Finals of the startup competition «Rietumu FinTech Challenge» to take place tomorrow in Riga

As previously reported, the 21st of April will see the final event of international startup competition Rietumu FinTech Challenge by TechHub Riga Academy. According to the latest information, Russian bank for entrepreneurs “ Tochka ”, which is part of Financial Corporation Banking Group “ Otkrytie ”, and Kristoffer Lawson from Holvi Bank will participate in the event.

Rietumu FinTech Challenge by TechHub Riga Academy is being organized for the second year and 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 younger ones.

This year's programme will consist of several discussion sessions led by well-known member of the startup community Andris Berzinsh from TechHub Riga, Evgeny Kazanin, representing his project Twino, last year’s competition winner Martinsh Valters from Mintos, Kristoffer Lawson from Holvi, Eva Ponomarjov – a Head of Investment Baltics at UKTI and Senior Vice-president of Rietumu Bank responsible for IT and business technology Eugene Dugaev. After the mentoring sessions each participant will be given the floor to present their business ideas.

The speakers do not disclose the topics of their talks to keep the suspense. However, it is certain that Maksim Yanpolsky SVP, Head of business development (Otkrytie Bank) and CEO Boris Dyakonov from the bank for entrepreneurs “Tochka”, which is part of Financial Corporation Banking Group “Otkytie”, will address the audience. Afterwards the floor will be given to Kristoffer Lawson presenting his own project, Holvi Bank, which is a new, opposite to traditional type of bank, focusing on entrepreneurs, freelancers and small business.

The team of judges for this year's competition are experts in the Fintech industry. They will take part in the discussion panels and they include – Member of the Board of Rietumu Bank Renat Lokomet, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Rietumu Bank, Brendan Murphy, Akos Kiss-Dozsai representing a large project Savedo, Normunds Igolnieks from ZGI and Eva Ponomarjov – a Head of Investment Baltics at UKTI.

Fintech projects are considered to be one of the most promising and in-demand directions for startups. Both the Fintech industry and traditional financial institutions see excellent opportunities in cooperating. This is why creating the competition at this scale is so important for the development of the startup ecosystem in Latvia.

Detailed information about the Rietumu FinTech Challenge by TechHub Academy is available on the website www.rietumufintech.com.

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.

Eleonora Gailisha
Mass Media and Public Relations
Phone: +371-67020506
Fax: +371-67020563
E-mail: egailisha@rietumu.lv