“Winning the Fintech Venture Day Pitch Slam in São Paulo is a fantastic achievement for us,” said Felipe Tascón, CEO at Mesfix. “We pitched against some other great contenders - showing that fintech innovation in LatAm is thriving. Being part of this event and being selected as winners also shows the forward-looking philosophies of Santander as a bank, as well as those of Accenture and IE Business School and a growing appetite we’re seeing in the industry to really push the boundaries and deliver innovation in financial services. Our electronic trading platform connects SMEs with investors, helping them improve their cashflow by selling pending receivables at a discount to community members.”

Held across three different locations, Fintech Venture Days are a global initiative, part conference and part competition, bringing together regional stakeholders with the aim of exploring the issues faced by startups in the financial technology sector. Incorporated into each event is the Pitch Slam - an open competition in which innovative startups vie to win access to the expertise and capabilities of all event partners:

Santander InnoVentures will provide guidance and best practices for raising capital. Also, the possibility of receiving funding exists for those startups that qualify under the Santander InnoVentures requirements: siv.vc
IE Business School will provide the environment and mentorship required to excel in this dynamic industry.
Accenture will provide advice and market insight to help the startups go to market effectively and scale quickly.

The event drew on the collective experience of leading financial services and venture capital executives to determine the winner of the Pitch Slam competition. The final judging panel consisted of: Douglas Silva (Accenture), Jimmy Lui (Accenture), Luis Maldonado (IE Business School), Juan José Güemes (IE Business School), Ariel Muslera (Latin America Venture Capital Association), Emilio Garcia de la Sierra (Santander InnoVentures), Richard Chaves (Microsoft Brazil) and Bruno Diniz (Next Bank).

Manuel Silva, Partner at Santander InnoVentures, said: “Following the successes of our first two Fintech Venture Days in Tel Aviv and Madrid, we were keen to gather the best and brightest of the Brazilian and Latin American fintech ecosystem in São Paulo. Fintech Venture Days has proven again to be a great platform to engage locally, in line with our broader efforts to keep on building strong relationships in Brazil in search of great companies to back and partner with, and Mesfix is a worthy winner.”

The other startup finalists selected to present during the competition section of the event were: LabsBank, Mutual, Planejei and Venture Buff.

The first and second installments of Fintech Venture Days, held in Tel Aviv in March and Madrid in April, saw innovative startups PayKey and Pich Technologies emerge as winners.