The Startups: Who’s shaking things up (Week ending January 3, 2016)

[alert type=yellow ]Every week, Tradestreaming highlights startups in the news, making things happen. The following is just part of this week's news roundup. You can get these updates delivered direct to your inbox by signing up for the Tradestreaming newsletter.[/alert] Protect your downside and follow these 20 top insurance startups in 2016 (Tradestreaming) Our list of the top insurance technology, or insurtech, startups to keep an eye on this year. 2015 Automated Platform Performance Review: Betterment vs. Wealthfront (Meb Faber) Meb Faber with some good analysis on how Betterment performed this year vs. Wealthfront (and where Schwab and Vanguard come in) San Francisco-based Credit Karma acquires mobile notification startup Snowball (BizJournals) Snowball acts as a universal inbox for all incoming chats. “We’re seeing a huge movement of consumers toward mobile, particularly in younger demographics. Android is a key platform for us,” Credit Karma Chief Technology Officer Ryan Graciano told TechCrunch. “And these guys have really amazing experience on Android, in particular.”

Startups raising/Investors investing

Digital financial advice firm NextCapital raises $16M in funding (Chicago Tribune) Chicago-based NextCapital, which helps financial institutions offer automated financial advice for investors, said Thursday it had raised $16 million in Series B financing. AXA Strategic Ventures invests in four startups (PEHub) AXA Strategic Ventures said it made four new investments during the second half of 2015. They include Bee, a mobile-first, in-person bank; Price Method, a predictive analytics company; GoldBean, which provides advice, education and low-cost trading for financial beginners; and CoPromote, a programmatic influencer marketing platform. Ayannah raises $3M (Deal Street Asia) The firm announced last October that it intends to offer the full stack of digital payment platform from payments, commerce, analytics, to spur financial inclusion in emerging markets like the Philippines.