Finovate Events (www.finovate.com) take place each spring in San Francisco and each fall in New York and are uniquely known for their fast-paced environment, and for the caliber of its attendees: executives, entrepreneurs and industry experts from across the spectrum of financial and banking technology.

Cortera’s presence at FinovateSpring follows up on our success at the DEMOFall 2009 Conference where we launched the Cortera Credit Exchange, the commercial credit industry’s first online community dedicated to business credit ratings and reviews.

While we can’t yet give you details on what Cortera plans to present at FinovateSpring 2010, we can say that we plan to unveil the next major step in our effort to modernize and reinvent business credit reporting and financial risk management.

Stay tuned…

Join the Cortera Credit Exchange at www.cortera.com.

Jim Rapoza, eWeek

• parand Cortera looks like a company that might actually make that … what’s it called? Oh yeah – money. #demo09

• orenmazor iiinteresting. like a useful BBB? http://www.cortera.com

• shawkeith Cortera reminds me of eBay rating system, but for small businesses on whether they are good at paying bills. #demo09

• mystratex Current #DEMO09 myStratex Index Top 5:Enthusem,Point of Wealth,Emo Labs,Cortera and Freeddom.Check http://bit.ly/myStratexBlog for details.

• DunnMich Cortera launches first community for small business credit reporting at DEMOfall 09 | Cortera – http://shar.es/12xSQ

• Rafe Cortera up next at #Demo09. Dull, like I said this AM, but really really smart. http://bit.ly/MOHqi

• laurabeck Agree! RT @acoolong: Cortera helps SMBs build credit/manage credit risk. Who cares if not sexy? It’s SMART & addresses REAL NEED #demo09

• maryrduan cortera credit exchange is going to be extremely useful for the smb space. yelp meets fico meets mint. #demo09

• mystratex DEMOfall 09 myStratex Index for Cortera is 33. Check http://bit.ly/myStratexBlog for details. #DEMO09

• lizasperling Cortera‘s value – see what community is saying about you may be more valuable than actual ”score”- big market #DEMO09

• acoolong Cortera helps SMBs build credit and manage credit risk. Who cares if it’s not sexy? It’s SMART and addresses a REAL NEED. #demo09

• lizasperling Cortera called dull, but looks pretty compelling. Small businesses need these tools. #DEMO09

• ScottKirsner One of the companies (re)launching at Demo09 today is Cortera, a reincarnation of eCredit, once a dot-com darling: http://bit.ly/zsh44

• attribyte Tiny Cortera swings for Dun & Bradstreet (cnet.com/2 links) http://slnk.us/caVVt7

Read them all here:  http://twitter.com/#search?q=cortera

Follow us at www.twitter.com/Cortera

With yesterday’s launch, we are excited by the passion and general enthusiasm from the business community.  Here is some feedback we’ve heard so far:

Wall Street Journal – Venture Capital Dispatch

“The company likens itself to a business-to-business version of Yelp.com. Given the plethora of user generated feedback about consumer products available on the Internet, it was only natural for important things, like the credit risk of a potential customer, be vetted in a more open community.”

- Scott Denne, Venture Capital Dispatch / Wall Street Journal

CNET

“I think I just found the dullest company at Demo 09 to write about. But you know how these things go: Often it’s the block-and-tacklers that find huge success while the science-fiction dreamers end up manning ski lifts.”

- Rafe Needleman, CNET

Credit.com

“Last year, a friend called me asking for advice. Her coaching and consulting firm was stiffed for a couple grand by another business. The firm that didn’t pay her for her services was located across the country, so there was a good chance that any money she spent trying to collect would be a matter of throwing good money after bad. “Can’t I report them to the credit bureaus?” she asked. “Probably not,” was my response. The credit reporting agencies are set up to collect large volumes of information from established clients, not one-time reports like hers.

Today, my answer to her would be different.

That’s because Cortera, a community-driven business information company, has unveiled the Cortera Credit Exchange, a new online service that, for the first time, blends business credit report data with user generated payment experience reviews and ratings from companies’ business partners.”

- Gerri Detweiler, credit expert and co-author of Business Credit Success

eWeek

“The second batch of products were focused on payment systems, and the one that was of the most interest to me was one that another tech writer called the most boring product at DEMOfall. Cortera is another service that seems to fill a void for business today, especially small businesses. Cortera provides credit information on businesses large and small but then combines it with ratings from a community of small business owners, who provide feedback both good and bad on these businesses. So, for example, if a company has a habit of not paying suppliers or paying very late, a new catering business looking to provide services to the negligent company can then either choose to not do business with the deadbeat company or make sure they negotiate upfront payments.”

Jim Rapoza, eWeek

Boston.com

“Cortera aims to be a kind of “wisdom of the crowds”-driven business credit agency. CEO Jim Swift likes to describe it as “Yelp for business credit.” And in the same way that the user-powered review site Yelp has taken on established players like Zagat, Cortera has Dun & Bradstreet in its sights.”

Scott Kirsner, Boston.com

VentureBeat

“Cortera is significant because payments between small companies are crucial to their businesses, so it’s important to track them, and identify untrustworthy partners. And traditional credit reports represent deals from less than 1 percent of businesses in the US, Cortera says.”

Anthony Ha, VentureBeat

Credit Decisions are Now Social

Join the first community dedicated to making the flow of business credit information as free and widely available than ever before. We’ve taken a basic commercial credit report, put it online for free, and then made it social, creating the first website where you can share your customer payment experience with other decision makers. Just like the many consumer and business online communities you’ve come to rely on every day, you can join for free, glean insight from user reviews, and even write a few of your own.

Harness the Power of Thousands of Credit Professionals

The Cortera Credit Exchange brings together the collective wisdom of the commercial credit community. In a few clicks, you can join Cortera and get ratings from your peers–giving your direct access to the type of information you’ve always wanted. The community brings online what already is being used daily in conference rooms, on the phone and over lunch. You’ll find timely reviews on businesses of all sizes, and you can even add your own review to provide your unique insights.

What’s the Catch?

There is no catch. We believe strongly that the commercial credit reporting system is currently broken and can be improved through the flow of free and drastically lower priced premium information. Want a traditional credit report? We have those too, just at price that might surprise you. Need corporate family information, business scoring on many businesses or business demographic information? We’ve got you covered.

The basic credit report information and community is free to use. It’s that simple.

Join the Community Today – It’s Free

Leverage the collective experiences of credit professionals, business executives, and owners like you to make better decisions. Getting started is easy and won’t cost you a thing—all you have to do is register.

Tell us what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

Our goal is to fill an information gap we’ve heard about since our founding over 15 years ago: business credit reports – used to determine credit viability and payment terms – are based on the financial transactions of less than 1% of US businesses. Over 50% of the US GDP is provided by companies that have little or no voice in how they are perceived in traditional credit reports – small businesses found on Main Street in every town in the country. In what amounts to a calculated compromise, these reports are often derived from interactions with only the largest businesses. The majority of interactions with small businesses are often ignored. It’s the all-too-often lost insights contained within those millions of experiences that Cortera aims to recapture by embracing a more social approach.

With this new solution we are simply revitalizing an approach that had been in place since the 1800s – local merchants exchanging trade references in communities throughout the country. And that’s the key. The Cortera Credit Exchange is a community platform, designed to take these traditionally offline communities and peer networks that have long contributed knowledge and experience for the greater good and bring them online — a technological evolution of one of the oldest and most trusted social networks in business history.

Our mission is straightforward. It is time for business decisions and control over the granting of credit that powers over 50% of US GDP to be returned to those that have been left behind: small businesses.

• Read the official press release here
• Watch us live at DEMO here
• Give it a try for yourself here

Stay tuned to our blog for more big announcements and follow us on Twitter for live tweets right from the show floor.