Finance Innovator of the Year - TokenEx - 405 Magazine

Finance Innovator of the Year – TokenEx

TokenEx, a data protection platform providing cloud tokenization and encryption, has seen 40 percent growth year over year.

TokenEx, a data protection platform providing cloud tokenization and encryption, has seen 40 percent growth year over year. Headquartered in Oklahoma City with 70 employees located throughout Oklahoma, the United Kingdom and remote workers across the world, the group recently partnered with K1 Investment Management for Series B funding.

“I saw tokenization as a simple solution to a series of complex problems businesses were running into with digital payments,” said Alex Pezold, TokenEx founder and CEO. “First, there was the security aspect of trying to minimize risk to comply with regulations enforced by the card brands. Businesses were spending a ton of time, effort, and money jumping through these compliance hoops instead of focusing on their core competencies and actually growing their businesses.”

What has been the most innovative project you’ve worked on in the last year?
“I would say the most innovative project we’ve completed in the past year is the ability to secure mass data environments. Data is the new gold, or– since we’re in Oklahoma – it’s the new oil. The problem with data is that if it’s valuable then it’s probably sensitive. The sensitivity of the data creates risk for our customers, and when they’re collecting as much sensitive data as they are, it equates to massive financial risk for them. TokenEx solves the risk problem for our customers, so their financial exposure is reduced or completely eliminated.”

Why is innovation important to the growth of business in Oklahoma?
“Well, first of all, I think it’s a huge part of our history and who we are as Oklahomans. When we first became a state, you had people with different ideas and backgrounds coming together to turn frontier settlements into modern cities virtually overnight. That’s something I don’t think we get enough credit for as a state. Ingenuity and the entrepreneurial spirit are such integral parts of our story.”

Finance Innovator of the Year Finalists: i2e, Cortado Ventures