This sponsored post is produced by Yodlee.

Financial services has rapidly moved from the periphery of the tech industry to its red-hot core. Since 2008, global investment in fintech ventures has tripled to nearly $3 billion and it is predicted that global fintech investment will more than double by 2018. Startups in the space are raising massive rounds. Accounting software company Xero raised a whopping $111 million in February, bringing its total capital raised to over $350 million. The acquisition market is also hot, as large financial institutions look for startups that can help them keep up. In March, 158-year old Northwestern Mutual (America’s second largest life insurance company) announced its acquisition of LearnVest, an online financial planning startup.

These success stories are just the beginning. A gold mine of opportunities still exists for entrepreneurs with the skill and vision to capitalize on them. These opportunities are what Ynext, the unit of Yodlee, Inc. powering the bleeding edge of financial innovation, is built on. Ynext established an incubator that gives aspiring entrepreneurs the resources to get their ideas off the ground. The goal is to help them build products that leverage Yodlee’s leading data platform — the same award-winning API platform that powers fintech innovators like Lending Club, Xero, and LearnVest — to create value for consumers and businesses.

“Innovation demands experimentation, which for good reason tends not to happen at the big institutions that dominate finance. That leaves a lot of room for upstarts like us,” said Noah Smith, CEO of OCX, one of the Ynext Incubator companies. “We have the freedom to test things out that are unproven but have the potential to transform finance.”

Innovation, unveiled

Ynext’s class of eight innovators will reveal their technology to the world at a Demo Day on May 27, 2015. The elite class consists of Accredify, DRAFT, Evolved Bookkeeping, Fidor US, OCX, Roostify, Telito and VOATZ, which cover a range of verticals.

  • Accredify verifies accredited investors and allows for a secure environment to invest in startups and private equity online.
  • DRAFT is an investment analysis tool that combines crowdsourced data with a simple dashboard to change the way people view, think, and act when it comes to their long-term investment strategy.
  • Evolved Bookkeeping is a cloud platform to facilitate, automate, and optimize the bookkeeping process.
  • Fidor US is a new kind of bank built for the young urban community.
  • OCX is a P2P small business lender that taps into local networks for credit signals and distribution.
  • Roostify accelerates and simplifies the home loan experience, providing banks with a cloud-based solution that digitizes and streamlines the mortgage application process for consumers and lenders.
  • Telito makes it fun and easy to rate experiences and brings trust and personalization to customer-generated opinions, by connecting purchases to reviews.
  • VOATZ enables citizens to safely vote in elections directly via their smartphones.

Each of these startups received free access to Yodlee Interactive’s API interfaces for 12 months, connecting them to data from thousands of banks and financial companies around the world and enabling them to build smarter, stronger fintech products. In addition, these startups received ongoing support and guidance throughout their six-month program in key areas like scaling, recruiting, capital raising, product development, and more.

To meet the inaugural cohort of the Ynext Incubator, representing the cutting edge of financial innovation, investors are invited to attend the Ynext Demo Day on May 27th, 2015 at the JCC in Palo Alto.

If you are an investor or finance executive who would like to attend Demo Day, please email incubator@yodlee.com. Ynext would also like to invite developers interested in Fintech to join next year’s class. You can find more information about joining the Fall 2015 class here.

Jeff Cain directs the Ynext Incubator. Previously, he was a Vice President at Rutberg & Company and ran business development at Common Sense Media. He has worked at Cadence Design Systems and Red Herring Communications and founded Zobo Pet Products and Poppybox Gardens.

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