Tuesday, December 10, 2024

P5.5-M capital awaits PH startup winner in SE Asia accelerator program

Southeast Asian fintech company Brankas and venture funder Kaya Founders have just launched their first Open Finance accelerator program for Philippine startups.

The eight-week event aims to develop novel, high-value open financing solutions for early-stage companies in the Philippines to creatively address their target consumers’ needs or operational requirements.

Photo from Pexels.com

“We want to cultivate the next generation of startups, so they can launch their businesses enabled by open finance technology and global best practices.  More and more financial institutions (FIs) are seeing a business value in partnering with startups where they can do distribution, monetization, and data sharing on behalf of the FIs. This is what we hope to enable with the Open PHinance Challenge, and hope that it benefits the users of the participants as well,” said Brankas founder and CEO Todd Schweitzer.

Eleven of the 30 teams and businesses that applied were chosen to advance to the Challenge based on the problems they chose to address and the relevance of their solution, as much as for their innovativeness and dynamism. The participating teams suggested innovative use-cases for their respective businesses, representing seven distinct industries across four Southeast Asian countries. 

The 11 qualifiers bring a diverse spectrum of industry knowledge and startup experience to the table:

Photo from Brankas / Kaya Founders
  1. AltSwitch – a blockchain-based company aiming to develop a state-of-the-art hardware and software wallet.
  1. Betterteem – a cloud-based HR integration app, which uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve employee support and relations.
  1. Cropital – an agriculture crowdfunding platform that looks to build a credit scoring and reporting service for rural banks.
  1. Datacultr Fintech Limited – a digital debt collections and risk management startup looking to unlock credit access for the 67 million unbanked and under-banked Filipinos.
  1. Dyippay – a Fintech startup aiming to build a cashless and cardless automated fare collection system for public transportation.
  1. KoleK – an enterprise SaaS whose bank-agnostic software leverages open banking infrastructure for finance teams.
  1. Mochi – a B2B BNPL startup that aims to help MSME merchants purchase supplies without worrying about cash on hand.
  1. Rambooor – a Web3 startup which aims to make decentralized finance (DeFi) accessible, safe, and profitable for ordinary users via a secure non-custodial wallet.
  1. Sonicboom Solutions – a Malaysian Fintech company that will be developing an all-in-one payment reading solution, and license plate recognition technology.
  1. Spiro Carbon Group – an SME-focused, climate-friendly farming solution provider that aims to create an open, secondary source of income for small farmers, and open a pathway to net-zero for business via a broad grassroots network.
  1. Taikee – an AI-enabled personal finance platform that aims to create a personalized experience for Filipinos to get started with managing and handling their finances.

Eight weeks of rigorous coaching will be spent focused on product ideation, business development, user validation, regulatory compliance, pitching, and funding for participating teams. Under the direction of subject matter experts, the participating teams will design their respective original products and demonstrate them on the final day of the competition.

The teams will be scored on product and company feasibility, investability, and pitch quality, among other factors, by a panel of investors, prominent startup founders, and Open Finance specialists.

The top three participants will present their ideas at the Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) from November 2 to 4, 2022, to an audience of prospective international investors and stakeholders. The grand prize winner will get P5.5 million in equity capital.

Visit www.openphinancechallenge.org for Open PHinance Challenge updates.

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