Fintech Valley Accelerator Announces First Cohort With Eight Fintech Startups

As announced by Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu at Vizag Blockchain Conference, Fintech Valley, a body established by the state government to promote sustainable global fintech ecosystem has launched Fintech Valley Accelerator programme for fintech startups. The 12-week long accelerator program intends to provide startups, a combination of support, guidance and training. The accelerator has also shortlisted eight startups that will join its inaugural cohort.

The fintech startups were selected from the top 20 startups who showcased their solutions to the business leaders of ICICI bank, Mahindra Finance and Microsoft. The accelerator programme is in collaboration with ICICI Bank and Mahindra Finance as corporate partners and Microsoft as the technology & acceleration partner.

Fintech Valley Accelerator: Shortlisted Startups

Moneytor: The Bengaluru-based fintech startup focuses on leveraging technology to make fragmented stressed receivables market more efficient, improve default recovery rates, and in the long run, be able to rightly price such portfolios.

Fingpay: The startup allows customers to pay for products, services and utilities at POS from any of their bank accounts and/or wallets with just a scan of a finger.

Incremint: It provides financial advisors/ agents, a platform to cross-sell financial products to their clients by providing them access to products, tools, and their own website/app.

GyanDhan: It is an education financing marketplace with an aim to equalize and expand access to higher education abroad.

TAQBit: This startup makes encryption unconditionally secure & affordable by developing standardized quantum systems for information processing technologies which have application in end to end encryption

Nanobi: This startup is an analytics product company radically changing the way enterprises create, consume and action on analytics for business growth

Heckyl Technologies: The startup operates in the space of real-time analytics of structured and unstructured data offering high-end analytical products to financial institutions and corporates

iProov: The startup has created means to authenticate a person on any device using their face, for ID verification or logon purposes which is strongly resilient to spoofs and replay attacks yet ultra-easy to use.

Fintech Valley Accelerator: ICICI Bank, Mahindra Finance And Microsoft As Mentors

According to a statement released by Fintech Valley, ICICI Bank and Mahindra Finance will provide business mentorship to the selected fintech startups and explore partnerships with them by implementing their solutions in their ecosystem. Microsoft will provide technology and business mentorship to the selected start-ups and access to Microsoft products and services under its Bizspark programme.

The first cohort is scheduled to start in the last week of October. The Andhra Pradesh government will support the selected startups by providing access to technology resources, mentoring on fundraising, legal guidance, market access from partner financial institutions amongst many other initiatives to speed up the process of scaling their businesses. The selected participants of the accelerator programme will also receive a financial incentive of $6,083 (INR 4 Lakhs) for any operational exigencies during the three-month duration. The programme will conclude following its demo day in January 2018, in the presence of corporates, mentors and investors from across the world.

In India, there has been a host of fintech startup incubators. Microsoft, Paypal, Oracle, Yes Bank, and NASSCOM’s 10,000 startups are the current leading fintech startup accelerators in India. Kerala State government has also set-up an incubator Startup village to promote fintech startups. Fintech startups Paytm and Razorpay have grown over 10x in last one year, an inspiring tale for upcoming startups. Fintech Valley Vizag aims to incubate fintech startups with an aim to promote Vizag as their operational homes.

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