London, 8 April – Innotribe, Swift’s initiative to enable collaborative innovation in financial services, is holding the European leg of its annual Startup Challenge in London on 18th April at Level39, Canary Wharf. The competition aims to foster innovation in the financial industry by introducing companies delivering new and innovative products and services in fintech and financial services to the wider financial community. The Challenge provides the most promising entrepreneurs the opportunity to grow their business with consultation and funding from Swift.
Semi-finalists of the London Innotribe Startup Challenge will pitch their original business ideas to a panel of the financial industry’s leading angels, VC’s and decision makers. The winners of the London showcase will go on to compete against the winners from New York and Singapore in the grande finale at Sibos, Swift’s annual conference, in Dubai in September.
Innotribe focuses on creation and collaboration and has selected 15 semi-finalists whose business ideas identify and address important gaps within the financial technology sector. Matteo Rizzi, co-founder at Innotribe said: “We have chosen London as the location for the European showcase of the 2013 Challenge as it is becoming more and more important in helping drive innovation in the region forward. The goal is to bring innovation and technology expertise to the banking hub of Europe. Last year’s Challenge was a great success and I look forward to providing the opportunity to talented entrepreneurs and promising start-ups in London.”
This year’s semi-finalists are:
Early-stage start-ups
Azimo – https://azimo.com/en/
BioCatch – http://biocatch.com/Home
CrowdBnk https://www.crowdbnk.com/
Device Ident GmbH – http://deviceident.com/
FNA – http://www.fna.fi/
Growth Intelligence – http://www.growthintel.com/
Open Bank Project – http://www.openbankproject.com/
Paymandate - https://twitter.com/paymandate
StudentFunder – http://www.studentfunder.com/
Growth-stage innovators
Finantix – http://www.finantix.com/
Global Business Register Direct – http://www.gbrdirect.co.uk/home.aspx
Virtual Piggy, Inc. (OTCBB: VPIG) – http://www.virtualpiggy.com/
Waratek – http://www.waratek.com/
Zafin Labs – http://www.zafinlabs.com/
Andres Fontao, partner, Finnovista, who sat on the judging panel to form the shortlist of start-ups said: “We are always looking for bright, new talent and the Innotribe Startup Challenge allows start-ups the opportunity to gain access to the wider financial community and funding that they need. It has been an interesting experience seeing what innovative products and services we have to offer in London and I look forward to seeing the final 15 entrepreneurs present their ideas at Level39.”
Start-ups from last year’s Challenge have secured large contracts with global financial services firms. 2012’s growth-stage start-up winner, Gust, subsequently received over US$12m in investment, and Singapore-based tech start-up, PlayMoolah, has started working with its first financial institution, OCBC Bank since winning the early-stage start-up category at the 2012 Singapore Startup Challenge.
Launched by Swift, the Startup Challenge travels around the world with three regional showcases in the US, Asia and Europe. It provides participants with the unique opportunity to get together and create smart company pitches, facilitate insightful discussions on emerging innovations and participate in useful networking events.
The Innotribe Startup Challenge is sponsored by Invest NI, HP, Level39 and Sberbank.
The Singapore and New York Startup Challenges will be held on 16th May and 13th June respectively. For further information about the Innotribe Startup Challenge please visit: http://innotribestartup.com.
About Innotribe
Launched in 2009, Innotribe is Swift's initiative to enable collaborative innovation in financial services. Innotribe presents an energising mix of education, new perspectives, collaboration, facilitation and incubation to professionals and entrepreneurs who are willing to drive change within their industry. It fosters creative thinking in financial services, through debating the options (at Innotribe events) and supporting the creation of innovative new solutions (through the Incubator, Startup Challenge and Proof of Concepts (POCs). It is through this approach, the Innotribe team at Swift is able to generate a platform that enables innovation across Swift and the financial community. For more information, please visit http://www.innotribe.com/.
About Swift
Swift is a member-owned cooperative that provides the communications platform, products and services to connect more than 10,000 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 212 countries and territories. Swift enables its users to exchange automated, standardised financial information securely and reliably, thereby lowering costs, reducing operational risk and eliminating operational inefficiencies. Swift also brings the financial community together to work collaboratively to shape market practice, define standards and debate issues of mutual interest.
For more information, please refer to www.swift.com or contact:
Swift
Press Office
Tel: +32 2 655 3377
pressoffice@swift.com
Cognito Europe
Claudia Coleman / Katherine Dvorkin
Tel: +44 (0) 207 426 9400
innotribe@cognitomedia.com
