ICBA’s ThinkTech Accelerator hosts 12 startups

SAN DIEGO — The Independent Community Bankers of America hosted its 10th ThinkTech Accelerator on March 6. .The Banker’s Choice award went to Minneapolis-based fintech Onsetto. The company wants to make it easier for businesses to move deposit relationships, said founder and CEO Cale Johnston. A white label solution, Onsetto identifies operating flows, guides the transition and moves payroll accounts receivable and payroll accounts payable. The company was established last year and had secured $2.2 million in seed funding by early this year. Johnston said the company’s mission is important for community banks as 41 percent of the tens of millions of small businesses in the country are open to switching their banking relationships.ICBA voted InvestiFi its Most Valuable Participant. The company’s objective is to provide a one-stop shop for digital investing and banking, said Founder and CEO Kian Sarreshteh. He sees the company as surpassing Silicon Valley financial services giant Robinhood if it fully uses its connection with community banks.Fifty-two percent of Americans want a digital investing and banking experience in the same account, according to a study conducted by Cornerstone Advisors.Investifi is the parent company of two subsidiaries: Investment advisor AdvisiFi; and broker-dealer servicer InvestiFi Securities LLC. The company was founded as CryptoFi in 2020 as a platform to enable banks and credit unions a chance to offer cryptocurrencies within their existing online banking platforms. Following the 2022 crash of FTX, the Dover, Del.-based company expanded beyond crypto to offer stocks, bonds, ETFs and robo-advisory options. Artificial intelligence platform Crux Analytics was selected as the Accelerator’s All-Heart Award, which recognizes a founder or team member for driving innovation in community banking. Co-Founder and CEO Jacob Bennett described his New York-based company as a growth engine that helps banks engage, acquire and keep high-potential business relationships using a solution tailored to the portfolio and strategies of the bank.Jacob and his brother, Nathan Bennett, launched the company in April 2023 with AI-driven tools to spark community bank engagement with small businesses. Bennett said his company’s platform identifies strong borrowers with significant growth potential and high balance deposits. He sees traditional sales stocks as not addressing the issue. He said there is a lack of tailoring in industry and state research into the topic. Nine other fintech startups pitched their ideas during the 90-minute session. Flatirons AIFlatirons AI provides generative AI to community banks in a closed-loop environment, said CEO and Founder Dan Bolger. To help customers address state and federal examinations along with audits, Bolger’s company pre-loaded federal and state banking rules and regulations along with responses. Flatirons filters personally identifiable information. “Banks need to control AI,” Bolger added. A Boulder, Colo.-based company, Flatirons AI was established in 2024. Parlay Finance Parlay Finance is an AI-powered loan intelligence system intended to help small business lenders finish more deals with less manual work, said Founder and CEO Alex McLeod. He sees small business lending as bankers’ most relationship- and manual-driven work.The Arlington, Va.-based company was founded in 2022. Socratic AISocratic AI helps banks complete fraud reviews with 24/7, instant services, said Riya Jagetia, co-founder and CEO of the San Francisco-based company. Jagetia, who previously served as fraud platform product lead for DoorDash, said fraud is the most urgent threat for community bankers. Check fraud leads to an estimated $150 million in annual losses.She said the way banks detect check fraud has not changed over the past 20 years. Manual fraud reviews are slow, time-consuming and challenging to scale, she said. Three-fourths of fraud analysts’ time is spent gathering data, not on the actual investigation, Jagetia added. “There has to be a better way” of addressing the issue, Jagetia added. The company was established last year in San Francisco by Jagetia and Satya Vasanth Reddy. BetaScore.ai BetaScore.ai is a platform providing small business credit scoring, underwriting and financial health analysis, said founder and CEO Seke Ballard. Ballard said more than half of small businesses are seeking financing, but many struggle to connect with the right lender. Over the last 15 years, the number of community banks has fallen by more than 30 percent amid margin compression and rising compliance expenses.BetaScore.ai was established in 2015 in Chicago. SardineSardine’s main goal is to stop fraud before money leaves the bank, said Head of Banking and Policy Ravi Longanathan. The company provides a modern approach to fraud prevention — proprietary signals, data enrichment, feature engineering and a real-time risk engine, he added. Sardine offers a 360-degree lifecycle, from account opening to logins. Longanathan said the company’s mission is especially important as banking is in the middle of growing “scamdemic.” He sees generative artificial intelligence as making it more challenging for banks to distinguish between good customers and fraudsters. He presented a use case involving how Sardine identified a deepfake video of Tom Cruise. A San Francisco-based company, Sardine was established in 2020 by Soups Ranjan, Aditya Goel and Zahid Shaikh. Overwatch DataOverwatch Data provides AI agents for fraud, cybersecurity and due diligence, said CEO Arjun Bisen. The company undertakes automated investigations, and detects high-risk verticals to identify weaknesses. Bisen sees cyber and fraud threats as compounding amid a widening risk scope. “AI agents who scale alongside human teams will define the future of risk operations,” he added. “With Overwatch, we are deploying that model across our risk organization and globally to our customers.” The Brooklyn-based company was established in 2022 by Bisen and Zara Perumal. DeepSee.aiDeepSee.ai is an agentic AI program with ready-to-deploy, pre-built AI agents for tailored email processing, reconciliation, settlements and operations, said Head of Field Operations Colleen Leonard. She said the company’s main goal is to enable banks to avoid the burdensome process of a ‘do-it-yourself’ build.Based in Salt Lake City, the company was established in 2019. ClockoutClockout provides embedded earned wage access for bankers, said CEO Juan Jurado-Blanco. He called the service a “lifeline” that provides essential liquidity for cash flow management. A Miami-based company, Clockout was founded in 2021 by Jurado-Blanco, COO Anthony Tardugno and CTO Vladimir Dumitrean. Vertice AIVertice AI is a customer growth engine that provides AI-based personalized recommendations to increase wallet share, reduce churn and acquire new customers, said Vice President of Sales and Partnerships Tyler Brantley. He cited a study finding only 22 percent of bank customers feel their financial institution anticipates their personal needs, while 74 percent desire a more personalized banking experience. Only 4 percent say their bank effectively uses data to improve the customer experience. An Atlanta-based company, Vertice AI was established in 2021 by Mitch Rutledge.