Eight startups Join Plug and Play ADGM’s First Virtual Accelerator Program
The focus of the batch four program will be to demonstrate the capabilities and impact that the carefully selected Fintech startups provide to address the challenges faced by financial institutions amid the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Plug and Play ADGM kicked off their Fintech innovation platform in Q3 2018 in Abu Dhabi, and are currently partnered with Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB), First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), BNP Paribas, Boubyan Bank, and Riyad Bank.
These corporate partners are part of Plug and Play's global ecosystem; a network of more than 400 corporations and government entities servicing more than 16 industry verticals, across over 30 locations globally.
The eight startups that have been selected to participate in the six-month virtual accelerator will have the opportunity to work alongside Plug and Play ADGM’s corporate partners for a possibility to execute pilot or proof of concept (POC) projects.
The program will commence on April 15th, 2020, and the selected startups for the 2020 cohort are as follows:
· Allganize: Allganize specializes in deep learning solutions for Natural Language Understanding (NLU), the most critical piece in any human-facing AI application. NLU enables question answering, text categorization and large-scale content analysis - allowing employees and customers of large companies to find correct answers to complex requests quickly and without the need to call for support. Unlike its competitors, Allganize’s algorithm does not require any manual data tagging, making it very quick to implement while providing best-in-class results accuracy. www.allganize.ai
· Finllect: Finllect is a personal finance app that makes financial literacy accessible to the Gen Z. With bite-sized financial content and budgeting tools, Finllect provides the relevant information to prioritize financial health, which has become an increased priority. To cater to the Gen Z's financial needs holistically, the app provides gamified tools to track expenses, create budgets, scan receipts and win rewards - all on one platform. Finllect leverages AI to provide users with personalized product recommendations based on their financial activity. They help users make informed decisions, and give guidance on the kind of financial and non-financial products to consider, to make smarter choices and be better prepared to weather the turmoils in the current environment:www.finllect.ae
· Kompany: kompany is a RegTech platform for Global Business Verification & Business KYC (KYB). Operating a proprietary global live network that provides real-time access to official commercial and banking registers, kompany covers over 110 million company records in more than 200 jurisdictions. kompany provides dynamic access to primary source documents, delivering robust audit-proof data and making it one of the few KYB providers fully able to satisfy the stricter due diligence requirements of the latest anti-money laundering legislation. During the current corona crisis, many jurisdictions are designating their official commercial registers as ‘critical infrastructure’, meaning kompany is uniquely placed to maximize access to this important data and help support businesses during these uncertain times. https://www.kompany.com/
· Mamo Pay: Mamo Pay is building the region's leading payments platform enabling users to send and receive money (p2p), transact with merchants, and connect their Mamo Pay account with multiple financial services via third party integrations. The company is led by a team of ex-Googlers with a wide range of expertise in product design, software development, and strategy & business development. They have recently raised their first round of funding totaling $1.5mn and are in the process of receiving regulatory approvals in the GCC. The team is eager to partner with banks and financial institutions, during these uncertain times to drive cashless and contactless payments in the region. https://www.mamopay.com/
· Neo Technologies: Neo Technologies is a leading Fintech focused on enabling banks and financial institutions in MENA to offer digital investment services to their clients. Neo’s platform-as-a-service facilitates the digital onboarding of clients within a local compliant framework making it secure, fast and paperless. The platform allows incumbents to distribute existing and new investment products digitally with a suite of additional services including the automation of compliance, advisory and reporting; with administrative tools built to support the teams to successfully manage a new business vertical. With the COVID-19 outbreak, the recent restrictions on face-to-face servicing and the lock-down in many countries we are seeing companies forced to adopt digital engagement models and contingency plans leveraging new technologies to ensure business continuity. Neo Technologies is supporting by empowering businesses to continue servicing their clients digitally by launching leading services in a fraction of the time, cost and resources all within a compliant framework using our turn-key technology. https://neo.ae/
· NowPay: NowPay, a FinTech startup founded by ex-employees of IBM, Microsoft, Orange and Amazon, is building a financial-wellness platform for employees in emerging markets. Saving, spending, budgeting and borrowing. Those are the 4 pillars of financial-wellness. NowPay aims to improve every aspect of those for employees by building products that tackle every vertical. Currently, NowPay enables employees to get their salaries in advance at any point in time during the month and also pay their bills instantly without having to move around, a restriction we are all facing during those unprecedented times. We are backed by 500 startups and Endure capital. https://nowpay.cash/
· Relativity6: Relativity6 is an AI company founded by faculty and students from MIT. In these unprecedented times, it's crucial for financial institutions to be in tune with their customers. We're completely focused on customer retention and lifetime value: we predict which of your customers are about to churn, why, and recommend the best way to keep them. We also build automated systems to organize all of your customer data and then prioritize customers with a probability of churning. Our customers are some of the biggest companies in the world across insurance, financial services, aviation, retail and more: companies like MetLife, Citibank, The Standard, Allianz, and Willis Towers Watson. For more information, visit relativity6.com.
· Sedicii: Sedicii has developed a cryptographic protocol called secure multi-party computation (SMPC) that allows two or more different financial institutions to confidentially compute risk scores about their clients or transactions, without disclosing the underlying data or information (PII) each organisation holds to the others. This enables financial institutions to more reliably identify suspicious transactions and clients, reduce false positives and more accurately identify illicit money flows thereby reducing criminal activity. https://sedicii.com/To assist with the current crisis, the same technology is being used to help citizens identify their risk of exposure to Covid-19 through the use of SMPC with mobile phone company data without compromising a person’s right to privacy. https://covidra.com
If you are a corporation or government entity looking to work with technology companies disrupting your industry, please get in touch with us today to learn about our innovation platforms: ashlene@pnptc.com.
About Plug and Play
Plug and Play is a global innovation platform. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we have built accelerator programs, corporate innovation services, and an in-house VC to make technological advancement progress faster than ever before. Since inception in 2006, our programs have expanded worldwide to include a presence in over 25 locations globally giving startups the necessary resources to succeed in Silicon Valley and beyond. With over 10,000 startups and 400 official corporate partners, we have created the ultimate startup ecosystem in many industries. We provide active investments with 200 leading Silicon Valley VCs, and host more than 700 networking events per year. Companies in our community have raised over $9 billion in funding, with successful portfolio exits including Danger, Dropbox, Lending Club, and PayPal. For more information, visit www.plugandplaytechcenter.com
About Abu Dhabi Global Market
Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), an international financial centre (IFC) located in the capital city of the United Arab Emirates, opened for business on 21 October 2015. Established by a UAE Federal Decree as a broad-based financial centre, ADGM augments Abu Dhabi’s position as a global hub for business and finance and serves as a strategic link between the growing economies of the Middle East, Africa and South Asia and the rest of the world.
ADGM’s strategy is anchored by Abu Dhabi’s key strengths including private banking, wealth management, asset management and financial innovation. Comprising three independent authorities: ADGM Courts, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority and the Registration Authority, ADGM as an IFC governs Al Maryah Island which is a designated financial free zone. It enables registered financial institutions, companies and entities to operate, innovate and succeed within an international regulatory framework based on Common Law.
Since its inception, ADGM has been awarded the “Financial Centre of the Year (MENA)” for four consecutive years for its initiatives and contributions to the financial and capital markets industry in the region.*
For more details of ADGM, please visitwww.adgm.com or follow us on Twitter: @adglobalmarket and LinkedIn: ADGM
* Source: The Global Investor Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Awards