Fintech Valley Vizag’s Accelerator Program Geared for a ‘Fintectonic’ Culture in Andhra Pradesh
Fintech Valley Vizag’s Accelerator Program. First cohort of the accelerator program had a group of 8 selected finalists working to develop solutions for four key focus areas: Financial Inclusion, Security and Fraud Prevention and Customer and Risk analytics.
Fintech Valley Vizag, India’s self-sustainable Fintech ecosystem kick started the Fintech Valley Accelerator Program to develop a high potential fintech ecosystem focused on co-creating innovative solutions to address the evolving needs of India’s dynamic financial services landscape. The accelerator program is in collaboration with ICICI Bank and Mahindra Finance as corporate partners and Microsoft as the technology & acceleration partner. This 12 week resident program which ends on 23rd February, 2018, has provided the eight selected fintech startups an opportunity to speed up their development through a combination of support, guidance and training.
The first cohort of the accelerator program had a group of 8 selected finalists – Moneytor, FingPay, Incremint, Gyandhan, TAQBit, Nanobi, Heckyl Technologies and iProov working to develop solutions for four key focus areas: Financial Inclusion, Security and Fraud Prevention and Customer and Risk analytics for a period of 3 months.
The first cohort of the 12-week intensive program started in the last week of October with a host of sessions, workshops and 1-1 interactions. The startups were mentored and trained on some key aspects of business planning and marketing by Fintech Valley team and the corporate partners. Some of the sessions were on Peer review sessions for startups, selling to BFSI, how to sell solutions to BFSI clients, Innovation and digital initiatives at the bank with startups, SME Lending and One-on-one interactions with Microsoft Azure on building and scaling solutions on Azure.
1-1 sessions were hosted by KPMG on building robust accounting standards for startups and on fund raising aspects for startups. The workshops were conducted on Cognitive Bias workshop, Operating plan workshop, Design Thinking Workshop – conducted by KPMG, Building robust accounting standards for startups by KPMG and Fund raising for startups by KPMG.
Guest mentor sessions were on Entrepreneur talk – interaction with CEO of a leading lending startup in India, 1-1 interactions with Microsoft team for startups interested in hosting and scaling solutions on Microsoft cloud and Collaboration areas in India’s retail broking landscape by the founder of one of the largest and fastest growing broking firms in India.
Apart from this, Fintech Valley hosted a session for the MBA (Fintech) and Engineering students of GITAM university on being a part of Fintech Valley Accelerator and interning with startups. 25+ students were interviewed for internship opportunities with startups. Of the 25, 11 students were offered internships to work with startups during the accelerator programme. Fintech Valley also connected the startups with the officials from the government of Andhra Pradesh and hosted special address sessions.
Startups are exploring business use cases and discussing the requirements with the corporate partners and government for the POC/pilot with them. They are being provided with an access to technology resources, mentoring on fund raising, legal guidance and market access to speed up the process of scaling their business.
The program will conclude with a grand demo day in 23rd February 2018, in the presence of corporates, mentors and investors from across the world.