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Innotribe announces the winners of the 2015 Startup Challenge Showcase in Cape Town

Innotribe announces the winners of the 2015 Startup Challenge Showcase in Cape Town

Innotribe,
7 May 2015 | 4 min read

The most promising fintech companies in South Africa have now been selected to compete in the Startup Challenge Finale at Sibos in Singapore.

Cape Town, 7 May 2015 - The Innotribe Startup Challenge attendees selected the five finalists from the African leg of the Startup Challenge to compete at Sibos Singapore in October. The showcase was held at The Westin, on Wednesday 6 May, in partnership with Swift's African Regional Conference (ARC) taking place from 5-7 May 2015.

ARC brings together policy makers, industry leadersf and the broader financial community from across the African continent. This year's conference theme ‘Seizing the Opportunity' focused on Africa's abundant potential and looked at the role of financial technology innovation in the region. Typically attracting up to 500 delegates from around 40 countries, the conference was the perfect place for our fifteen early-stage and growth-stage startups to deliver compelling pitches around their innovative products that could support the economic development of the continent.

The three early-stage startup finalists are:

  • Intelworld delivers mobile applications on top of existing mobile wallets to help banks and merchants increase mobile e-commerce
  • Notafy provides secure messaging infrastructure to help companies communicate with their customers via mobile instant messages instead of costly SMS
  • YueDiligence offers actionable, light-touch due diligence tool for entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers to assess deal readiness

The two growth-stage startups finalists are:

  • 2Quins enterprise SaaS financial information tool, Green Model, slashes the time and expense of meeting banks' operational and regulatory reporting requirements
  • ZAQ Finance provides debt reduction, savings, and low-cost credit products to help low-income Africans become more financially secure

Fabian Vandenreydt, Head of Markets Management, Innotribe and the Swift Institute at Swift says: "London, Singapore, and New York are part of the top ten cities in FinTech for years now. We were delighted to bring the Innotribe Startup Challenge for the first time to Cape Town this year, drawing attention to the innovation happening on the ground in Africa. It was an exciting step, and we now wish the finalists the best of luck for the Finale at Sibos later this year."

Commenting on Africa's innovation landscape, Hugo Smit, Head of Sub-Sahara Africa at Swift says: "There is a genuine spirit of innovation in Africa and the semi-finalists who pitched in Cape Town really shows the appetite there is in this market for new business models and harnessing technology in new ways. I'm delighted that Swift and Innotribe are able to offer these young African companies this platform and wish them best of luck in Singapore at Sibos. We are already excited about the next African Showcase at ARC 2016."

The Cape Town event was the second regional showcase to be held in 2015 and was sponsored by Level39 and Wells Fargo. Next steps of the Startup Challenge programme will be the regional showcases in Singapore on 28 May, and New York on 18 June.

For more information about the Innotribe Startup Challenge and how to register to the upcoming showcases, please visit our website.

To access the full list of companies participating in the 2015 Startup Challenge, please click here. Companies are listed in alphabetical order and by showcase.

About Innotribe
Launched in 2009, Swift Innotribe is about innovation and connecting people, networks and ideas. We bring together global innovators and investors, strategists, and influential decision-makers from leading financial institutions across the globe, providing them early insights into innovations that could disrupt current business models and create opportunities for new ones. Through the Startup Challenge competition, we bridge the gap between the startup ecosystem and the financial service community.

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 10,800 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in more than 200 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, visit http://www.swift.com/ or follow us on Twitter: @swiftcommunity and LinkedIn: Swift

For more information, please contact:

Atmosphere Communications
Megann Outram
Tel: + 27 (0) 11 215 0048 | + 27 (0) 83 320 7577
megann@atmosphere.co.za

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