Boston, MA (December 17, 2021) – MassChallenge, the global network for innovators, today announces the 24 startups invited to participate in the 2022 FinTech cohort. Meet the MassChallenge FinTech 2022 cohort here.
“We are excited to welcome 24 startups to our 2022 FinTech program. This year’s cohort represents some of the most forward-thinking startups in financial literacy, data management, blockchain, AI, and other areas of financial challenges with a growing need for innovation,” said Cait Brumme, Senior Vice President of MassChallenge. “We look forward to witnessing the transformation these startups bring to the financial ecosystem with their innovative digital solutions.”
MassChallenge accelerates outcomes-driven partnerships between startups and enterprises to fuel innovation. From January to June, participating fintech startups will work 1:1 with one or more corporate partners to tackle industry-specific challenges – from environment, social, governance (ESG) to financial literacy and wellness. MassChallenge’s model facilitates these partnerships to produce meaningful results, all the while helping fintech startups achieve sustainable growth and enterprises scale innovation from startups. After a rigorous matchmaking process the 9 Fintech Challenge partners extended 29 offers to 24 startups for potential partnership opportunities.
“Manulife is proud to be one of the founding partners of MassChallenge FinTech. We’ve successfully worked with start-ups to generate breakthrough ideas, get a fresh perspective on addressing customer needs, and explore opportunities to extend customer relationships in unique and differentiated ways. In return, we offer start-ups a chance to pilot their technology, fine-tune their product offerings and boost their customer reach. These partnerships are supercharging our digital transformation, helping reimagine customer experiences and identifying new growth opportunities,” said James Vogtle, Manulife’s Chief Customer Centricity and Innovation Officer.
The program is supported by a public-private partnership that includes founding partners MassMutual, Putnam Investments, Fidelity Investments, Citizens Bank, and Manulife (operating primarily as John Hancock in the United States); challenge partners Columbia Threadneedle Investments, KPMG, and State Street; community partners City of Boston, Build Commonwealth, Laika, Goodwin Procter, SEI Ventures, FinTech Sandbox, Brandeis International Business School, Wells Fargo Startup Accelerator, and the Financial Revolutionist.
MassChallenge is excited to welcome its latest FinTech Challenge partner State Street, which provides investment management, servicing and administration; research and trading; and financial data analytics for the world’s largest institutional investors.
“We’re excited to be joining MassChallenge as a Fintech Challenge partner,” said Nadine Chakar, head of State Street Digital. “Our newly launched division, State Street Digital, was created to help drive innovation and address the industry’s evolving shift to digital finance, and today’s announcement will allow us to partner with, and be connected to, brilliant start-ups who can potentially collaborate with our internal teams to solve specific challenges so we can continue to focus on further developing our digital capabilities on behalf of our clients.”
MassChallenge is a key player in the fintech ecosystem, serving as a connector and champion for startups from around the world. To date, 55 startups have participated in MassChallenge FinTech and collectively have raised more than $245M in funding, generated more than $74M in revenue, created over 850 jobs. More details on the 2021 program’s impact can be found here.
Meet the MassChallenge FinTech Startup Finalists
Andes Wealth Technologies – Andes Wealth Technologies is the first company to combine behavioral finance and analytics to help financial advisors deliver real insights and truly personalized services efficiently. Inspired by Dr. Andrew Lo from MIT and his Adaptive Markets Theory, Andes Wealth Tech is a winner of the 2021 WealthManagement.com Industry Award and a finalist of the 2021 MMI/Barron’s Industry Award.
Arbor – Arbor is a data science platform that utilizes proprietary environmental and societal datasets to empower companies with the ability to measure, improve, and showcase the sustainability of their products, through custom tools and visualizations.
Carefull – Today, 45 million Americans are “financial caregivers” for aging loved ones. This means coordinating and contributing to the daily finances of another, over a period as long as 20 years. This all takes place amidst $24 trillion of wealth transfer– combined with $50 billion of elder fraud annually in the US– adding further complexity and risk to these tasks. Carefull is the first financial services platform for this new generation of caregivers and their own $190 billion of annual spending.
College Aid Pro (CAP) – CAP is the leading Saas platform that provides comprehensive college financial planning tools, resources, and insights to students, families, and the advisors that support them. With their freemium, subscription, and in-house team of on-demand experts, CAP has solutions for everyone trying to navigate the confusing and opaque financial aid process, regardless of socioeconomic status.
Datatron – Datatron’s centralized MLOps and AI Governance Platform enables enterprises to achieve the benefits that AI/ML investments have promised. Their platform helps organizations reliably increase the number of models they deploy while giving them the tools and dashboards to monitor and govern.
Datia – Datia is a sustainability data intelligence platform. Datia automates sustainability data collection and reporting and allows asset managers and advisors model portfolios to achieve their sustainable investing goals and easily comply with ESG regulations.
Fligoo – Fligoo is a technology company that helps leader companies from different industries all around the globe increase sales, reduce customer churn, or optimize their processes by leveraging customer data with AI. From data extraction to action execution, they integrate their solution with any system to make it seamless for the company to run the solution.
Floodlight, Inc. – Floodlight identifies underutilized datasets in the market and then grooms and cleans them. By providing this information to investment professionals at an equity or ETF level, thir users can confirm impact and values for their clients.
Greenly – Greenly makes carbon accounting seamless by streamlining data collection, integrating accounting and invoicing data, to automate analytics and scenario-based recommendation for efficient reduction.
I2Chain – i2Chain is an intuitive, non-intrusive, storage agnostic app focused on securing identity information transactions leveraging: a) advanced cryptography to secure identity information in 0/1 click, b) adaptive rights management where rights persist across domains, and c) state of the art immutable ledgers to harvest evidence quality forensics.
IComply – The iComplyKYC platform simplifies a global compliance program by helping businesses securely collect, verify, screen, store, and maintain data and documents for both natural persons and legal entities. Unlike existing market solutions, edge computing and artificial intelligence allow sensitive user data to be processed locally, before it leaves the user’s device, to reduce cost and risk while increasing data privacy and security.
IntelliBonds – IntelliBonds helps institutional investors generate better returns through the AI-augmented investment decision process while lowering the operational cost through intelligent automation. Their AI credit assistant is the virtual workforce that learns about front-office user objectives, replicates credit analysts and fund managers’ daily work tasks, and delivers investments insights within one click.
InterGen Data, Inc. – All banks, financial services, & insurance firms use technology (financial planning, risk management, and compliance systems) that fail to account for the upcoming expenses of their client’s life stages/life events in an automated and/or data-driven manner. By doing so, they create an unrealistic expectation that one can achieve their goals, retire when they want, or have enough money to endure a long-term care event. InterGen Data, Inc.’s AI/ML algorithms overcome this gap with predictive analytics & visualizations.
Manetu, Inc. – Online privacy and data protection mandates are being handed down by governments around the world. And if you’re like most businesses, you’re struggling to comply with these requirements using tools that were never designed for this purpose. Manetu CPM® is different. It’s built from the ground up to make compliance simple by tying together all your sources of personal data using a single, secure, state-of-the-art privacy vault. Manetu CPM allows customers to see and control the data they hold.
Micruity – Over 60M Americans have saved almost $6T in their 401(k) plans. These plans are a great tool for saving but when the employee retires, they are handed a lump sum of money and forced to figure out how to make it last in an unpredictable market and over an unpredictable lifetime. Micruity standardizes and automates annuity transactions between life insurers and 401(k) admins enabling employers to offer 401(k)s that will get employees to-and-through retirement with a dependable monthly income.
Napkin Finance – Napkin Finance is a multimedia company that grew out of their own need for a better way to learn and understand complex topics. They have developed the platform as a new way for anyone, at any life stage, to use and understand money. They work with partners to help build a more engaged and empowered customer that is better educated and more financially confident.
Noonum – Noonum is an AI-driven service that empowers asset and wealth managers to build and manage custom thematic portfolios. Whether your interests are sustainable investing or themes like electric vehicles and robotics, Noonum helps you identify market trends and create a portfolio that reflects your beliefs and values. Our knowledge graph sifts through mountains of data to create a detailed web of companies and relationships, enabling you to discover what really matters, what’s driving markets, and what companies are best positioned to benefit.
OnCorps – At OnCorps, their mission is to increase efficiency and reduce risk within financial services operations. For clients representing a combined $11 trillion in assets under management, OnCorps’ AI-powered solutions consistently reduce labor by over 90 percent and identify material errors in complex datasets.
Otomo – Otomo provides self-driving finance as-a-service to retail financial institutions, fintech companies, and brands. As a B2B2C solution, consumers gain access to AI-curated autonomous finance tools and an intelligent personal shopper to remove the forethought, guesswork, and effort from their daily financial lives. The platform embeds quickly or can be white-labeled, and generates revenue for licensing partners from day one.
Pakira, Inc. – Today, the $20T market of a physical commodity (wheat, cotton, iron), throughout the B2B supply chain is still done over the phone, resulting in an inefficient market rampant with fraud, lack of spot prices, or order tracking. Pakira brings this market into the digital age by offering a multi-functional online platform, to serve this community with industry news, commodity directory, inventory control, order tracking, banking and insurance partners, and much more.
QUBER – QUBER is a fun and engaging financial wellness benefit that reduces the financial stress workers of all income levels are facing. With QUBER, employers help their employees build an emergency fund, save for tuition, pay off credit card debt, or save for a unique travel experience through a tailored match-based savings program.
The Social Factor Data Company; The S Factor Co. – The S-Factor is a data analytics company focused on the Social Factors of ESG. The company provides the deepest set of social impact data, the largest number of social data points and standardized norms screens currently available on the entire ESG market. As subject matter experts and veterans in measuring social impact around the world, the S-Factor helps the SRI/ESG, alternative data market, asset managers, and investors make more informed and impactful investment decisions.
Sunny Day Fund – Sunny Day Fund is an emergency and personal savings platform delivered as a benefit with gamified company matching. Workers contribute directly from their paycheck into an FDIC-insured savings account in their own name and receive periodic matches from their employer for positive savings behavior. They help companies easily and affordably improve workforce financial security, increase retention, and decrease administrative burden associated with employee financial hardship.
Truelytics – Truelytics’ Advisor Transition Management Platform is the first end-to-end data-driven system to help financial service enterprises attract, grow, and retain advisory businesses while also reducing the costs related to transitions. Over 50 Broker-Dealers, OSJs, Custodians, and Asset Managers rely on them to power their enterprise recruiting, practice management, succession, and benchmarking programs. Over 16,000 independent advisors trust Truelytics to inform their transition business decisions.
Util – Util uses cutting-edge technology and a vast evidence base of peer-reviewed academic and scientific journal articles to map and measure the multiple ways companies positively and negatively impact the UN Sustainable Development Goals and over 2,000 sustainability themes. They capture a holistic view of real-world impact, while their process ensures that the data Util’s surface is objective, comparable across all industries and geographies, and comprehensive, covering every listed company in the world.
Vaiven – With a fragmented and dynamic credit market, it is no surprise that 72% of borrowers in Latin America overpay for their loans. Using AI, Vaiven helps borrowers along their journey of securing a loan. When users access the Vaiven platform, they connect them with the lenders that best match their credit profile, help them understand the terms of available loans, and assist them in repayment.
MassChallenge FinTech Partners
Founding Challenge Partners: MassMutual, Putnam Investments, Fidelity Investments, Citizens Bank, Manulife
Challenge Partners: Columbia Threadneedle Investments, KPMG, State Street
Community Partners: City of Boston, Build Commonwealth, Laika, Goodwin Procter, SEI Ventures, FinTech Sandbox, Brandeis International Business School, Wells Fargo Startup Accelerator, Financial Revolutionist
About MassChallenge
MassChallenge is the global network for innovators. Headquartered in the United States with seven locations worldwide, MassChallenge equips bold entrepreneurs to disrupt the status quo and to create meaningful change. Since launching in 2009, more than 2,900 MassChallenge alumni have raised $8.6B in funding, generated $3.6B in revenue, and created more than 186,000 total jobs. Learn more about MassChallenge at masschallenge.org.