Fintech Valley Vizag, an initiative of Government of Andhra Pradesh, has conducted a demo day in Mumbai as part of Startup Market Connect programme to enable startups to showcase their solutions to leading corporates in banking and financial industry.
As part of the initiative, eight corporate partners who were looking for innovative solutions shared their 19 high priority use cases. The corporate partners included ICICI Lombard, DCB, Kotak Mahindra, RBL Bank, Fullerton India, IDFC, Tata Capital and Bajaj Allianz.
Six themes
The programme was divided into six themes seeking solutions across the customer experience, process automation, financial inclusion, risk management, lending and payments.
The innovation challenge was held in three stages. The first phase was the challenge phase that began in February 2018 in which use cases were opened to the startups for application. The phase had over 120 applications from startups pan India and a few from across the globe.
This was followed by a screening phase in which the startups underwent an initial screening process to help sieve through the applications. A final shortlist of 38 startups was selected for a final demo to the associated corporate partners. Post the demo day, a final set of startups were given a chance to carry Proof of Concept (PoC) with corporate - all of which will need to be executed in Fintech Valley Vizag.
According to J.A. Chowdary, Special Chief Secretary and IT Advisor to Chief Minister, to build a strong startups ecosystem in the new State besides the local entrepreneurs, there is a need to attract the best minds from across the globe.
Promising sector
CEO, Fintech (A.P. Government) Dharmendra Sunkara said: “Fintech is a very promising sector and with the rapid rate of adoption of mobile transactions, it will prove to be one of the most profitable sectors in the coming years. We aim to make Vizag a central hub for all businesses and investors dealing in fintech.”
