Three early-stage start-ups, Azimo, Kwanji and Paymandate; and two growth-stage innovators Virtual Piggy and Waratek delivered compelling pitches to an audience of the financial industry's leading angels, VC's and decision makers, held at Level39, Canary Wharf on April 18, 2013.

The three early-stage start-up finalists are Azimo, with a platform that uses mobile and social technology to reinvent the way that economic migrants send money back to their families in the developing world; Kwanji's product that acts as a facilitator of international commerce, removing the complexities that SMEs suffer when making or receiving international business payments; and Paymandate with a simple, fast and safe solution to efficiently manage online mandates and contracts with their end-customers, respectively.

The two growth-stage innovator finalists are Virtual Piggy with a global payment enabling service that facilitates the online spending of under eighteens and young adults in a parent approved manner; and Waratek, who has made a breakthrough in solving a specific problem affecting the future use of Java as the industry moves towards higher levels of infrastructure virtualisation and private Clouds, respectively.

As the top five finalists for the European Showcase, Azimo, Kwanji, Paymandate, Virtual Piggy and Waratek, will now advance to the Innotribe Startup Challenge final to be held at Sibos, SWIFT's annual conference, in Dubai in September, to compete against finalists from the Singapore and New York Showcases.

The Innotribe Startup Challenge saw 15 of the most promising FinTech and Financial Services start-ups present their businesses to an audience of dozens of the financial industry's most influential innovation executives, early-stage investors and press.

Matteo Rizzi, co-founder at Innotribe said: "London was a great start to the 2013 Startup Challenge with Level39 acting as the perfect host. All the pitches were of the highest quality and the finalists can be proud of their achievements. We wish them the best of luck at Sibos. We're now in to the second full year of the Startup Challenge and it's great that we're seeing our network of industry professionals grow. It's a compliment to the Challenge, which I hope will continue to give some great businesses the platform they need in the industry."

The London Startup Challenge was the first of three regional challenges to be held in 2013 and was sponsored by Invest NI, HP, Level39 and Sberbank. The Singapore and New York Startup Challenges will be held on 16th May and 13th June respectively.

More information about the Startup Challenge, including the London semi-finalists, is available at http://innotribe.com/2013-startup-challenge/.