Selection Day — Visa Innovation Program-Selected Startups and next steps
The Selection Day of the Visa Innovation Program in Greece took place on Wednesday the 9th of October. The last period significant startups applied to join the Visa Innovation Program in Greece, from different backgrounds of the 4 themes of the Program. Τhe first cohort of the Visa Innovation Program applications’ period attracted companies interested in shaping the future of retail and powering the cross-border economy. Crowdpolicy during the applications period arranged meetings with a lot of startups varying in size, level of readiness and size.
For the Selection Day 12 companies were chosen to participate among 50 applications. Before the official pitching, the shortlisted companies had the chance to meet one 2 one with senior Bank experts from Alpha Bank, Attica Bank, Bank of Piraeus, Eurobank, National Bank of Greece, Visa and Crowdpolicy experts as long as with mentors from the Visa Innovation Program. 40 mentoring sessions in total! As the companies mentioned the feedback from the mentoring sessions was particularly useful and a great opportunity for them!
And the pitching began — wished them the best of success!
All the presentations from the 12 shortlisted participating companies were really good! We wished them the best of luck!
Goal achieved — the companies selected for the 1st cohort
The ones which were finally selected to participate in the first cohort of the Visa Innovation Program by the Jury Committee comprising of Visa senior experts Banks representatives and Crowdpolicy are the following (in alphabetical order).
“When users post what they buy, they get rewarded EVEN IN REAL TIME by the business. We convert customers and sales to an advertising opportunity and WoM that creates brand awareness. Customers get rewarded,Businesses get advertised by their customers! We charge 20–50 cents to businesses when their customers buy and post through bubbllz. We provide an admin platform through which the business/brand/mall etc knows who is in the store, communicate with customers, communicate offers, participate in market places in the app.”
Doitforme.eu is a Social Media Platform for Professional Service Providers. Visitors can browse , hire and review professionals nearby.
Ferryhopper is a newly launched online ferry booking platform that brings island-hopping around Greece to your fingertips. Our innovative platform presents you with all available direct and indirect connection to over 160 Greek islands and ports. Through Ferryhopper, you can plan your ferry trip effortlessly, book your ticket quickly, compare prices instantly, secure the cheapest fare, and start hopping! Ferryhopper is the first –and only– booking platform that provides the user with indirect connections and routes to other destinations and makes ferry travelling in Greece easy and simple.
Linked Business is a leading provider of innovative market intelligence solutions that blend open with enterprise data. AI & Big data technologies are employed to transform complex data into intelligent business solutions that assist Sales departments to discover new customers in specific market segments. Our products contribute also to KYC reporting starting from client onboarding to the assessment of systemic risks based on detailed business networks & associated persons. The legal entity profile service & due diligence reports help financial institutions to address regulatory requirements.
Orderstate is a platform to allow easy end-to-end tracking of shipments for complex B2B orders and collaboration between all parties that are involved.
“Stoferno.gr is a Delivery On-Demand platform that allows users to order cross-category products from local stores by utilizing a crowd-sourced rider network.”
Next Steps to follow:
The Selection Day of the Visa Innovation Program lead to the first cohort of the Program, tailored to the specific needs and challenges of the six companies, according to Visa’s Design Thinking Methodology. The companies participating will be able to further develop their product proposition, improve their existing operations, reach proof-of-concept with a stakeholder within Visa’s network. The companies will be given access to resources including APIs from Visa Developer Platform.
The Visa Innovation Program will operate as a collaborative platform where fintechs and Visa’s business partners will work together for addressing market-wide challenges through tangible propositions. The Program will focus on changing cash behavior to payments with cards under four major verticals: daily expenditures of Greek consumers, incoming tourist spend, transit, Government to Consumer (G2C), Consumer to Government (C2G), Business to Business (B2B) and Peer to Peer (P2P).
The first Cohort will be comprised of the following steps:
Enable
the selected companies to design new digital commerce experiences with Visa’ s clients, businesses and stakeholders for dynamic interaction to co-create, test solutions and measure reactions.
Accelerate
the companies to build their value proposition with design sprint workshops, mentoring support and inspiring talks. The acceleration process will consist of different stages, ideas, assumptions, test, design, build, measure, learn, rapid prototyping and market validation.
Go live
for the best validated payment solutions to the Greek market and integrate them into Visa’s global payment ecosystem.
Find more photos from the Visa Innovation Program Selection Day here.