8 Fintechs That Made the Cut at PitchIt
Lendit and 500 Startups have announced the eight finalists for their PitchIt competition, which will occur at the annual LendIt conference next month.
The eight fintechs chosen to compete for mentorship (among other perks) from top companies like Plug & Play Ventures, InnoVentures, and StartupBootcamp span various corners of fintech, from online lending to identity verification. The companies were chosen from a pool of 300 applicants this year.
Meet the fintechs below.
This alternative lender aims to bring faster access to loans to the 435 million Africans with limited credit resources. It works to connect these individuals with the larger financial world through mobile–for lucky Android users only, at the moment. The startup seeks to benefit both African employees and companies by providing quicker cash for the employee and investment returns for the company.
This New York-based identity verification startup seeks to overthrow the traditional onboarding process for financial institutions. Through a connected online dashboard service and APIs, Alloy provides speed and added security for collecting and managing customer data from many different sources.
A Los Angeles-based startup, Float, provides credit lines of up to $1,000 to the growing number of millennials that struggle with typical credit card fees and overdrafts. The company bypasses traditional scoring methods, such as Fico, in its underwriting process.
Described as the “world’s first cross-border credit reporting agency,” Nova aims to solve the problems that not having a U.S. credit history creates for immigrant workers. The company’s solution to this issue is it’s “Nova Credit PassPort,” which provides a full, international credit history of an immigrant customer to the partnering lender.
Ditching the traditional invoice process, Invite-only startup Qwil aims to help independent contractors and freelancers–the “gig economy”–gain quicker access to their earnings. Users can download the startup’s app, where yet-to-be-paid wages are displayed, and quickly “cash out” –meaning, move funds to a Qwil debit card– thus avoiding invoicing cycles. The card is powered by Visa, and is thus accepted pretty much everywhere.
RealAtom aims to help developers and investors connect with borrowers and lenders on their commercial real estate platform. The platform can both start searching for loans, and start issuing them through the company’s app.
This startup utilizes data and transparency through tech to connect investors, borrowers, and lenders looking for opportunities in real estate–users can pick if they are attempting to finance a “retail” or “office” location, for example. Users can opt for the free “marketplace” platform, or pay $60 a month, per user, for the “professional” version of the service.
The startup aims to provide a “community based form of credit scores, insurance, and banking,” using distributed ledger technology.
