The Rietumu FinTech Challenge by TechHub Riga Academy took place for the first time last year and sparked the interest of young entrepreneurs from around the world. Peer-to-peer landing platform project Mintos was the winner of that competition. Their platform allows for cooperation between potential investors offering money for borrowing, and those who would like to take a loan. This project received a money prize from the general partner of the competition – Rietumu Bank – which, as the present year has shown, was invested in the development of the initial business idea. The rest of the last year’s participants including Swipe, Monea, EcomCharge, WealthArc and Wizard.Finance among others, continue developing and offer their so-called “new banking” services in today’s everyday life.
Fintech projects are considered to be one of the most promising and demanded directions for startups. Both the Fintech industry and traditional financial institutions see excellent opportunities in their cooperation.
“Rietumu is a bank which sets the bar and the goals high for itself, and in this respect we are also ready to support young companies thinking and acting in the same way. Last year during this competition we announced a special programme, providing attractive terms for fintech startups from the Baltics. Today we can already summarise some “informal” results: for all the experts it’s obvious that the fintech industry in our region really has an excellent growth and development potential. Recently created Latvian Startup Association (Start in Latvia) and newly appeared business incubators validate this fact,” — says Member of the Board of Rietumu Bank Renat Lokomet.
Rietumu FinTech Challenge by TechHub Riga Academy was designed as a comfortable platform for a young business to prove itself, its ideas and its potential. Organizers consider the ultimate goal for the competition to become a meeting point of the great ideas with investors, potential partners and, in short, with the established and already shaped businesses, which are ready to back the young one.
Among the judges of the current year's contest will be representatives of TechHub Riga, Rietumu Bank, renowned consultants, coaches and Fintech experts, including the winner of the last year’s startup competition Martinsh Valters (Mintos) and Deputy Chairman of the Council of Rietumu Bank, Brendan Murphy.
Competition participants are expected from the Baltic countries and CIS, Central and Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia.
Entry to the competition is open only until the 8th of April. Anyone with a project that fits within the competition criteria will be able to participate.
Detailed information about the Rietumu FinTech Challenge 2016 by TechHub Riga Academy, Terms and Conditions are available on the website.
TechHub Riga is the biggest Latvian IT and technology startup community, which creates new jobs and promotes knowledge exchange among young entrepreneurs. At the moment there are about 30 startups actively working within TechHub Riga. Among its participants and graduates we should mention such startups as infogr.am, Funderful, Fabula, Froont, Sellfy and MaxTraffic. Additionally, TechHub Riga organises regular events related to entrepreneurship and technology: for example, monthly meetups of TechHub Academy and annual conference TechChill Baltics. The strategic partner of TechHub Riga is Lattelecom.