The much-anticipated Swiss Fintech Awards has announced the winners for the year 2021 where winners of the three categories received CHF 24,000 each as prize money.

The awards have been organised yearly since 2015 to promote regional development and to strengthen the Swiss fintech ecosystem.

A network of partner organisations and fintech experts select the best early and growth-stage startups through a multi-tiered application process.

Additionally, the jury, consisting of 20 fintech experts, nominate the winner for the ‘Fintech Influencer of the Year’ category.

The Swiss Fintech Awards winners were selected from about 70 accepted written applications after a rigorous selection process.

Winner of ‘Early Stage Startup of the Year’ award

FQX, a startup digitalising promissory notes using blockchain, was named as the winner for the ‘Early Stage Startup of the Year’ category. 

Predominantly paper-based, promissory notes are an unconditional pledge to pay a specific sum to someone at a specific future date. By digitalising them as eNotes, FQX allows users flexibility to sell or transfer them to a third party with ease.

FQX said that banks and fintechs can integrate FQX’s eNote infrastructure on their financing platforms. This allows customers of financing platforms to benefit from the entire eNote lifecycle from issuance to settlement.

The startup is planning to roll out its product to the existing client and partner base over the next few months and is also eyeing international expansion.

The winner for this category is selected from a pool of startups currently working on their first demo or prototype, or which are about to launch their first product or service.

Benedikt Schuppli, Co-Founder & Co-CEO at FQX said,

“The idea was born out of a real customer problem our Chairman experienced: with existing financing methods such as factoring, companies do not have the needed steering flexibility and institutional investors don’t have direct access to the real economy.

 

By digitising the formerly paper-based promissory note on a Blockchain, FQX is able to release the huge potential of the eNote for finance on a global scale to bring liquidity closer to the real economy.”

Winner of the ‘Growth Stage Startup of the Year’ award

The ‘Growth Stage Startup of the Year’ award was presented to Yokoy, an automated corporate expense management platform. This category evaluates startups with working business models and showing clear signs of significant growth.

Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), Yokoy automates the management and processing of expenses, invoices and cards for medium and large enterprises.

Moreover, users can map out customised process flows and integrate Yokoy into their existing corporate systems.

Melanie Gabriel, Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Yokoy, said

“We’re solving a true problem that each and every company independently of the industry knows and has.

 

Too many companies are wasting money because their employees, managers and finance or HR teams spend too much time on manually processing expenses, invoices and credit card transactions.”

In its 1.5 years of operations, Yokoy has acquired over 300 customers including Stadler Rail, Swissquote and Bobst.

In addition to Switzerland, the startup already has a presence in Austria and Germany and plans to expand further in the coming months.

Yokoy said that it is also aiming to double its user base from 50,000 to 100,000, and expand its team to 50 employees by the end of the year.

Winner of the ‘Fintech Influencer’ award

The ‘Fintech Influencer’ award recognises individuals or organisations that have positively shaped or influenced the Swiss fintech landscape.

This year, the award was presented to financial market and data protection lawyer Cornelia Stengel.

She is also the Co-director of the Swiss Fintech Innovations (SFTI) association and a permanent guest of the Swiss Bankers Association’s (SBA) Commission for Digitisation.

“I am very happy – especially about the fact that even “dry” legal work can obviously have a positive influence on the fintech scene.

 

It is a great recognition for me, but also for the top people I have the privilege to work with, especially at Kellerhals Carrard and Swiss Fintech Innovations, and to whom I dedicate this award.

said Stengel while talking about the future of fintech.

Swiss Fintech Awards 2021 Finalists