Live from Finovate Startup – Second Demo Session

I’m blogging live from Finovate today. Here’s an update from the second demo session:

• Know Before you Apply – Seems exactly like Credit Karma. They claimed to be innovative, but it really seems like a whitelabeled Credit Karma. They do offer a home loans marketplace which is a little different. You can get that from BankRate just as easily I think.
• Kapitall – A playspace for investors in individual stocks. People who follow CNBC should like this.
• BillShrink – I thought they were a Mint competitor, offering to track spending in order to match you with their affiliate programs. That may be true, but it seems much more detailed. The wireless cell phone analysis itself was really impressive… and it’s just one example.
• Micronotes – I didn’t follow this presentation as well as I wanted to. The script reading and thick German accent didn’t really help me much. They seem to offer some kind of integration of polling into purchasing decisions for discounts… I think.
• People Capital – Peer-to-peer private student loan service. Perhaps a little interesting, but I wonder what the default rate is for students. People with jobs have trouble with some of my Prosper loans.
• Cooler Inc. – Can link into third parties (like Wesabe) and calculates carbon footprint while saving you money… Awesome! I need to sign up for this.
• Moneta – Online payment system that is free. Seems a little like a credit card online.
• Home-Account – Helps consumers try to get better credit and match with best mortgages. Unfortunately they charge $50 and it would see like a combo of BankRate and Credit Karma would get you the same deal for free.
• IOUSOS – Helping people with a serious problem: medical bills

My picks from this set is BillShrink and Cooler. BillShrink’s detail definitely seems like something I want to look into. Cooler’s evaluation of carbon footprint is very nice – would actually love to try it out, but it seems to be a business-to-business solution.