F10, a fintech incubator and accelerator in Switzerland, is preparing for Demo Day. On December 07, the 14 startups currently part of its P2 “Prototype to Product” accelerator program will present their solutions to an audience made of some of the country’s top financial services leaders, investors and corporates for potential investment and partnerships.
Sponsored by SIX, the operator of Switzerland’s stock market and a leading financial services provider, F10 is one of the largest and most successful startup accelerators in the country focusing on fintech, regtech and insurtech. It operates as a non-profit organization that aims to support promising startups together with its corporate membership board and partners which include SIX, PwC Switzerland, Julius Bär, Baloise Group, Generali Group Switzerland, ERI Bancaire, eny Finance, and most recently Zürcher Kantonalbank.
This year’s P2 batch includes 11 startups from Switzerland and three startups from other countries in Europe including the UK, Germany and Portugal. These cover varied areas from payments and digital banking, to insurtech, digital identity and investing.
Appetita, for instance, is a Swiss startup that provides a virtual artificial intelligence waiter that learns consumer behavior to continuously improve service. Other Swiss players include CashSentinel, a payment service for large transactions, Oyoba, a consumer-focused digital banking service, and Riskifier, an investment risk-profiling tool with gamified elements.
Portuguese startup Data XL provides a price-optimizing insurtech product that searches out the best prices for consumers, while Brainalyzed, is a German company that offers an artificial swarm intelligence algorithm that scans and reacts to market movements 24/7.
As these startups prepare to graduate from the six-month P2 program, F10 has already begun accepting applications for its 2018’s first round of P2. Startups have until December 15, 2017 to prepare and submit their application. The program will start on March 05 and run until August 23, 2018.
Looking back at 2017, Markus Graf, the co-founder and head of F10, said the year has already proved to be a big success.
“2017 has been an exciting year in the world of fintech – looking at the creative tech solutions that we are seeing from our startups, the future is looking even brighter,” said Graf. “As the best accelerator in Switzerland, we’re excited to be at the front of these new developments, fostering the ideas and leveraging the skills that these startups have by helping them collaborate with industry leaders and build a network of connections.”
Graf said in a recent interview that for almost all of F10’s corporate members, there has been a collaboration that was more than a proof-of-concept, but an actual product.
Alongside its P2 program, which focuses on offering lessons and workshops in the areas of marketing and sales, legal and regulations, and business, product and technology, F10 also offers other programs for startups at different stages of development.
The P1 “Idea to Prototype” program aims to transform an idea into a validated prototype, and the P3 “Product to Market” program, aims to foster collaboration between startups and F10’s corporate members and support the development of proof-of-concepts.
F10 also offers worldwide collaboration with international financial institutions and works in cooperation with Swiss companies in the finance, insurance and consulting sectors.
Previous graduates of F10’s P2 program include Sonect, a startup that’s creating virtual ATMs where users can withdraw cash from any shop part of the network, WealthInitiative, a platform that allows wealth management institutions to recognize and exploit synergies amongst their clients and, in a further step, amongst their peers, and Enterprise Bot, an automated customer support system for banks that is able to understand and act upon customer queries.
Featured image: F10.
