Meet the 11 startups selected for YES BANK’s accelerator programme

Until two years ago, 233 million Indians were unbanked. Fast forward to 2017 - mobile wallets and digital banking have taken over routine transactions, especially after demonetisation and the government’s initiative to encourage cashless transactions. The number of startups and entrepreneurs getting into the fintech space also increased exponentially, giving room for more collaboration between financial organisations and banks and younger players in the fintech ecosystem.

India’s fifth largest private sector lender, YES BANK has been at the forefront of such collaborations, by building strategic alliances with a number of fintech startups for key initiatives. Recently, YES BANK launched its fintech accelerator, YES FINTECH, in collaboration with startup incubator T-Hub, startup advisory firm Anthill and fintech platform Let’s Talk Payments.

The programme received 753 applications from startups in 18 countries. After a rigorous selection process, 11 startups were shortlisted for the 15-week programme. The selected startups are from various domains in the fintech space, including payments, lending, insta-credit, cyber security, risk intelligence, capital markets and enterprise software.

Here is a look at the 11 fintech startups that make up the inaugural cohort of the programme which aims to co-create innovative solutions along with the winning startups.

1. SoCash
2. SoCash is a Singapore-based startup, which aims to making cash accessible beyond ATMs. The concept is pretty simple - request for cash on the app and choose to collect it from merchants or other physical outlets within the vicinity. Founded in 2015 by Hari Sivan, a veteran banker himself, SoCash is the only fintech company to have been funded by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
3. Anytime Loan
4. Founded by Keerthi Kumar Jain, a serial entrepreneur with seven years of banking experience, Anytime Loan allows you to avail a loan within a minute - at any time of the day and at a lower interest rate than regular bank loans. The Hyderabad-based startup aims to maximise wealth for lenders and minimise cost for borrowers. It’s a peer-to-peer lending space, so anyone with Rs 20,000 can become a lender. The firm takes only 20 per cent of the proceeds, leaving the remaining 80 per cent to the lenders.
5. Rupeeseed
6. Based in Mumbai, this fintech startup provides capital market solutions for retail and institutional trading, using their analytics engine and robo-advisory solution. Co-founded by Sandeep Manoharan, Alok Pandey, and Saurabh Patel, the main objective Rupeeseed is to add value to existing businesses and help them with robust and innovative products that can enhance their revenue stream.
7. RedCarpet
8. Powered by AI, the Gurugram-based startup offers loans to customers without credit card and bank details. Founded by Kartik Venkataraman and Sandeep Srinivasa, RedCarpet accesses the available user data and then uses it to help people, mostly the student segment. The low penetration of credit cards and personal loans amongst a large segment of India’s population offers a significant opportunity for them.
9. Signzy
10. A startup from Bangalore, Signzy is a digital trust system. They provide identification, background checks, forgery detection and contract management systems, using biometric signature and blockchain technology. Their founding team consists of serial entrepreneurs from IIT Delhi and IIT Kharagpur – Ankit Ratan, Arpit Ratan and Ankur Pandey. They were recently featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
11. PayKey
12. An Israel-based startup, PayKey enables banks to provide their users with peer-to-peer payment options through any social and messaging platform. All their integration takes place at the API level, making it easier for banks to implement them. It was co-founded by Daniel Peled and Offer Markovich.
13. Authme
14. Founded by Shardul Lavekar and Vivek Mehta, this security startup helps enterprises use artificial intelligence (AI) to replace passwords with a unique pattern technology, bringing together UX and security. This makes it easier for enterprises to manage their applications. With their solution, online customers need not change passwords every 60 days or other go through authentication processes that hamper the user-experience.
15. Click & Pay
16. Click & Pay is a mobile-based payment solutions startup, to facilitate cashless, secure and flexible transactions for customers. Founded by Kalyan Karteek Sadasivuni and Sai Sandeep, Click & Pay provides users with an easy way to make payments through their mobile application.
17. FRS Labs
18. This Bangalore-based startup offers solutions on cyber security, fraud detection and identity verification using biometrics and AI. The firm, founded by Shankar Palaniandy, aims at helping banks prevent frauds and retain good customers. FRS Labs is also providing an innovative eKYC solution using 3-factor authentication (Aadhaar, OTP and Face Biometrics) for onboarding customers in a minute at a vastly-reduced cost to banks.
19. Numberz
20. Co-founded by Aditya Tulsian, Baskar Ganapathy and Rajeev Chari, Numberz is helping small businesses manage their cash flow through its mobile and web platforms. Based in Gurugram, they also provide services like invoice and expense management. The B2B startup recently raised funds in November 2016.
21. Morph.ai
22. Co-founded by Vinaj Jain and Prateek Jain in 2016, this B2B startup is a platform for conversational commerce. The startup enables companies and brands to showcase their products and services on social media platforms, and text messages through a chatbot. They provide plug and play solutions for companies to build powerful chatbots that can reduce retention costs and make customer acquisition easier.

Apart from scaling up these startups to successful businesses, YES FINTECH is also hosting a curated mentorship session - FINTECHACKS. The main objective of FINTECHACK is to give the startup a platform to network and stay updated on the latest happenings in the ecosystem.

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