FIA announced that Money.Net is the winner of the 2016 FIA Expo Innovator of the Year award. The winner was announced during the second day of the Futures and Options Expo, which drew more than 5,100 registrants this year. “I want to congratulate the team at Money.Net on their win today and thank them for their commitment to innovation in the cleared derivatives industry,” said Walt Lukken, president and CEO of FIA. “There were several strong contenders, but Money.Net stood out because of the potential impact on our industry. By making professional-grade trader workstations available at a much lower cost, Money.Net can make the derivatives markets accessible to more people and inspire a new generation of traders and market participants.” Money.Net seeks to empower investors and traders with better than institutional level real-time information and tools at an ultra-low price. The Money.Net platform provides market news, real-time prices, a technical charting system, and instant messaging via both a native chat system and third party providers, and can be run through a desktop application or through a web browser. “We are delighted and honored by this recognition,” said Morgan Downey, CEO of Money.Net. “On behalf of our customers, we thank FIA for this opportunity. We were inspired by the culture of innovation here this week, and I would also like to congratulate all of the other innovators chosen to exhibit. There are some extraordinary companies here and we’ve already created partnerships that I’m sure will bear fruit for all of us. We’re looking forward to returning to Expo in the coming years to continue developing new relationships.” Money.Net was chosen from a pool of 18 fintech startup companies featured at the Innovators Pavilion, a showcase for forward-thinking solutions for the futures, options and cleared swaps industry. Each applicant for Innovators Pavilion was evaluated by a panel of independent judges on their degree of innovation, relevance to derivatives markets, and commercial viability. Once the 18 Innovators were chosen, the five highest scorers were selected to present to Expo attendees in a Meet the Innovators panel. (Watch a replay here). The presentations were evaluated by a panel of independent judges with expertise in financial markets technology and venture capital investing, including Brian Adams, Executive Vice President & Chief Information Officer of Rosenthal Collins Group; Jean Donnelly, Executive Director of FinTech Sandbox; Rumi Morales, Executive Director of CME Ventures; Brad Peterson, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology & Chief Information Officer of Nasdaq; Kimberly Trautmann, Director of DRW Venture Capital; and Mark Whitcroft, Founding Partner of Illuminate Financial. The judges selected Money.Net from the five finalists, which also included ChartIQ, Cloud9 Technologies, Semantic Evolution and Ubixi. Money.Net will receive cash and other resources worth $20,000, including exhibit space at FIA Expo for the next two years. This year's Innovators Pavilion is sponsored by Nasdaq, with additional support from FinTEx Chicago, FinTech Sandbox and Hyde Park Angels. Lukken congratulated all of the Innovators selected to exhibit at Expo this year. The full list follows:
the FIA Innovator , the Bloomberg challenger that recently hired Walt Lukken to start a financial news service, was named the winner of Bloomberg of today . The start-up was chosen from a pool of five fintech companies showcasing forward thinking solutions for the futures, options and cleared swaps industry.