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NEWS February 1, 2019

Fairlo raises SEK 7 million to give the power back to the borrowers

The fintech company Fairlo wants to help people solve unexpected everyday expenses while maintaining control over their loans. The company has now raised SEK 7 million for expansion of the service offering with the aim of contributing to an economically inclusive world.

Founded by the brothers Jimmy and Shamon Hanna, Fairlo has developed a platform to provide financial, humane services that strengthens the individual.

Their first venture, the “New Everyday Loan”, gives private individuals the opportunity to immediately resolve an unexpected expense while retaining power over the loan. They do this by allowing the borrowers to change the amortization plan according to the current life situation, pay any chosen amount or terminate the entire loan with one click – 24/7 and without fees.

The next step is to make it possible for the borrower to have the monthly amount automatically transferred to a savings account after the loan has been paid. In this way, a savings buffer is built without any adjustments, behavior change or other thresholds.

– More and more people live from month to month without the possibility of building a buffer, and that trend is increasing. In Sweden, there are over two million adults who cannot cope with an unexpected expense of SEK 15,000. Just because people are in a sudden need of money, we do not think they should get stuck with expensive, non-flexible and inhumane loans, says Shamon Hanna, co-founder and CMO at Fairlo.

Hanna got the idea for the company during his MBA studies in the US when he worked on a project on how unexpected expenses affect private individuals. Fairlo was launched in April 2018 and today over 800 people have already used Fairlo. Last year, the team doubled in size and even this year they expect to expand the team and to double the number of customers to 8,000.

The investor group includes Anders Göransson (Soläng Invest), Boel Swartling (business angel with a focus on sustainability), Helena Westin (board pro and brand guru) and Georg Rydbeck (Klarna). Saminvest also participates in the issue through co-investment agreements with Boel Rydenå Swartling and Soläng Invest. This is the first time the co-investment agreement is utilized, making the investment historic.

– Fairlo is a perfect example of how technology together with good entrepreneurial spirit can pave the way for responsible financial services. A little extra fun with this investment is that, thanks to the matching with Saminvest, I can double my investment volume, which is to the benefit of both Fairlo and us investors, says Anders Göransson, who through Soläng Invest leads the round.

– I like companies that make a difference. Fairlo goes in and challenges an industry where greed has long been a winning concept, says Helena Westin.

– We are extremely happy and grateful for the support we received in our first external financing. It is an acknowledgment that Fairlo has an attractive solution to a major problem. The future of financial services looks bright and we want to be at the forefront of the development of new, human, financial services, says Jimmy Hanna, co-founder and CEO of Fairlo.

Last fall, Fairlo was selected for the Sting Accelerate program and has been named the hottest fintech startup of the year by Sting. Last week, Fairlo was also one of two companies named to have given the best pitch of 18 exciting companies on Sting Demo Day.

– Fairlo’s journey has only just begun and with this fantastic support we are further accelerating development. More good news is promised during the year, says Jimmy Hanna.

NEWS September 3, 2018

Here are the 14 new Sting companies

Democratization of artificial intelligence, micro lending on equal terms, speech synthesis, ID hijackings, crowd funding of music, leisure activities, language challenges in healthcare and interpretation of radiographs are some of the areas addressed by the 14 carefully selected companies that have been accepted to Sting this autumn. The list of companies is announced today when the entrepreneurs meet for the first time at Sting’s newly opened premises at A house.

“It has been a tough selection process leading up to the start of the autumn programs,” says Karin Ruiz, business coach at Sting. “It’s a strong line up of companies that represent a wide range of exciting business ideas. We see a clear trend in an increasing number of startups that utilize the power of artificial intelligence and deep learning to tackle major challenges related to for example safety, health and climate,” she continues.

In addition to office space at A house and the network with each other and the Sting team, the companies will get individual coaching in business development and financing, recruitment support and access to Sting’s wide network of industry contacts and investors. The companies also have the opportunity to get an investment of SEK 300,000 from Propel Capital, Sweden’s most active private seed investor.

“With our new premises at A house, we now have the opportunity to run the Incubate and Accelerate programs in one place, which we believe will contribute to an even stronger Sting Community and better opportunity for the startups to exchange experiences and networks with each other,” says Fredrik Rosengren, new Program Manager of the Sting Accelerate Program.

Poki Robotics is one of the new Sting Incubate companies. The company develops task-specific robots to help businesses become more efficient and sustainable.

“Our participation in the Sting Incubate program will give us a great opportunity to scale up Poki Robotics. We are looking forward to getting to know the network and being inspired by the other companies, as well as challenging ourselves. In the spring, the goal is to sell the first robots to customers in Sweden. A challenge for us will therefore be to further develop our product with limited time and resources,” says Fredrika Kringberg, co-founder at Poki Robotics.

Fairlo, one of the new Accelerate companies, challenges the micro loan market with its service that gives people the opportunity to solve an unexpected expense with a loan on equal terms.

“We launched Fairlo in April and got off for a good start. Now we want to use the momentum we have to accelerate into 2019, with the goal of making “Vardagslånet” the obvious choice for unexpected expenses. We hope that Sting, with its solid and proven models, will help us to identify the next-generation star developers, and that the network and experience in the organization will provide great support in the international expansion of our business,” says Jimmy Hanna, CEO and co-founder of Fairlo.

Sting has coached over 240 startups since the start in 2002. The companies had revenues of over 210 MEUR in 2017 and have attracted almost 450 MEUR in private capital. Stings alumni companies include companies like Barnebys, Bioservo, DPOrganizer, Karma, Videoplaza, Volumental and Yubico.

Companies selected to Sting Accelerate
Defentry is a cybersecurity company that combats ID hijackings and hacked accounts through the use of large data acquisition, AI and machine learning. Defentry supports its customers in anticipating risks and finding new solutions that prevent intrusion and fraud with the objective of making them less exposed on the internet. Defentry also offers a personal and secure platform for its customers to monitor its data, identity and integrity. www.defentry.com

Fairlo is a TechFin startup that launches a new era for small loans. With a system based on the latest technology, Fairlo offers people the opportunity to solve an unexpected expense with a small loan at equal terms. Whoever borrows from Fairlo owns the power and can at any time pay off the loan, change the amortization plan or change the due date, all in one click and free of charge. fairlo.se

Friendtivity provides leisure activities for school kids in a new way –at home, in small groups around an interest such as music, programming or something totally different and led by an employed friendtivity leader. Via the platform , parents can seamlessly find leaders, book and pay for the activity at a very competitive price.  friendtivity.se

Signe is a digital platform for crowdfunding of concerts. Organizers, artists and fans can easily create an event and start raising money for an upcoming concert. Signe allows fans to participate and influence who organizers should book, whilst minimizing risk for the organizer to lose money on the event. Signe.io

Språk i Vården develops a medical interpretation tool for healthcare providers that reduces healthcare costs and increases effectivity while it at the same time strengthens patient safety and integrity. Our tool is available as an application for smart devices and can be used by all healthcare professionals in a broad range of healthcare situations. www.sprakivarden.se

Ugglo is a multi-lingual audio book service for kids. We combine the picture book with the audio book to create a truly fun and captivating reading experience. Thousands of kids in Sweden improve their reading and language skills with Ugglo every day. www.ugglo.se

Zenia provides high converting E-Commerce marketing traffic to webstores, helping sellers to market their products organically and through paid posts by sharing – promoting – converting. www.zenia.ai

Companies selected to Sting Incubate
DeepMed’s vision is to redefine how radiographs (x-ray images) are being used in orthopaedics by applying artificial intelligence for the use in x-ray interpretation. With our software, built on deep learning, we support radiologist and other healthcare-professionals in detecting and classifying orthopaedic radiographs in a more efficient and accurate way. deep-med.com

Greenlytics provides data science solutions for the power industry. Our vision is to harness the power of data to create a sustainable energy future. Our first product, WindMind, is a tool that, with the help of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, creates ultra-accurate wind power forecasts, which enables wind power producers to lower imbalance costs, increase profitability of wind power and make wind power cheaper for the consumer. www.greenlytics.io

Kavalri Games emerged from the passion for creating qualitative equestrian games. We’re developing the mobile game Equestrian the Horse game – a game which lets the player build their equestrian career from the ground up. Our players are mostly girls with an equestrian interest, and they’re passionately supporting our development. equestrianthegame.com

PerceptiLabs is a Deep Learning company developing the software QuantumNet. With a vision of democratizing artificial intelligence, QuantumNet simplifies the creation and understanding of AI-models by removing the need of programming and deep mathematical knowledge. The programming is replaced with a simple drag & drop of building blocks where the user e.g. can go into each building block and see how the AI-model learns in real-time. www.perceptilabs.com

Poki Robotics develops task-specific autonomous robots to help companies become more efficient and sustainable. The products are based on a robotics platform that is adjustable to different needs and environments. Our first product is a smart, self-navigating robot that collects golf balls on golf ranges. We offer a technical solution that includes high accuracy local positioning together with intelligent software. www.pokirobotics.com

SciPro’s Thesis Management System is an online IT-support system for management and supervision of theses at bachelor, master and PhD education levels. It allows the entire thesis writing process to be managed in a clear and structured way.  It gives students a clear methodology, supervisors a channel to communicate with students and decrease their administrative workload and school administrators a total overview. www.sciproprojects.com

TorTalk creates text to speech applications for schools, universities and workplaces.
Our end users are people with dyslexia, ADHD and those who prefer to listen to their second language. TorTalk’s software removes barriers, help increase efficiency and reduce stress for users. tortalk.se

NEWS September 13, 2016

Here are the new Fintech ideas participating in STING Test Drive

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For the second year in a row, 10 promising startups will get support from STING to develop their business ideas within “Financial Technology”. New this year is that Swedbank is not only a partner but also participating with three own projects. Industrifonden and FCG are also partners in the program STING Test Drive Fintech.

– STING Test Drive is an excellent initiative for testing early ideas. We look forward to sharing our experiences, in both B2B and B2C, from an investor perspective, says Sofia Ericsson Holm, Investment Manager at Industrifonden.

STING Test Drive is led by business angel Walerud Jane, who was an early investor in Klarna, and Fredrik Rosengren, business coach at STING. During seven evening workshops, they will help the entrepreneurs to evaluate and develop their business ideas.

– We see several interesting ideas in robo guidance and cost-efficient savings that challenges the financial sector. It will be incredibly exciting to help them forward, says Fredrik Rosengren, business coach at STING (Stockholm Innovation & Growth).

The goal of the STING Test Drive Fintech is to help create more companies in the financial technologies sector (eg banking, transaction, residential mortgages, insurance and payment services). People all over Sweden with their own innovative Fintech idea with a large international growth potential can participate. The program is completely free. Past participants include Sigma Stocks, Marqts and Klirr.

Here are the 13 selected startups/projects participating in STING Test Drive Fintech this fall:
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Aidough offer the service “Private banking for the masses” based on advanced economic models and methods of financial management and risk analysis. The service manages not only traditional financial instruments – Aidough weighs in all aspects of an individual’s finances and life situation. Thus Aidough creates a risk-adjusted portfolio where for example certain types of risks are hedged with insurance. www.aidough.com 

Cling connects private lenders and companies to provide small to medium-sized businesses sales financing that previously has been available only to the big chains. We have made the financing process easy and automated. Companies of all sizes can with private lenders’, or with their own capital, offer financing services that provide their customers greater purchasing power, and Cling’s lenders better returns.

EuroSavings – Sweden’s best interest in Europe. The deposit rate on fixed-rate accounts with the Swedish banks are low, usually 0.2%-0.6%. EuroSavings allows for private and corporate customers to take advantage of the best rates at selected banks in Europe with 2%-3% interest rate with 3 months’ to 5 years’ maturity. After an easy registration, the customer can choose the rate and term that best among Euro Savings partner banks.

F&A Forecasting has created Indicio, a platform that enables decision makers to beat experts in forecasting everything from commodity prices to airport queues. It is the first platform on the market to address the need for a guided prediction structure. Through this structure, anyone can apply advanced statistical models that were previously only available in academia. Digital or on paper, always in conjunction with the best forecasters in the market. www.faforecasting.se 

KRAM stands for Customer Advisors Matchmaker. We offer a solution to match customers with advisors, administrators and services based on various parameters, such as cultural and national backgrounds, but not least on the basis of personality and motivations. It allows us to meet customers on their terms and give them a more personal experience.

PopBank is a banking service based on blockchain, where the customer controls and owns her own money without the need for having a bank. It is based on offering simplified and free services in a completely open system secured through distributed computing technologies.

Primepilot will be the first complete robo advisor in the Nordics, and also the first mobile one. The media, politicians and the people agree – expensive funds and advisors inhibit savings and pension growth. Soon, you can save smarter with Primepilot. Primepilot supports you in an easy way to find the funds that are right for you. You get access to information and advice anytime and anywhere, at the lowest cost.

SEEQEST Are you invested in nuclear weapons without knowing it? With SEEQEST you can “google” the holdings in all of Sweden’s pension funds. You can assess whether investments are consistent with your values and act accordingly. Thus, your pension also becomes a powerful steering instrument for the future you want to see. www.seeqest.com 

Småspararguiden wants to cure the Swedes’ widespread savings anxiety. Savers pay annually 13 billion Swedish crowns in unnecessary fees and do not know whom to turn to when advisors and personal bankers act like, and are, salesmen. We offer a digital consultancy that is simple, engaging, independent, transparent and sustainable. www.smaspararguiden.se 

Split Lending offers individuals a “crowd-lending” product that enables positive returns with low risk in the current low-interest rate environment. Split Lending meets the need for services and products that provide positive returns and where customers can trust that someone has reviewed the risk and can ensure that it is low in relation to other products on the market.

Stratify is a digital service that collects and analyzes the user’s overall economy data. We want to give micro enterprises an opportunity to feel ownership of their finances and provide support in the process, overall control and proactive advice. The user is guided in when, what and why they should act on the data that is the basis for strategic and operational decision making.

The Fair Loan Project – the nice quick loan! The SMS and instant loan market is the part of the financial industry that has the worst reputation, with interest rates up to 500-600 percent. The Fair Loan Project provides instant loans at considerably lower interest rate, higher flexibility and without the hassle and fees. Loan applications and administration are fully automated via the web/smartphone to minimize costs. The proprietary three-point credit verification system minimizes risk in real time, allowing for payment within a few hours. Debt financing is made through professional investors via a P2P approach with guarantees returns of 6-10 percent.

UBY uses the “power of many” by providing a community for consumers to hand-pick the best deals for specific banking services – without tying themselves up to a single bank – and still get a comprehensive picture of their banking commitments. UBY offers banks a marketplace consisting of pre-approved clusters of customers with specific product needs, and also the ability to hand-pick individual customer engagement. This reduces customer acquisition costs and risk profiles can be optimized.