ISME ACE – India’s largest fintech accelerator aims to on board up to 12 startups in September this year. The accelerator has begun accepting applications for the first cohort and select startups stand to get up to $100,000 in seed funding, and so much more.
The ISME ACE Accelerator, inaugurated by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on June 26, is housed in India’s largest Innovation & Entrepreneurship Ecosystem at Lower Parel Innovation District.
Speaking on the occasion, Radha Kapoor, Founder & Executive Director of The Three Sisters Institutional Office, said, “The philosophy of the ISME ACE ecosystem is based on DICE: Design, Innovation and Creativity led Entrepreneurship as key drivers. As a young woman entrepreneur, I firmly believe that ecosystems such as ours will help nurture the next generation of entrepreneurs and job creators.”
The accelerator has developed a collaborative ecosystem to accelerate FinTech startups joining the ISME ACE programme by partnering with large multinationals like IBM and Amazon for technology, Luthra & Luthra for advisory support, the Indian Angel Network, TiE & LetsVenture for investor and entrepreneurial network support, KPMG for knowledge, Let’s Talk Payments as innovation partner, and AWFIS as infrastructure partner - providing space to Startups not based in Mumbai.
Aparajit Bhandarkar, Chief Acceleration Officer, ISME ACE, said “FinTech Startups, instead of competing with large financial institutions, are exploring partnerships and synergies, wherein the Startups provide cutting edge technology to these institutions and the institutions drive customer adoption, via their existing customer base. ISME ACE is designed to foster this collaboration by providing Startups access to large financial institutions”
The focus sectors of ISME ACE are as follows:
Alternate lending
Financial inclusion
Smart authentication and security
Insurance tech
Wealth management & robo advisory
Payments & remittance
Customer services
These sectors centre around the financial activities a common man performs - pay, borrow, lend, insure or invest. Startups, either B2C or B2B or B2B2C disrupting these financial activities, are welcome to apply for the accelerator programme. The focus will be on startups leveraging technologies such as SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud), artificial intelligence and blockchain.
The applications will be screened by investors, prominent startup founders, partners from KPMG, and ISME ACE mentors, finally selecting up to 12 of the most promising startups to join the first cohort.