or App:
FutureFuel.io
What does it do?
Helps tackle the student debt bubble by working with employers to offer student loan repayment benefits to their employees
Runner-up: Clarity Money
Best Financial Advisor or Wealth Management Platform, Tool or App:
Orion Advisor Services
What does it do?
All-in-one integration service for common financial advisor apps, programs and other tools & allows some automation so that advisors can spend more time growing the business
Runner-up: BaseVenture
Best Forex Platform, Tool or App:
Remitly
What does it do?
Money transfer service
Runner-up: MarketFactory
Best InsurTech Platform, Tool or App:
CoverWallet
What does it do?
Digital platform that serves as a one-stop shop for all business insurance needs
Runner-up: Embroker
Best Lending Platform, Tool or App:
Stilt
What does it do?
Stilt gives students studying on visas easy access to digital loans
Runner-up: ThinkMoney
Best Proprietary Technology or APIs:
OpenFin
What does it do?
Uses its advanced infrastructure and development resources to help financial institutions deploy applications
Runner-up: Dataminr
Best RegTech Platform, Tool or App:
Rippleshot
What does it do?
Uses advanced analytics to improve current fraud detection on cards and online transactions
Runner-up: Neurensic
Best Research Platform, Tool or App:
AlphaSense
What does it do?
Platform that uses NLP to significantly cut down research time for funds & quants across multiple content types
Runner-up: Street Diligence
Best Robo Advisor:
Betterment
What does it do?
Most comprehensive robo solution
Runner-up: WealthSimple
Best Trading Execution or Brokerage Platform:
Finvasia
What does it do?
A new brokerage serving a huge emerging market - India and eventually Asia
Runner-up: DriveWealth
Best Trading Recommendation Platform, Tool or App:
Chaikin Analytics
What does it do?
One of the first fintech companies to develop an advanced quantitative model that provides sentiment for stocks as well as context in one package
Runner-up: Trade Ideas
Best Under-banked or Emerging Market Solution:
Ovamba
What does it do?
Platform that opens up African companies to investors in the US / Canada / Japan
Runner-up: World Remit
Best Use of Blockchain or Bitcoin:
AlphaPoint
What does it do?
Blockchain ledger gaining significant institutional traction. This is one the best implementation of blockchain ledgers for capital market technologies
Runner-up: Brave New Coin
Finding Alpha:
PortfolioEffect
What does it do?
Allows individuals to backtest both high and low frequency trading strategies with intraday data included
Runner-up: ExtractAlpha
Institutional Innovators
PFITR - Bond Price Validation
What does it do?
Currently one of the only non-institutional bond market analysis platforms that is available to retail investors
Runner-up: Cloud9 Technologies
Investing In Millennials:
Aspiration
What does it do?
Comprehensive suite of investing tools for millennials
Runner-up: Grain
Leveling the Playing Field:
DIY.FUND
What does it do?
Allows anyone to use complex portfolio analysis tools
Runner-up: Unison Home Ownership Investors
Solving Problems Through Payments
PayKey
What does it do?
Integrates payments into all social media and other phone apps
Runner-up: Disburze
About Benzinga Global Fintech Awards
Designed to uncover the most innovative companies within the financial technology capital markets sector, the Benzinga Fintech Awards provide winning finalists with new opportunities for growth and exposure. For last year's winners, please visit www.benzingafintechawards.com or use the hashtag #BZAwards.
About Benzinga
Benzinga is a leading originator of actionable financial insights for traders and investors. Benzinga's news desk is constantly breaking stories and moving billions of dollars of market capitalization through its real-time terminal, Benzinga Pro. Benzinga's original content is syndicated to 70 partner websites, such as Yahoo! Inc.'s (YHOO) Yahoo! Finance, Microsoft Corporation's (MSFT) MSN, CNNMoney, Fox Business, Marketwatch, and more. Benzinga is the leading provider of news to the North American brokerage community, with a client list including TD Ameritrade (AMTD), LightSpeed, TradeKing, and many more. The company is headquartered in downtown Detroit and dedicated to driving Detroit's renaissance. For more information, check out Benzinga.com, Cloud.Benzinga.com, and Pro.Benzinga.com.
