FIS of Jacksonville, Florida, and The Venture Center of Little Rock on Tuesday announced the 10 companies selected to participate in the 2020 FIS Fintech Accelerator program, which will take place completely online amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The program, in its fifth year, aims to identify and foster startup financial technology firms with promising technologies that can be used in banking and finance. This year's program received applications from companies in 30 countries.
The 10 selected and their areas of focus are:
- Cirrus Secure of Evergreen, Colorado – lending automation
- Cobbler Technologies of Little Rock – application development
- Dasceq of Dallas – accounts receivables and collections
- Mall IQ of San Francisco and Istanbul – location intelligence
- Sequretek of Mumbai – cybersecurity
- Silot of Singapore – small-business services
- Stratyfy of New York City – risk-based decision-making
- Surfly of Amsterdam – co-browsing and video chat technology
- TrustStamp of Atlanta – secure authentication
- XpenseOne of Spokane, Washington – expense management automation
Because of COVID-19, the 2020 program will be conducted entirely online. The traditional 12-week program has been extended by six weeks to provide more opportunities for mentoring and training. Each company will also receive an investment of $75,000, according to The Venture Center.
"The FIS Fintech Accelerator is a key part of our overall investment strategy at FIS to develop and bring to market the most innovative, leading-edge technology innovations for our clients," Asif Ramji, chief growth officer at FIS, said in a news release. "The ten companies selected for the fifth year of FIS' Accelerator program bring a wealth of promising ideas and technologies. We look forward to working with these firms to bring their ideas to life."
The 2020 program will culminate with a demo day on Oct. 14, where leaders from each company will showcase their products and services to financial services leaders, potential investors and entrepreneurs.
The Venture Center said some past graduates have received additional funding or partnered with FIS to bring their services to market. FIS recently integrated technology from 2016 graduate Flutterwave to allow Worldpay from FIS merchants to process online payments in Africa.
Publicly traded FIS (NYSE: FIS) provides technology services for merchants, banks and capital markets firms globally. It employs more than 55,000 people.
