Swift selects finalists for Innotribe Startup Challenge 2015
Regional finalists will go head-to-head in Singapore
Swift has named the 20 finalists for the 2015 Innotribe Start-up Challenge finale, which will take place at Sibos in Singapore this October. The finalists include companies focused on personal finance, foreign exchange, data protection, mobile banking and e-commerce as well as social media, big data, payments and many other areas.
The Start-up Challenge is an annual event that brings together start-ups in financial services. During four regional showcases in London, Cape Town, Singapore and New York, 370 of these companies applied to the Start-up Challenge, with 60 companies selected to enter the programme. These then presented their business ideas to an audience of 800 venture capitalists, representatives from financial institutions and bank decision-makers who selected the 20 finalists – 12 early-stage and eight growth-stage companies – advancing to the finale at Sibos.
As in previous years, the 12 early-stage finalists will pitch and showcase their business ideas to Sibos delegates who will select this year’s winner. A cash prize of $50,000 will be awarded to the winning early-stage finalist.
For the first time this year, the remaining eight growth-stage finalists will host individual exhibition booths on the Innotribe stand at Sibos and have the opportunity to give live product demonstrations to Sibos delegates throughout the week. They will be joined by some Start-up Challenge alumni: EssDOCS, AMP Credit Technologies and Matchmove.
“Since 2011, the Innotribe Start-up Challenge has brought the SWIFT Community in direct contact with more than 650 FinTech start-ups from around the world,” said Fabian Vandenreydt, head of markets management, Innotribe and the Swift Institute at Swift. “This programme not only supports community engagement, but also enables Swift and its member institutions to stay abreast of current innovation activity in today’s fast changing landscape. Innotribe was one of the initial facilitators to help accelerate and spread the first wave of FinTech innovation across the industry, and we will continue to play an important role in this process.”
The Innotribe Start-up Finale is open to all Sibos participants and is sponsored by Deutsche Bank, HP, IBM, Invest NI, Level39, Luxembourg for Finance, and Wells Fargo. During Sibos week, a four-day programme will be run in the Innotribe stand, located on the exhibition floor next to the Swift stand with dedicated sessions around Platforms, Society, Innovation Mind-shift, and Machine Intelligence.
