First cohort of 10 startups graduates from YES FINTECH business accelerator

In March this year, YES Bank launched its business accelerator programme for fintech startups, called YES FINTECH to collaborate with innovative young companies in collaboration with T-Hub and Anthill and LetsTalkPayments. The inaugural edition of the 15-week programme successfully concluded on July 7 in Mumbai, at the Demo Day, where 10 participating startups from the first cohort graduated. The 10 had been chosen after a rigorous screening of 753 applicants from 18 countries.

As part of the Demo Day, each of the 10 startups had the opportunity to showcase the scalable business solutions they had co-created along with YES Bank, as part of the programme. Shradha Sharma, founder and CEO of YourStory, in her keynote address said "As entrepreneurs, I urge you to get someone you respect to beat you into shape. That is how I learnt financial prudence and much more" . Speaking of her own experiences, she advised the cohort,"I shamelessly ask for help. What's the worst that can happen? We all need to ask for help."

Taking their solutions to the world

Five of the startups, were given Letters of Intent (LoI) on successful completion of ‘proof of concept’ and will now work on integrating the completed solutions with YES Bank. These include:

• Numberz: Numberz is simplifying running the business (cash-flow) by seamlessly integrating business workflows with banking services. It has also helped YES Bank launch a GST-ready current cccount which will assist the bank’s MSME client base migrate to the GST regime.
• Rupeeseed: Rupeeseed will help provide capital market solutions for retail and institutional trading using an analytics engine and robo-advisory solution.
• FRS Labs: FRS Labs is collaborating with YES Bank for cyber security, fraud detection and identity verification using Facial recognition and AI. The solution will now be used as an authentication layer for customer on-boarding.
• Morph.ai: Morph.ai will provide a plug-n-play solution to build powerful chatbots that can solve business use cases. Morph.ai is building an AI-based bot to automate processes for YES SECURITIES clients.
• Signzy: Signzy is creating 'building blocks for a digital trust system through bank-grade digital KYC, biometric enabled digital contracts and due diligence through algorithmic risk intelligence.

Four of the 10 graduating startups are having their solutions tested in closed user groups, following which they will move to contractual discussions. These startups are:

• Paykey: The Israel-based startup has integrated its solution into YES Bank’s popular YES Pay wallet which will allow users to check their account balance, account history and initiate P2P payments while using social media apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
• Anytime Loans (ATL) is using an AI-based alternative credit scoring model to assess borrowers in a very short time. This partnership with ATL will enable the bank to assess and disburse a personal loan request in a span of 10 minutes.
• Redcarpetup: RedCarpetup is using its innovative credit scoring to provide insta-credit to college students.
• soCash: soCash is looking to improve cash distribution and liquidity management by creating the largest cash network in the world powered by mobile devices. The goal is to convert every shop and customer into a virtual cash distribution network and is starting in India.

Over 100 corporates and several key investors were present on the occasion and expressed an interest in adopting the solutions. These included Reliance ADA, Aditya Birla Group, Future Group, eBay, Volvo, Western Union, IBM, Microsoft, TCS, Amazon Web Services, Viacom 18 and Sunpharma, among others and investors such as India Angel Network, Matrix Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Blume Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Axilor, Nexus, FAO Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures, among others.

Commenting on the successful completion of the inaugural cohort, Rana Kapoor, MD & CEO,

YES Bank said, “We are excited about the startups, which will now come on board, and work on innovative products with access to YES Bank’s digital banking infrastructure. YES Bank remains committed to growing these dynamic partnerships, offering sector specific solutions and emerging as the banking partner of choice for startups across India.”