Swift names semi-finalists for US start-up challenge
The US leg of the challenge is in New York on 13 June
Swift’s Innotribe innovation project has chosen the 15 US semi-finalists for its start-up challenge, which aims to bring together innovative ideas in financial services and turn them into functioning businesses.
The semi-finalists include Agent Piggy, a financial education and money management tool aimed at children from 5-15 years old; Agile Credit, a lender focusing on small businesses; Good April, a tax monitoring service that helps customers avoid tax mistakes; Licuos, a business-to-business payment platform for commercial debts; and P2P Cash, a tool for transferring cash via mobile devices.
Early-stage start-ups chosen also include People Hedge, a tool that lets users exchange currency at a set rate months in advance; Quant Connect, a firm that gives quants a C# coding environment in a browser, template algorithms and free tick data so that they can develop trading strategies; Reality Mogul, an online company that allows investors to become equity holders in real estate; technology company V2Pay, which develops remittance software, virtual debit cards and mobile recharge tools; and XY Verify, a mobile authentication tool that helps users protect themselves against crime.
In addition, five ‘growth stage’ companies were selected; these consist of Quantum4d, an online enterprise intelligence tool that allows users to handle data and find trends using open source software; the Entrepreneurial Finance Lab, which is designed to help investors, lenders and companies find the right entrepreneurs based on their character, abilities and attitude; Voice Trust, a provider of voice biometrics and digital payments software for mobile payments; Yseop, an artificial intelligence software that is designed to boost business productivity; and Zighra, a cloud authentication, security and fraud detection tool developed using crowdsourcing.
“The Innotribe Startup Challenge provides entrepreneurs an opportunity to showcase their work by pitching to key financial decision-makers,” said Matteo Rizzi, co-founder at Innotribe. “The U.S. is a critical market and we look forward to continuing the encouragement of innovation in this region.”
In April, Swift named the five finalists from the European leg of its challenge, held in London. In May, the five finalists from Singapore were chosen. The US leg of the challenge will be held on 13 June in New York. The top five companies from the US will then compete against the other promising new companies from Singapore and London at the Sibos conference in Dubai in September.
