Meet the fourth cohort of fintech startups in the Visa Innovation Program
The entrepreneurs will benefit from fast tracked access to new markets and client base, a global network of peers and investors, and tech infrastructure.
Sofia, Athens, Istanbul, 2022, 16 fintechs are joining the fourth cohort of the Visa Innovation Program – Visa’s partnership platform for fintech startups and entrepreneurs, active in Europe. The Visa Innovation Program engages early stage startup companies and Visa’s global network of partners including neobanks, banks, merchants, governments, and other high-profile organisations to spur innovation within the financial and payment industry. The Program is run in partnership with Eleven Ventures, early stage venture capital fund (Bulgaria), Crowdpolicy, open innovation integrator (Greece), and Hackquarters, accelerator (Turkey).
Diverse teams with scalable solutions
More than 219 companies from 28 countries have applied for this year’s challenges:
Empowering SME's
Unlocking new payment flows
Designing next-gen payments experience
Building smarter cities
The selected teams have demonstrated deep knowledge of the fintech domain and scalable business models that could define new use cases and customer behaviours within the finance industry. During the Selection Day:
Mariaelena Vernezou, Senior Account Manager, Client Engagement (SE, Athens) said “We started the Program back in 2018 and today with more than 700 applications, 50 alumni companies, 150M euros of capital raised, a unicorn, 45 successful POCs, pilots and commercial deals, the Visa Innovation Program has proven its worth. The Program is gaining momentum with Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey as its main hubs but adding also Spain and more to follow. This translates into even more opportunities for startups, wider market access, larger pool of mentors and resources, and a bigger community of like-minded people.”
Sebastien Geldner, Regional Head of Business Development at Visa Central and Eastern Europe, shared “This is an initiative that is pretty unique at Visa, globally. Having said that, we can be really happy and proud that we can originate this program out of Bulgaria and we have this opportunity to meet with all of you today. For Season 4, we have received over 200 applications from potential candidate fintech companies from over 50 countries from Europe, which is a great achievement of the Program.”
The Selection Day in numbers
Knowledge sharing and new business opportunities
Starting as of April 2022, the selected startups will enter the tailored Program curriculum, with custom made design sprints and workshops, aiming at propelling their growth. The teams will collaborate with a large pool of mentors and advisors from Visa and Visa’s network in the area of payments, open banking, crypto and blockchain, security, and sustainability to gather industry insights and level up their value propositions. They will be also presented to a network of proof-of-concept partners – banks, merchants, and other high profile organisations – to test and validate their propositions and reach faster the commercialization stage.
The 16 fintechs joining Season 4
And the final participants to enter Season 4 of the Visa Innovation Program are… Drum roll, please!
Action Finance Initiative is a microfinance not-for-profit company providing access to financing through microcredits to those who have a business idea but are not able to find access to the necessary funds. At the same time, it supports them by providing free training and support.
Alternatif is bringing B2C and B2B customers together by providing loyalty, payment, and CRM solutions for B2B companies and by providing a wallet marketplace for B2C customers.
ComeTogether introduces a new form of digital ticket based on blockchain to unlock new revenues from secondary markets & NFTs, while improving attendee experience.
Coriunder is a “Backend-As-A-Service”, for everything around Payments (acquiring, issuing, development, etc).
Enno Wallet is a non-custodial mobile crypto wallet and a DeFi aggregator. It gathers DeFi apps together and integrates them into the wallet with a great UI and UX.
EV Loader is developing the first open to all charger network in Greece and Southeastern Europe. It provides charging station management software to businesses such as hotels and shops and promotes their location through the EV Loader application map.
Flow is a subscription-based personal finance management app that uses rules and AI, connects to PSD2-enabled banks, and automates the various payments a user makes.
Identyum solves the needs for frictionless customer identification, authentication, onboarding, basic and financial data sharing & legally valid document signing – all based on cutting-edge web and mobile components and backend platform.
Infin8 is an application leveraging open banking for account aggregation, payment initiation, financial management, and lead generation for merchants.
Native Teams is the Payments & Employment Platform for freelancers and remote workers. The product is centred around a wallet system for flexibility of payments in and out, but that is underpinned by “employment as a service”.
Monopayments is a low-code platform that empowers fintechs to create fintech.
Prime Dash offers ML and Advanced Analytics technologies for Real-Time Credit Data provided to financial institutions in relation to the SME segment.
Qumpara is a mobile app that rewards shoppers for sending photo of their receipts. Brands can create the most effective trade promotion quickly, while shoppers get rewarded instantly.
Skipit is a fintech startup combining urban mobility and leisure activities to reimagine the way to visit another city with a cross border digital payment card that makes paying for public transport in any city easy.
“Hybrid commerce and phygital shopping” – Valuelenz is a “Hybrid Commerce Startup” that enables physical stores to gain a number of digital capabilities that create exciting and safe ways for customers to shop.
Yancep helps to build personal wealth by making portfolio management digital, simple, and accessible to all. It allows individuals to micro-invest in professionally managed portfolios designed according to their risk appetite and financial targets.
What's coming next?
After the kick-off event, the journey continues with discovery sessions for the startups and our partners, in order to match them for high-profile partnerships, workshops that are going to be commonly arranged, as well as, events to be attended locally and regionally.
The upcoming event is Borderless Day when the fintechs will have the chance to meet potential clients, partners, banks, investors and talk in private sessions.
Last but not least, Demo Day – the greatest event of the Visa Innovation Program where all the startups and partners are gathered to showcase their progress throughout the Program.
About the Visa Innovation Program
The Visa Innovation Program is a collaborative platform for emerging fintech companies and Visa and its vast network of global clients and partners. The Program leverages resources such as design thinking, fintech know-how, mentorship, market access, and a network of fintech experts. It’s organised in partnership with Visa and Eleven Ventures (Bulgaria), Crowdpolicy (Greece) and Hackquarters (Turkey).
Started back in 2018, the Visa Innovation Program attracted close to 700 applicants from EMEA, Asia, US and LATAM. Over the last four years, more than 60 fintech companies have participated in the Program. They managed to raise collectively more than EUR 250M in funding and close 45 PoCs (proof of concept), pilots and commercial deals as part of the Program.
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