Today the award-winning global startup engagement program Mastercard Start Path welcomes 11 fintech companies to receive dedicated support, access to customers and product teams, and opportunities to co-innovate.
Finmod, Flourish Savings, GenEQTY, Karri, KeyChain Pay, Kwara, Layer, Osper, Swap, upSWOT and Wellthi have been selected to participate and are using gamification, behavioral science, social banking platforms and more to modernize payments. Of this group, GenEQTY, Finmod and Wellthi are joining the new Start Path track dedicated to supporting early-stage startups led by founders from backgrounds underrepresented in the fintech space as part of Mastercard’s In Solidarity commitments.
“We’ve seen tremendous growth across the fintech landscape, and more people are benefitting from the digital economy than ever before, whether they’re gaining access to credit for their small business through open banking or securely making payments to their child’s school from the comfort of their smartphone,” said Amy Neale, senior vice president, Fintech & Enablers. “Through Start Path, Mastercard creates a springboard for fintech companies that are driving a more inclusive digital economy and helps them accelerate the way they change the world.”
Mastercard has a track record of collaborating with startups. Since founding Start Path in 2014, the company has uncovered co-innovation opportunities and provided mentorship to more than 260 startups that have gone on to collectively raise more than $5 billion in capital. The following startups are joining this growing network to rapidly scale their business:
- Finmod helps small and medium-sized businesses forecast financials 10 times faster and make financial decisions in real-time.
- Flourish FI is an engagement and financial wellness platform for financial institutions, using gamification and behavioral science to empower individuals to establish positive money habits and achieve financial security.
- GenEQTY offers a smarter digital banking solution to help small businesses and solopreneurs improve financial performance, manage business health and get faster access to funding through one central data-driven business hub.
- Karri is a mobile payment app that facilitates fast and easy payments to schools and community organizations, and provides parents a convenient way to manage their child's money.
- KeyChain Pay is a smart platform for landlords and tenants to collect and pay rent using AI and credit card tokenization.
- Kwara is transforming credit unions into modern, digital banks with a credit union operating system and neobank experience for their members.
- Layer's digital banking platform delivers a blend of traditional and neo-bank capabilities from one platform, dramatically reducing cost, revolutionizing the customer journey and enabling banks and non-financial institutions to become truly digital.
- Osper empowers young people to earn, spend and save; its new B2B platform, Prosper, allows any company to launch their own youth card scheme in weeks at a fraction of the cost of building in-house.
- Swap is a Brazil-based platform that empowers businesses to embed financial services to expand their footprint, deliver unmatched product experiences and boost their economics.
- upSWOT offers a white-labeled business health dashboard that powers online and mobile banking platforms with 150+ API-enabled apps.
- Wellthi builds social banking solutions to help clients leverage the power of AI, data and online communities to attract and retain new customer segments by turning every card into a community.
As the fintech landscape continues to evolve and diversify, Mastercard embraces opportunities to support and collaborate with digital players to unlock potential and build the next generation of commerce.