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25 Hartford Business Journal | April 19, 2021 | HartfordBusiness.com Payrailz offers smaller banks, credit unions access to advanced fintech platform By Norm Bell Special to the Hartford Business Journal W hat rail is your money on? That bit of fintech jargon forms the basis of business for startup Payrailz. The Glastonbury firm provides white-label payment technology to credit unions and banks. The idea is that Payrailz technology allows smaller financial institutions to provide customer services that match — or even beat — those offered by the financial giants. Cash is out; checks are so 20th century. Today, money moves in the cyberspace world, along digital rails designed by firms like Payrailz. The idea for Payrailz emerged in late 2016, explains Mickey Goldwasser, the firm's vice president of marketing. A group of banks — including Connecticut-based Webster Bank — started talking about using new technology to design a better payment system. Work went on in stealth mode for about a year before Payrailz emerged in Nov. 2017. Funding came from commercial banks — led by Live Oak Bank in Wilmington, Del. — and a consortium representing credit unions. Goldwasser hastens to point out that while Webster Bank is an investor, it is not a client of Payrailz. At least not yet, Goldwasser adds. The payment system relies heavily on artificial intelligence to mine the massive amount of data accumulated by financial institutions, looking for ways to be helpful. As Goldwasser explains it, today's consumers are busy and eager to have their financial institution "do it for me." Payrailz has designed several programs to oblige. One program reminds customers when bills are due and offers to pay them. All it takes is a simple "yes" and everything is taken care of. Another program, called Reduce My Bills, compares common bills and highlights where a customer appears to be paying more than others in the area. It then offers to negotiate with providers to lower bills. It doesn't always work, Goldwasser cautions, but most providers are willing to offer some discount. Payrailz offers a wide range of person-to-person, consumer-to- business, business-to-business payments as well as account-to- account transfers. The firm has gone to completely remote operations since the pandemic. Of the 53 employees, 13 are based in Connecticut. Goldwasser says the firm is pleased with having Glastonbury as its headquarters and has declined offers to move to other states. Payrailz relies on local legal and accounting firms. Its base of about 30 clients spans the country and is growing, Goldwasser says. He declined to discuss revenue figures. At the end of March, Payrailz was honored by the Business Intelligence Group of Philadelphia with a Business Intelligence Excellence Award. The award program is unique in that it is crowdsourced. Also last month, Payrailz hired industry sales leaders Charles Rodriguez and Jason Colasante to serve as vice presidents of credit union sales. Oxford Performance Materials' 3D-printed parts find use in medical implants, aerospace fields By Norm Bell Special to the Hartford Business Journal W hen chemical giant DuPont pioneered work in polymers, it saw a host of commercial applications in the aerospace industry. And DuPont was right. But that was so last century. Much of the 21st-century buzz around high-performance polymers has been for its uses in 3D printing, where the Polyaryletherketone (PAEK) family of thermoplastics has been king. Scott DeFelice, CEO of Oxford Performance Materials, has taken a different path. Since 1998, he's been crafting the less celebrated polymer Polyetherketoneketone (PEKK) into a success story in South Windsor. Under his leadership, the firm has tweaked PEKK and developed a range of proprietary processes, applications and technologies that allow the polymer to perform in unique ways. Revenue for 2019 hit $8 million. The result is a company that trades in a niche product that is in demand for uses as varied as medical implants and casing for the nation's supply of nuclear waste. Its OsteoFab technology uses proprietary polymers to produce 3D-printed biomedical implants that have met strict Food and Drug Administration biomedical standards. The uses range from cranial to dental implants. And the speed of 3D printing cuts days or weeks off production time for these patient- specific precision pieces. It has a SpineFab product used to replace damaged vertebrae. And it offers a suture anchor product for use in attaching soft tissue to bone in joint surgery. And Oxford Performance Materials hasn't neglected the aerospace industry. Its OXFAB technology delivers space-grade parts that offer aerospace manufacturers lower cost and lighter alternatives. OXFAB also serves the energy, automotive and semiconductor industries. It's moving into new areas in ambient carbon capture and nuclear waste storage. Oxford Performance polymers can extend the life of equipment in the harsh chemical process of carbon capture. The polymers also are immune to radioactive deterioration, making it an ideal candidate for encasing nuclear waste, DeFelice says. Amid all the success of Oxford's applications, DeFelice isn't interested in becoming a manufacturer. Rather, he says, Oxford is "a tech platform company." He points to the aerospace business. At one point, Oxford had ramped up staffing and had about 80 employees manufacturing products in South Windsor. Then it sold the business to Hexcel Corp., a publicly- traded global company based in Stamford. Hexcel is an early investor in Oxford Performance Materials. The asset deal for the "tech platform" allows Hexcel to more rapidly scale production to meet demands, including a contract for 3D-printed structural parts for Boeing's CST-100 Starliner aircraft. It's a business model DeFelice wants to repeat as other technologies and products mature. It's a win-win, he says, since the buyer is tied to Oxford's proprietary polymers and intellectual properties. DeFelice describes Oxford as a uniquely Connecticut success story. Connecticut Innovations was the first investor, and the operation is powered by a host of UConn graduates. He credits the area's access to talent — from interns to mature leaders — and its dynamic investing culture as nurturing a winning enterprise. TECH 25 Scott DeFelice Fran Duggan At a Glance Company: Payrailz | Industry: Fintech Top Executive: Fran Duggan, CEO HQ: Glastonbury, CT No. of Employees: 52 Company Website: Payrailz.com | Phone Number: 860-430-5200 Oxford Performance Materials makes 3D-printed parts including for use as medical implants. Payrailz provides white-label payment technology (shown above) to smaller credit unions and banks. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED At a Glance Company: Oxford Performance Materials Industry: Bioscience Top Executive: Scott DeFelice, CEO & President HQ: 30 S Satellite Road, South Windsor No. of Employees: 30 Company Website: www.oxfordpm.com Phone Number: 860-698-9300