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The ultimate guide to fintech in Norway

Fintech in Norway

Fintech is one of the hottest segments in Norway these days, and the fintech scene is growing rapidly. After showcasing promising fintech companies at Money 20/20, the world is now looking to the Nordics for the fintech companies of the future. Activity levels were high in 2015, and by the looks of it, the industry shows no signs of slowing down. The number of fintech companies is increasing steadily, and is joined by excisiting software vendors looking to renew themselves.

With the best digital infrastructure in the world, a population with 95% access to the internet and only 6% of the population that use cash daily, Norway is the perfect breeding ground for fintech. The emergence of a fintech ecosystem with key players like ICT Norway, Fintech Mundi and Fintech Factory are all supporting the growth of the fintech community in Norway.

A quick overview shows that savings/investments and infrastructure/security are the two main categories of fintech in Norway, but we are seeing a wide variety of promising companies within all categories. Notable companies include (semi-ordered by category, but not ranked):

mCash is a mobile payment solution offering mobile-payments fo merchants, P2P-payments as well as online and in-app payments. The Norwegian operation of mCASH was acquired by SpareBank 1 and the company has previously received 43 MNOK in series A funding through Northzone and Entrée Capital in 2014. Learn more at mCash.

Auka is the international expansion of mCASH. The company promise to enable financial institutions to launch their own mobile payments service to merchants and consumers through a, white-label platform. Learn more at Auka.

dSAFE is a solution for electronic receipts, loyalty and payment analytics. dSafe was acquired by Bambora last year for an undisclosed amount. Learn more at dSAFE.

Vipps is the mobile payment solution offered by DNB. Learn more at Vipps.

Zwipe offers biometric security for cards through fingerprint authenticated payment cards. The company entered an agreement with MasterCard in the fall of 2014 to deliver fingerprint authentication to Mastercards contactless payment cards. The technology is based on low energy fields, which allows the card to harvest energy from the payment terminals. Zwipe raised $5 million in a series B round from Chinese investors Photon Future in 2015. Learn more at Zwipe.

Meawallet delivers cloud based security solutions for mobile payments through HCE and tokenization. Meawallet aims to offer a white label security platform to both banks as well as offerings bank level security as part of mobile access services for other industries. Meawallet is currently partnering with pilot banks such as First Investment Bank AD. Meawallet raised $2,2 million in seed funding in July 2015. Learn more at Meawallet.

Encap Security turns personal devices into security credentials to replace two-factor authentication services. Encap is offering white label solutions to primarily financial services companies, in particular banks and payment players looking to provide mobile and online financial services to consumers. The company secured 2 MUSD in seed funding from Proventurein 2013. Learn more at Encap Security.

Promon is an app security solution offering integrated service protection products to online service providers for the protection of Web services, such as online banking, online CRM/ERP systems, public services, and e-commerce sites. It also provides integrated application protection products that are offered to various software application providers to protect sensitive information and ensure application integrity, including banking applications, online ERP/CRM-systems, games, and communication software. Learn more at Promon.

Forgerock is an identity and access management (IAM) platform for digital identities. ForgeRock creates identity relationship management solutions for the modern Web including public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and enterprise and mobile environments. Forgerock has raised 52 MUSD in three rounds from various investors. Learn more at Forgerock.

Signicat is delivering identity-as-a-service and digital signature on demand. Signicats customers include major banks, insurance companies, ecommerce, government and public transportation. They get access to an infrastructure with over 13 million pre-identified users through a single point of integration. Signicat has raised 1,93 MUSD to two rounds from various investors. Learn more at Signicat

Crypho builds encrypted real-time communications solutions for the web. The company’s mission is to make confidential and encrypted communications available to everyone everywhere. Learn more at Crypho.

Protectoria is an authentication and authorization solution with the objective to provide customers a single mobile device user experience at the highest and PSD 2 compliant security level. Learn more at Protectoria.

Risk-Partner is developing add-on software for ERP-platforms which will change how companies manage B2B credit risk. The company aims to create new ways to leverage cash-flow and liquidity issues through automated algorithmic equations and by integrating factoring solutions. The company recently signed its first client contracts in the Norwegian market and is currently in dialogue with several potential partners and clients. Learn more at Risk-Partner.

Precise Prediction is acredit scoring solution aiming to improve underwriting systems as well as credit portfolio optimization and valuation. Learn more at Precise Prediction.

Hufsy is a Norwegian/Danish company aiming to create a better banking solution for small businesses. Hufsy offers cross-border banking based on blockchain/distributed shared ledger technology. Learn more at Hufsy.

Joystream is a blockchain-based BitTorrent client that rewards seeders for providing bandwidth with micropayments. Learn more at Joystream.

Gamecoin is an open platform for microtransactions between gamers based on the blockchain. Learn more at Gamecoin.

Fronteer Solutions promises to deliver portfolio solutions for institutional investors and self-service tools directly to end customers. Fronteer seeks to launch the factor fund Harvest the second quarter of 2016. Fronteer solutions raised approximately $1 million from Investinor and Startuplab’s Founders Fund in early august 2015. Learn more at Fronteer Solutions.

Spiff is a mobile savings platform that promises and easy and fun way to save money aimed at women. The service offers both regular savings as well as goal-specific savings such as holidays and gifts. Spiff raised an undisclosed seed round in 2015. Learn more at Spiff.

Huddlestock aims to reconfigure the entire investment management industry by offering a platform allows for crowd investing. Huddlestock has raised 1 MUSD in seed capital. Learn more at Huddlestock.

Edgefolio is a marketing platform that reverses the way investor connect to hedge funds by enabling investors to search for suitable funds through their platform. Edgefolio has raised $575 000 in seed capital through Betafactory and a consortium of angel investors. Learn more atEdgefolio.

KolibriFX offers apps that allow traders to test different strategies and set up parameters to make those trades in real-time. The company is offering buy-side firms a platform and APIs to analyse historical and real-time data streams to identify, test and trade on alpha-signals as well as offering components for sophisticated pricing, hedging and data analysis to sell-side customers. Learn more at KolibriFX.

QuantAlliance promises to deliver quantitative algorithmic trading for Forex and Commodities. Learn more at QuantAlliance.

Islero is platform for sharing investment research by connecting analysts and traders. Learn more at Islero.

Bidra.no is a crowdfunding platform for charitable causes. Learn more at bidra.no.

Frunder is a crowdfunding platform focusing on raising capital in a social and a community setting. The service is aiming to help young athletes to raise capital for new equipment from the local community, schools to raise capital from parents and relatives for class trips, or simply to engage your friends and those around you to help out to fulfill a dream. The site is not yet live, but is said to launch in Q1 2016. Learn more at frunder.no.

New Jelly is a crowdfunding platform focusing on raising capital for cultural initiatives for musicians, authors, filmmakers. Learn more at New Jelly.

MyShare Live is an equity-based  crowdfunding platform. Learn more at Myshare.live

Cloud Insurance is a is a policy and claims management system for insurance agents, brokers and insurers. Cloud Insurance currently serve the insurance market in 15 different countries across five continents. Learn more at Cloud Insurance.

Prosessor is a digital loyalty and reward solution for physical retail that  is integrated directly in the payment flow through the cash register system. For the consumer, everything is embedded in existing payment cards. Learn more at Prosessor.

Maincard is a loyalty and customer analytics system for merchants providing loyalty programs. Transactions are recorded on the customer’s existing debit and/or credit card. Learn more at Maincard.

Strex is a joint venture for payment solutions for mobile phones between telcos in Norway. The partnership makes the solutions available to all customers, regardless of which carrier the customer has selected. Learn more at Strex.

Other notable companies delivering solutions to the financial sector include Banqsoft, Evry and SPN which provides software to the financial sector as well as BankAxept which provides payment solutions andBankID which provides authentication services, where the two latter are fully owned by the banks.

 

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