Financial Technology Trailblazers 2020 – Shortlist

We have a bumper number of entries to the Tech Trailblazers Awards this year. 2020 has seen a considerable uptick since last year, an increase of over 50%, demonstrating that even more startups in the enterprise tech space are continuing to take positive steps to gain the recognition from awards in order to stand out from the crowd when it comes to seeking investment, clients, and potential acquirers.

The Financial Technology Trailblazers is open to FinTech startups that offer innovative enterprise solutions to companies based anywhere around the world. We are always on the look-out for startups who are shaking up the world of finance, whether that’s improving current systems or disrupting the market with a new idea to offer totally novel services.

Congratulations to this year’s shortlist for the Financial Technology category:

• Apiax – Apiax is a Swiss RegTech that builds digital solutions to help financial institutions be compliant with complex regulations worldwide. Website Twitter LinkedIn
• Divido – Divido is a global loan origination platform for retailers, lenders, and payment intermediaries that want to rapidly build new or defend existing revenue streams and enhance their product proposition through point-of-sale finance. Website Twitter LinkedIn
• MemVerge – MemVerge’s mission is to open the door to Big Memory Computing via a new software stack to allow the applications to take full advantage of a new Optane SSD product. Website Twitter LinkedIn
• Modulr – Modulr provides a new type of payment account. Built for businesses that need a faster, easier and more reliable way to move money. Website Twitter LinkedIn
• Coinrule – Coinrule is a meta trading platform that allows you to set up rules-based crypto currency trading across multiple crypto exchanges.. Website Twitter LinkedIn

Financial Technology Trailblazers  success – the story so far

The Financial Technology Trailblazers is one of the older categories and has been a part of the Tech Trailblazers Awards since 2014. Acquisitions seem to take a long time to come to fruition for FinTechs with Percentile, who were the first winners of the category, taking another five years before finally being acquired in 2019. It’s worthy to note that Percentile came back a year later and were a runner-up in 2015 too.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, none of the deals done in the FinTech category have disclosed the purchase sums. This includes the very recent acquisition of TruValue Labs who were a runner-up back in 2016 which has now been picked up by FactSet on 20th October 2020.

Since then there has been a steady stream of seven firms who have won or been shortlisted which have gone on to be acquired. Notably SolidFire who was bought by NetApp in 2015 for $870 million, having won the Storage category in 2014 after being a runner-up in 2012. This goes to show how not only winners but also those recognised by our esteemed judges can catch the eye of a larger firm who then buys them up, often the startup founder’s dream exit.

Now we’re onto the second round of judging and the voting stage of the Awards. The public vote is now open, vote here now! Voting closes on Thursday 3rd December and the winners will be announced on Tuesday 8th December.

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Other shortlists

AI	Big Data	Blockchain
Cloud	Containers	Developer
Female CxO	FinTech	Firestarter
IoT	Male CxO	Mobile
Networking	Security	Storage