6 Pitching Finalists

Scout Analysis Done by:  MATT HUDSON

Matt graduated from McGill University with a BA in Computer Science & Economics and is interested in the intersection of data analytics and economic development.  He currently works within the NCFA Canada ecosystem as a co-op student, and aspires to work at a high growth fintech with particular interest in alternative lending and credit risk assessment areas.

Orchid B is one of six finalists invited to pitch at FFCON 2021. To learn more about them click here, and make sure to check out their live on Wednesday, May 12.

Anyone who has worked at, or even visited, a back-office location is familiar with how many different departments work from the back-office and how labor intensive those jobs can be. For large corporations looking to save, outsourcing these departments is often a high priority item. However, for small-to-medium sized enterprises and sole proprietorships managing their own back-office is generally not feasible and leads to outsourcing as one of the only options, rather than an opportunity. Ideally, outsourcing should free time up for entrepreneurs and allow them to focus on the customer facing side of their business. For companies with small management teams, it can be time consuming to coordinate with various remote departments. For a sole proprietorship, this may carry a cost of up $65,000/year including the lost wages from time spent coordinating with outsourced departments.

Orchid B offers an alternative solution to these SMEs faced with the decision of how to manage their back-office functions. By centralizing these processes and offering users a holistic view of their back-office, Orchid B reduces time spent managing the back-office and the cost to do so. Currently, Orchid B offers several features which help streamline payment and insurance functions. Offering debit cards that are linked to a banking application which allows the tracking of expenses and the setting of permissions for employees who use their cards. Additionally, users can get quotes for business insurance through their app, while important tax filing and renewal deadlines are summarized through their Business Dashboard feature.

Orchid B plans to add significant value by integrating their current offerings with features to manage the expenses incurred on company cards, manage invoicing, and also payroll through the Orchid B app. The Orchid B long-term vision includes a better user experience for back office services and a system that integrates all functions on one interface. This will facilitate real savings for SMEs and sole proprietors.

 

Copia Wealth Studios is one of six finalists invited to pitch at FFCON 2021. To learn more about them click here, and make sure to check out their pitch on Wednesday, May 12.

When thinking of high-net-worth individuals, often one pictures the material wealth associated with them. Multiple real estate holdings, private collections of illiquid assets, public and private equity. What one normally neglects to think of is the small army of managers and advisors that are needed to maintain the wealth behind the lifestyle. Alternative investments and illiquid assets often require expertise into the particular type of holding, for example private art collections. This poses a unique challenge for the owners of these portfolios: how to compare and track the performance of their holdings with their teams of managers.

Copia Wealth Studios’ financial intelligence platform allows high-net-worth clients to view performance across all of their holdings. By benchmarking manager performance, Copia’s clients are able to make fair comparisons of their managers, even when those managers are handling different mixes of a clients’ assets. The data generated from tracking performance is also analyzed via a machine learning approach. Insights from the analysis are summarized for Copia’s clients, allowing them to make informed decisions about how to manage their overall portfolio. Ultimately, the financial intelligence platform gives high-net-worth individuals a transparent look at their overall portfolio performance and offers insight into better managing that performance with respect to each wealth manager.

Currently, Copia has secured their $1.8M pre-revenue investment through a round of friends and family funding. With their financial intelligence platform poised to launch later this year, the potential for this platform to disrupt the traditional wealth management space is definitely intriguing and something to look forward to.

 

Forward AI is one of six finalists invited to pitch at FFCON 2021. To learn more about them click here, and make sure to check out their pitch on Thursday, May 13.

Financing is a hurdle that all successful small businesses must overcome. It is one of the most trying processes for a new business, especially those that lack a connection to seed financing. Even though small businesses provide an opportunity for investors to be involved early in a company’s development, these kinds of investments usually carry substantial risk. In fact, fewer than half of business with 1-4 employees are around 10 years after they have been founded. With so much risk involved, lenders can be reluctant to enter the market.

Forward AI is disrupting this problematic model by bringing small business owners and lenders together on their Forward AI Precise API. Precise exposes lenders to Forward AI’s historical and forward-looking data on small businesses and their performance. Along with data, Precise supplies lenders with cash-flow forecasting, proprietary financial health scoring, and detailed analyses. These offerings are designed to mitigate risk in the process of approving funding for small businesses. By better informing lenders, Precise facilitates access to funding for business owners and a better overall return on investment for lenders.

The Precise API is not the only way for the two sides of the market to connect. Forward AI Access is a white-label solution for lenders that offers data visualization and automatic cash-flow forecasting eliminating the need to interact directly with their API. On the client facing side, Forward AI’s Connect allows small business to automatically link their business and finance data to lenders who are using Precise or Access. The culmination of Forward AI’s offerings is a solution that creates value for lenders and business owners alike.