Brussels, 19 May 2014 - The Innotribe Startup Challenge attendees selected the five finalists from the Asian leg of its annual Startup Challenge to compete at Sibos Boston in October. Ten early-stage startups and five growth-stage innovators delivered compelling pitches to an audience of global innovators and investors, venture capitalists and industry experts. The showcase was held at the National Design Centre on 15 May, in partnership with the Next Bank Asia conference.
The three early-stage startup finalists are:
- Lendstar, a financial network combining social interaction, high usability, mobility and soon real-time transactions via a mobile wallet and a prepaid credit card
- Sixscape and their Identity Registration Protocol Server combining user directory, automatic IPv6 address registration, and PKI
- Stockspot, Asia's first completely online investment adviser and fund manager using algorithms to match clients to a personalised portfolio of indexed stocks, bonds and commodities.
The two growth-stage innovator finalists are:
- Advanced Merchant Payments, enabling financial institutions to profitably offer unsecured loans to their small business customers utilising "alternative lending" technologies and methodologies
- Fastacash, providing a global platform to enable users to transfer value (money, airtime, coupons, etc.) along with digital content through any social network and messaging platform, enabling secure and cost-effective transactions.
Fabian Vandenreydt, Head of Markets Management, Innotribe and the Swift Institute said: "With a thriving ecosystem ready for startups, Singapore contributes to leading Asia in developing the fintech sector as a major engine of growth, encouraging innovations for economic and social advancements. It was a pleasure to welcome our semi-finalists in such environment and the pitches were again of the highest standard. Now into the third full year of the Startup Challenge, we continue to see our network grow, allowing us to provide more startups with even greater opportunities to connect with the financial industry. We wish the finalists the best of luck at Sibos in Boston later this year."
The top five finalists of the Asian showcase advance to the Grand Finale to be held at Sibos, Swift's annual conference. The event will take place in Boston in October, and the finalists will compete against the winners from the London and New York showcases.
The Singapore Startup Challenge was the second stop of three regional showcases to be held in 2014 and was sponsored by Level39, HP, and SAP. The New York Startup Challenge will conclude this year's competition on 5 June with the selection of the 5 latest finalists to join us in Boston.
More information about the Innotribe Startup Challenge, including descriptions of all 47 semi-finalists participating to the competition this year, is available at http://innotribe.com/2014-startup-challenge/.
About Innotribe
Swift Innotribe is about connecting people, networks and ideas - bringing together global startups and innovators with investors, strategists, and influential decision-makers from leading financial institutions across the globe. The initiative seeks to bridge the gap between the startup ecosystem and the financial services industry, looking for products and services that could disrupt current business models and create opportunities for new ones. For more information, please visit http://www.innotribe.com/ or follow us on Twitter: @innotribe and Linkedin: Innotribe.
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 visit http://www.swift.com/ or follow us on Twitter: @swiftcommunity and LinkedIn: Swift.
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