Mooreland Partners, the leading independent investment bank providing M&A and private capital advisory services to the global technology industry, today announced that it acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Hungary-based Balabit in its sale to leading Texas-based security software vendor One Identity, a Quest Software business. The transaction was publicly announced and closed on January 17, 2018. 

"This transaction is yet another example of how technology leaders are scanning the globe for best-in-class people and products," said Peter Globokar, Managing Director at Mooreland Partners. "Mooreland brought in its deep domain expertise in information security as well as tried and tested transatlantic transaction execution skills to make this transaction happen," added Brad Topchik, co-head of Mooreland Partners' global Enterprise Software banking practice.

Balabit is a leading provider of Privileged Access Management (PAM) and Log Management solutions that help businesses reduce the risk of data breaches associated with privileged accounts. Solutions include Privileged Session Management, Privileged Account Analytics and Log Management, which together help organizations prevent, detect and respond to cyber attacks involving privileged accounts, including both insider threats and external attacks using hijacked credentials. Balabit's global customer base of more than 600 organizations spans over 90 countries and more than 1,000,000 corporate users.

Founded in 2000, Balabit is a privately-held company backed notably by C5 Capital, a leading venture and private equity investor in the European cybersecurity and wider software ecosystem. The company, based in Budapest, Hungary, also has operations in the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Luxembourg. More information at www.balabit.com

One Identity, a Quest Software business headquartered in Austin, Texas, offers a broad portfolio of identity and access management (IAM) solutions including identity governance, access management, privileged management, and identity as a service.  More than 7,500 customers worldwide use One Identity solutions to manage more than 125 million identities, enhancing organizational agility and efficiency while securing access to data -- wherever it might reside. More information at www.oneidentity.com            

Quest Software, backed by global investor Francisco Partners, is one the world's most recognizable brands in IT Management and security software with solutions spanning information management, data protection, endpoint systems management, identity and access management, and Microsoft platform management. More than 100,000 customers globally rely on Quest to manage and protect critical IT functions. www.quest.com

The enhanced Easy Trading Connect (ETC) blockchain prototype reduces time spent on processing documents and data from hours to minutes, and allows for a larger trading scope

Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC), Shandong Bohi Industry Co., Ltd (Bohi), ING, Societe Generale and ABN Amro have successfully completed the first full agricultural commodity transaction using a blockchain platform.

For the first time ever in the agricultural commodities sector, this trade included a full set of digitalised documents (sales contract, letter of credit, certificates) and automatic data-matching, thus avoiding task duplication and manual checks. The transaction, which mirrored the paper-based process, demonstrated significant efficiency improvements for all participants in the chain. Time spent on processing documents and data has been reduced fivefold. Other benefits include the ability to monitor the operation's progress in real time, data verification, reduced risk of fraud, and a shorter cash cycle. The platform’s success demonstrates the immense potential of distributed ledger technologies to advance commodity trading and financing.

The Easy Trading Connect (ETC) platform was designed to digitalise and standardise commodity transactions. It was first validated with an oil cargo transaction in February 2017, with the subsequent launch in November 2017 of an energy consortium aiming to offer ‘blockchain-based’ services to the energy sector. The same principle was then applied to develop a blockchain-based platform tailored to agricultural commodities trading, in collaboration with the various participants in such transactions. This new, adapted ETC platform accommodates the agricultural sector’s complex and rigorous documentation chain flows, covering not only the financing aspects, but also the full set of relevant documents pertaining to a transaction, such as the signing and processing of the sales contract at the start.

In this test, the enhanced platform was used to execute a soybean shipment transaction from the United States to China and covered the full complexity of the operation, including a larger number of participants and a broader scope. The transaction involved user participation on the blockchain-based platform by teams from Louis Dreyfus Company as the seller and Bohi as the buyer, with banks issuing and confirming the letter of credit. Russell Marine Group and Blue Water Shipping also participated in the process, issuing all required certificates. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) provided valuable insights on how to include phyto-sanitary certificates in the process.

ING, Societe Generale, ABN Amro and other major industry players such as LDC have a long-term ambition to improve security and operational efficiency in the commodity trading and finance sector through digitalisation and standardisation.

"One thing is clear: the digital revolution is transforming the commodities sector,” said Gonzalo Ramírez Martiarena, Chief Executive Officer of Louis Dreyfus Company. “Distributed ledger technologies have been evolving rapidly, bringing more efficiency and security to our transactions, and immense expected benefits for our customers and everyone along the supply chain as a result. The next step is to harness the potential for further development through the adoption of common standards, and welcome a truly new era of digital trade flow management on a global level."

Ant Financial today hosted the Ant Technology Exploration Conference (ATEC) in Silicon Valley, bringing together global partners and technology leaders to explore new innovations and technologies that further Ant Financial's mission of bringing the world equal opportunities. This was the first ATEC held outside of China, following the inaugural ATEC held in Hangzhou in October 2017.

The conference featured a diverse range of speakers from academia and industry to better explore the future of fintech, including Turing Award winner and MIT Professor Silvio Micali; Partner and Director of blockchain-based global payment platform Ripple, Emi Yoshikawa; founder of prediction market Bodhi, Xiahong Lin; and Director of JPMorgan Chase's digital channels, Umar Farooq, among others. Ant Financial's Vice President and Chief Architect, Hu Xi; Vice President and Chief Data Scientist, Alan Qi; and Vice President and Head of Ant Technology Labs, Geoff Jiang also participated.

Ant Financial's principal mission is to bring inclusive financial services to unbanked and underbanked consumers and small businesses globally. Ant Financial aims to work with partners around the world to forge new applications around its five core technology tenants: Blockchain, AI, Security, Internet of Things and Computing ('BASIC').

In his keynote address, Hu Xi said: "BASIC underpins everything we do at Ant Financial, so that we are able to better serve our users, and at the same time, open up platforms to the tech community to build on and create new applications to improve the user experience."

ATEC's focus on exploring cutting-edge technology brings together the world's best minds and addresses key goals and challenges, including future AI applications within fintech and wide applications of blockchain. 

As Alan Qi said, "We are truly excited about the AI research and development driven by extremely complex problems at the unprecedented large scale we encounter at Ant Financial. We have opened up the state-of-art financial AI platforms we developed - such as graph embedding technologies - to our partners and clients; the purpose is to use technology to help the financial industry improve efficiency, reduce cost and control risk."

ATEC 2017

At the inaugural ATEC last year, held in conjunction with the Alibaba Cloud Computing Conference, Ant Financial announced a range of new services and initiatives, such as an upgraded financial cloud offering and biometric identification services from independent subsidiary ZOLOZ to help partners build identity verification capabilities. Ant Financial also released blockchain capabilities to support open and transparent supply chains, particularly for food safety and imported goods.

Long-term Goals of ATEC

Ant Financial hopes that ATEC can serve as a platform to build a collaborative ecosystem for its global partners and technology leaders, as well as showcase and share Ant Financial's latest technological capabilities and developments. In addition to the Silicon Valley event, ATEC plans to host future events in Singapore, London and other major fintech hubs.

International payments startup Flywire has made its fourth acquisition, bringing the Boston-based company’s global headcount to roughly 250.

META announces the launch of META Finance, a strategic advice and solutions provider to leading financial institutions and software providers. META Finance coaches financial institutions in a rapidly evolving world driven by increasing consumer control and expectations. The launch follows pilot projects, comprising strategic advice and coaching services, with Aegon UK, Arachnys, Brooks Macdonald and Redington. 

The impact of years of fintech development on new customer experiences, combined with increasing regulation, makes accelerating change in financial services inevitable. 2018 is an important year for this and developments include Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2), the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), further government announcements on the Pensions Dashboard and work to move GOV.UK Verify into the private sector. To thrive in this evolving market, financial services firms require ecosystems, not just their own brands and propositions. 

META Finance believes these developments represent an opportunity to help the industry become more customer-centric. By empowering their clients to use personal data and technology, META Finance helps them to improve their customer experiences whilst updating their operational infrastructure. Services include strategic planning as well as supporting on innovation and culture across three core areas of expertise: using personal data for growth, establishing digital innovation labs and running proofs of concept. This is delivered through coaching, community forums and technology, such as dashboards and diagnostic tools.

The leadership team at META Finance consists of Ben Leonard, who led the UK Financial Services Team at HSBC, Shaul David, lately fintech lead at the UK Department of International Trade and Paul Carse, who was head of IT at the Racing Post. Vaughan Jenkins, a former Partner in management consultancy firms and who currently sits on the UK FinCap Advisory Board, is working with the team in an Associate role. The META Finance team has been presenting at industry events and in December 2018 held a wealth community roundtable event with Industry leaders, fintechs and the regulator to discuss the role of data as a force for change. 

Michelle Cracknell, Chief Executive at The Pensions Advisory Service, said: “Helping people manage their money is a win-win-win for Government, industry and individuals and it is a growing need. The ability to think of effective and efficient solutions needs breadth of thinking combining man and machine to create the emotional drive with the advantages that technology can offer through collection and management of data.”

Adrian Grace, CEO of Aegon UK, commented: “We asked Ben to present at our Strategy day as he brought to the table a great combination of in-depth industry experience, familiarity with our own business and a strong grasp of relevant technology developments. The ‘Data, Disruption & Innovation’ session was very well received by executives and non-executives alike. We will be looking to work with META Finance again. It prompted us to accelerate how we embed technology and data into our strategy given developments such as PSD2 and GDPR will be game-changing for our industry.” 
Ben Leonard, Founder & CEO of META commented: ​“The META Finance vision for financial services puts the customer and their data at the heart of every product and service. Our blend of advisory, technology and coaching, which includes connecting financial services firms with fintech innovators and working with a series of market leading partners, differentiates META Finance from the mainstream consulting market and is central to our proposition to help firms help themselves.”

Coupa Software, a leader in business spend management (BSM), today announced it has won the ‘2017 Innovative Sourcing Technology of the Year’ category at the annual PayStream Advisors Innovative Technology of the Year awards.

The PayStream awards identify the most innovative technology companies and recognises them for delivering intuitive, progressive solutions for automating financial processes. Coupa Sourcing Optimisation (CSO) took the top award in its category this year for providing sophisticated sourcing solutions that enable organisations to evaluate multiple criteria alongside price to help identify the ‘best’ solution. 

More than 90 vendors entered the awards competition, and the rigorous judging process included product demonstrations, customer surveys and in-depth interviews.

“We always believed that we led the field in sourcing optimisation, but recognition such as this validates the faith we and our clients have in our business,” said Garry Mansell, general manager of Coupa Sourcing Optimisation. “We are proud of the innovative way we have led the industry, and we look forward to continuing that legacy in the coming years."

CSO is part of the Coupa cloud platform for business spend and is used to conduct sourcing projects ranging from simple reverse auctions to complex large-scale projects involving multiple rounds of negotiation. CSO gives users access to advanced mathematical optimisation algorithms that help ensure sourcing decisions are based on the best available options, taking into account specified objectives and constraints

"Coupa is clearly leading the pack in electronic sourcing innovation, particularly when it comes to managing complex categories," said Jimmy Lefever, director of research and consulting at PayStream Advisors. "We were especially impressed with the way that Coupa Sourcing Optimisation tool uses algorithms to maximise sourcing outcomes for organisations. It finds the best combination of suppliers, goods, and services to meet a company’s specific needs, which is vital in strategic sourcing."

Location data and services provide essential functionality for today's products, services and solutions. HERE Technologies, the Open Location Platform company, collaborated with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to offer developers seamless access to an array of location services through the recently launched AWS Serverless Application Repository. 

Through this collaboration, HERE and AWS are increasing the speed and ease in which developers can access and integrate core location services into their applications. Because HERE location services are available in the AWS Serverless Application Repository, developers can rapidly deploy AWS Lambda into their own AWS account that serve as proxies to HERE location services, and thus allows for a microservices approach to calling the HERE locations services. This approach also provides developers with benefits from Amazon API Gateway and AWS Lambda capabilities such as cache, throttling, and authentication.

"Enabling developers to easily consume and integrate location services is our priority," said Mithun Dhar, General Manager of Developer Relations, HERE Technologies. "Developers on the AWS Serverless Application Repository are now able to easily utilize a suite of HERE location services, including: map images and tiles; geocoding; positioning; routing; road toll costs; road traffic conditions; public transit information; and weather conditions." 

"Thanks to the contributions of APN Partners like HERE, AWS is able to offer a comprehensive collection of customer-focused serverless applications through the AWS Serverless Application Repository," said Tim Wagner, General Manager of AWS Lambda, Amazon Web Services. Inc. "We're proud to offer an easy way for developers and companies to get started with HERE's locations services."

 Datawatch Corporation (NASDAQ-CM: DWCH) today announced that the company received two Technology Innovation Awards from Dresner Advisory Services. Selected as a winner in the "Data Catalog" and - for the second consecutive year - "End User Data Preparation" categories, Datawatch stands out for its ability to empower individuals and teams to create, find, access, validate and share governed datasets for fast data-driven decision-making and improved operational processes.

Now in its third year, the Dresner Advisory Services Technology Innovation Awards recognized the top ranked vendors in its 2017 Wisdom of Crowds® series of thematic market studies that covered Advanced & Predictive Analytics, Big Data Analytics, Collective Insights®, Cloud Business Intelligence (BI), Data Catalog, Embedded Business Intelligence, End User Data Preparation, IoT Intelligence® and Location Intelligence.

Datawatch is recognized in the "Data Catalog" category for its collaborative and governance features and for its self-service "End User Data Preparation" solutions. With the Datawatch Monarch self-service data preparation platform, everyday business users, data analysts and data scientists can quickly access, manipulate, enrich, combine and prepare disparate information from virtually any source, including data locked in enterprise application reports, PDF documents, and other semi-structured and unstructured repositories. Additionally, Datawatch Monarch Swarm, a centralized, cloud-ready solution, offers enterprises a team-driven data preparation and socialization platform designed for groups to speed collaboration and uphold governance practices.

"As the pioneer of self-service data preparation, Datawatch continues its commitment to ensuring all data users and business teams are empowered to work collaboratively on creating, accessing, preparing and analyzing secured datasets for agile business decision-making that impacts the bottom line," said Jon Pilkington, chief product officer, Datawatch. "With our Monarch Complete and Monarch Swarm platforms, companies are creating a productive, data-driven culture that improves operational processes and delivers greater business value. The recognition by Dresner Advisory Services validates our efforts in providing our customers with a dynamic approach to utilize data anywhere at any time."

The Dresner Advisory Services' annual thematic reports provide original, un-biased examination of end user deployment and intentions surrounding BI and related technologies. Data is collected from end users to provide a real-world perspective on various technical capabilities related to the BI and analytics markets.

"Our Technology Innovation Awards are based on our unique research in nine BI and data categories," said Howard Dresner, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services. "From these examinations, we select the leaders who provide the most complete solutions in their respective field. We applaud Datawatch for its leadership in the "Data Catalog" and "End User Data Preparation" areas in 2017."