Visa Innovation Program Europe 4th Cohort Demo Day: Fascinating Celebration of Fintech Community

December 20, 2022

On 8 December 2022 at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens, the Visa Innovation Program Europe concluded its 4th cohort with the 3 countries’ Demo Day. 16 fintechs that graduated from Programs in Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria showcased their distruptive solutions. Attended hybridly by over 230 special guests from the startup and fintech ecosystem, Visa and bank executives, PoC partners, the Demo Day highlighted the potential of fintechs companies to drive growth and innovation in the fintech sector.

From loyalty programs to micro investment, paytech and blockchain techn, SME solutions and smart city applications, the Visa Innovation Program Europe is a collborative platfrom for fintech startups to scale their solutions globally. Over 900 applications from more than 60 countries have been applied to the Visa Innovation Program since 2019.  72 fintech were selected for the Program, and have successfully graduated with a total of 68 Proof of Concepts (POC). Providing local fintechs access to Visa's worldwide network of financial partners for collaboration and commercialization is a significant component of the program. To promote cross-market interactions and cooperation, 133 meetings have been held during the  Borderless days. In this four year; 1300 mentorship hours were delivered, fintechs raised more than 350 million Euros in 84 investment rounds. 

The Visa Innovation Program Europe Demo Day, one of the largest gatherings of the fintech ecosystem in the region, began with the opening remarks from Sevdalina Vassileva, General Manager Greece, Cyprus, Malta, and Israel, Visa. Vassileva mentioned: “Visa is constantly innovating to make new and future payment methods and channels better and more accessible to all. This is what guides our approach to collaborating with fintechs to create new ways to pay and be paid. Today, we are concluding the 4th cohort of the Visa Innovation Program, demonstrating our continued investment in fintech talent in the markets where we operate the program, and beyond.’’.

The demo day also featured a panel discussion “Fintech powers the future of everything — reimagine the way people live, work and play in the digital era” with the participation of industry leaders, Saner Mesçioğlu, CVC Director, Aktif Ventures; Apostolos Apostolakis, Founding Partner,  Venture Friends; Momtchil Elenkov, Fintech Director, Viber Rakuten; and Ohad Maimon, CEO, Hyp. The panelists emphasized the importance of collaboration and partnerships in driving innovation, and encouraged fintechs to continue working together and develop new solutions for the industry. Saner Mescioğlu talked about how the fintechs of  the Visa Innovation Program Europe and Aktif Bank work closely and how they as CVC evaluate the investment potential.

Over the years, the Visa Innovation Program Europe has produced 70+ Alumni fintechs. Some of them shared their experience during the Demo Day:

  • Victor Trokoudes, Co-founder and CEO, Plum and George Karamanolis, Co-founder & CTO/CIO, Crowdpolicy.
  • Galya Dimitrova, Managing Partner, IRIS Solutions and Rene Tomova, Head of Platform — Design Partner, Eleven Ventures.
  • Serdar Kodal, Co-founder and CEO, Haso and Kaan Akin, Founder and CEO, Hackquarters.

During the demoday the audience, convening banking sector, investors and industry experts, had the opportunity to vote online to select the best fintechs in the following categories: 

  • “Most Valuable PoC “ Award- MonoPayments with their collaboration with Qumpara, Turkey.
  • “Best SME Solution” Award- Coriunder, //Greece//.
  • “Most Innovative Startup” Award- ComeTogether, /Greece//.
  • “Most Eco-Friendly Fintech” Award-  EVLoader, //Greece//.

For the closing remarks, Beatrice Larregle, Regional Managing Director for Southern Europe, Visa, emphasized the importance of developing more inclusive economies and solutions that are more accessible to all. Larregle congratulated the fintechs, thanked all the attendees, program managers, clients, and the Visa Team, and stated that the team is already hard at work preparing the 5th Cohort. 

Here are six fintechs graduated from the Visa Innovation Program Turkey

Alternatif is bringing B2C and B2B customers together; by providing loyalty, payment and CRM solutions for B2B companies and by providing a wallet marketplace for B2C customers.


Enno Wallet
is a non-custodial mobile crypto wallet and a DeFi aggregator. Enno Wallet gathers DeFi apps together and integrates them into the wallet with a great UI and UX.


MonoPayments
is an all in one whitelabel digital fintech platform that empowers fintechs to create fintech suited for electronic money and payment institutions, holdings, startups and neobanks.


Qumpara
is a mobile app that rewards shoppers with cash back or discount, without coupons, promo-codes or any cashier integration.


Yancep
is a micro accumulation and micro investment application. It is a new generation asset management platform that facilitates the investment process by preparing modeled portfolios for individuals with low financial literacy who can invest with small amounts.



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