Fintech startups head to London for Startupbootcamp 2015 final

Startupbootcamp FinTech brings companies from Europe, Asia and America to London to demo

Ten financial services startups have been chosen by  startup accelerator Startupbootcamp FinTech to participate in its annual London program, which seeks to find the best new companies in financial services and bring them to market. Notable themes among the finalists include Bitcoin and the blockchain, big data, algorithms, cloud computing and social networking.

Interest in financial services startups has been growing in recent years, and a number of different accelerators have been set up. Major banks such as Barclays, BBVA and Citi have their own programs, and there is also the Innotribe startup challenge run by Swift. Startupbootcamp was created in February last year and held its debut event in London with support from Lloyds banking group and the Netherlands’ Rabobank.

Entrants to Startupbootcamp FinTech receive mentoring from 100 entrepreneurs, investors and corporate partners to guide their idea to market, and the opportunity to make partnerships with Rabobank, Lloyds, MasterCard, Arvato Financial Solutions, Intesa Sanpaolo and Route 66 ventures.  They also get €15,000 and three months free office space at the Rainmaking Loft London, Startupbootcamp’s London home. The program begins in August.

After three months of acceleration, the ten teams will present to 500 investors, mentors and partners on the Startupbootcamp FinTech demo day. The 10 teams selected to join the 2015 Startupbootcamp FinTech London program are:

• Blockverity (UK): Blockverify is a company that uses blockchain technology to improve anti-counterfeit measures. The idea is to make it impossible to duplicate products by creating a digital record.

• BondIT (Israel): BondIT uses machine learning and big data analytics to provide tools for portfolio managers and financial advisers to construct fixed income portfolios. The company uses algorithms to assist portfolio construction.

• Cybertonica (Russia): Cybertonica provides a cloud risk intelligence hub for merchants, payment service providers and financial institutions. The aim is to decrease the number of fraud transactions and chargebacks, and increase online sales using machine learning, online behaviour analysis and biometric fingerprint profiling of internet users.

• Delio (UK): Delio was created to provide wealth managers, private banks and other financial institutions with a compliant way of allowing clients and advisors to share and access direct, private market investment opportunities internally and across their networks.

• Money Fellows (UK): Money Fellows has created a lending system in which people use social media such as Facebook to lend and borrow with their friends and contacts. There is no interest charged, instead there is a one time fixed fee. The idea is to make loans much cheaper and saving more rewarding.

• Obsidian Solutions (Canada): Obsidian has developed a portal for investment managers, FundBinder, which allows software vendors to offer tools through its app market. The idea is to allow plug-in services and build a hub.

• StockViews (UK): StockViews is a social network for investors. Members post their “investment thesis” in 250 characters or less together with a “rating” (buy, sell or neutral). Performance of recommendations is then tracked in real time by the site and compared against Wall Street professionals.

• Tradle (USA): Tradle extends bitcoin’s blockchain to carry any business and consumer transactions, like orders, invoices, tickets and receipts. The intention is that human activities will become more transparent, yet more secure, more automatic, yet touch more people and more coordinated, yet more diverse.

• Walnut Algorithms (France): Walnut Algorithms uses machine learning techniques with financial expertise to create computational models for asset management.

• WoraPay (UK): WoraPay provides merchants software based self-service with multiple mobile wallets connected to it. On the other hand, WoraPay provides banks, payment service providers, telecoms or other institutions that operate a mobile wallet quick access to the wider merchant network.

“The FinTech space continues to hot up and for the second year running London remains the FinTech capital of the world,” said Liz Lumley, managing director at Startupbootcamp FinTech. “The sheer volume of interest in the London program again this year is testament to the need for an innovation tool to nurture the talent that is out there. Since the beginning of the year, we have searched across FinTech hubs as well as untapped cities, such as Sydney, Toronto and Johannesburg to find the most promising FinTech startups, and met over 200 startups. We feel confident that the 10 teams selected showcase the very best that financial services and technology has to offer.”