Meet Your 2017 Benzinga Global Fintech Awards Winners

Last Thursday, the 2017 Benzinga Global Fintech Awards celebrated the innovation that's transforming the finance industry.

A judging panel of over 30 leading fintech VCs, executives, and entrepreneurs selected the 24 companies pushing the forefront of finance from a list of over 300 finalists.

Meet the winners of the 2017 Benzinga Global Fintech Awards below.

Overall winners:

Champion: AlphaPoint
AlphaPoint creates blockchain technology for financial institutions, and has seen significant adoption of its tech.

Runner-up: Unison Home Ownership Investors
Unison increases access to home ownership by allowing those without the funds for a down payment to purchase a home--Unison puts up the money and profits off any increases in the home's value.

Honorable Mention: WiseBanyan
WiseBanyan is a rapidly-growing roboadvisor that focuses on helping its clients meet specific financial goals, such as a down payment on a home

Best in Show: Unison Home Ownership Investors

Winners by category:

Best Alternative Investments Platform, Tool or App:
SAF Platform
What does it do?
Helps digitize the handshake process for alternative investments

Best Analysis Platform, Tool or App:
TradingView
What does it do?
A social platform for sharing customizable charts and analysis

Best Digital Mortgage or Real Estate Platform, Tool or App:
Rocket Mortgage
What does it do?
The first mobile-native mortgage product that overhauled a multibillion dollar business--$7B in loan volume in 2016

Best Education & Personal Finance Platform, Tool or App:
FutureFuel.io
What does it do?
Helps tackle the student debt bubble by working with employers to offer student loan repayment benefits to their employees

Best Financial Advisor or Wealth Management Platform, Tool or App:
Orion Advisor Services
What does it do?

All-in-one integration service for common financial advisor apps, programs and other tools & allows some automation so that advisors can spend more time growing the business

Best Forex Platform, Tool or App:
Remitly
What does it do?
Money transfer service

Best InsurTech Platform, Tool or App:
CoverWallet
What does it do?
Digital platform that serves as a one-stop shop for all business insurance needs

Best Lending Platform, Tool or App:
Stilt
What does it do?
Stilt gives students studying on visas easy access to digital loans

Best Proprietary Technology or APIs:
OpenFin
What does it do?
Uses its advanced infrastructure and development resources to help financial institutions deploy applications

Best RegTech Platform, Tool or App:
Rippleshot
What does it do?
Uses advanced analytics to improve current fraud detection on cards and online transactions

Best Research Platform, Tool or App:
AlphaSense
What does it do?
Platform that uses NLP to significantly cut down research time for funds & quants across multiple content types

Best Robo Advisor:
Betterment
What does it do?
Most comprehensive robo solution

Best Trading Execution or Brokerage Platform:
Finvasia
What does it do?
A new brokerage serving a huge emerging market - India and eventually Asia

Best Trading Recommendation Platform, Tool or App:
Chaikin Analytics
What does it do?
One of the first fintech companies to develop an advanced quantitative model that provides sentiment for stocks as well as context in one package

Best Under-banked or Emerging Market Solution:
Ovamba
What does it do?
Platform that opens up African companies to investors in the US / Canada / Japan

Best Use of Blockchain or Bitcoin:
AlphaPoint
What does it do?
Blockchain ledger gaining significant institutional traction. This is one the best implementation of blockchain ledgers for capital market technologies

Finding Alpha:
PortfolioEffect
What does it do?
Allows individuals to backtest both high and low frequency trading strategies with intraday data included

Institutional Innovators
PFITR - Bond Price Validation
What does it do?
Currently one of the only non-institutional bond market analysis platforms that is available to retail investors

Investing In Millennials:
Aspiration
What does it do?
Comprehensive suite of investing tools for millennials

Leveling the Playing Field:
DIY.FUND
What does it do?
Allows anyone to use complex portfolio analysis tools

Solving Problems Through Payments
PayKey
What does it do?
Integrates payments into all social media and other phone apps