A shortlist of 15 fintechs has been selected from more than 200 applicants to compete in the 2024 Alliance Hackathon.
Held annually since 2020, the Alliance Hack calls out for fintechs around the world to pitch creative and innovative tech-based solutions to facilitate women’s financial inclusion and tap into the multi-trillion-dollar Female Economy opportunity.
The finalists will compete for a chance to win a US$25,000 cash prize and gain exposure to the influential investors and industry leaders on the judging panel. To help develop their ideas, participants have access to experts from across the Alliance network of 100 financial services providers such as commercial banks, fintechs, payments and insurance companies.
This year, participants have been asked to pitch innovative solutions to four challenges:
- to expand women business owners’ access to finance;
- to provide non-financial services that accelerate their business growth;
- to support women to invest and build wealth; and
- to support women to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Finalists will pitch their solutions to the judges on August 8. Winners will be announced on August 12.
The finalists selected for each of the four challenges are listed below:
CHALLENGE 1: Create a solution that would improve women business owners’ access to finance.
- 6C’S Skill’s Exchange, a digital community focused on equipping workers with skills to excel in the modern workplace. Its Haven Program is designed to help women build digital skills for accessing financial services and growing their businesses.
- Famunera Limited, an agri-tech solution enabling women and youth agribusinesses to go digital to easily access affordable financing, supply chain management, source traceability and authentic market linkages.
- Futa, which supports small businesses in Francophone Africa by using payroll data to provide their employees with fast and fair access to financing. This approach enhances employees’ financial stability, reduces stress and increases productivity, loyalty, and retention for employers.
- HiSofi, offering creditors and borrowers credit and collections management tools that promote healthy finances. Its solutions can enable women’s MSMEs to optimize their cash flow and improve their credit position, making them more attractive to financial institutions.
- Kitspay Private Limited, a digital financial platform dedicated to reaching unbanked and underbanked populations. By partnering with telecom operators, financial institutions and others, it ensures affordability and accessibility of financial services in emerging markets.
- XchangeBox, a tech enabled platform providing credit access and wallet savings to rural and corner-store women’s businesses. It offers loans with a daily repayment model, using SME transactions records as a basis of creditworthiness, to support informal market traders in Africa.
- Warmi, a digital platform dedicated to improving women’s overall wellbeing through a variety of tools designed to strengthen their financial, physical, and emotional health.
CHALLENGE 2: Create solutions that would improve women business owners’ access to education and networks.
- Finan Co., Ltd., a technology startup focused on empowering under-served small businesses to thrive on digital technologies. Its SoBanHang product is a one-stop app that empowers female entrepreneurs to seamlessly handle their business, increase revenues from online and social channels, and access essential financial services. Its mission is to empower 1 million businesses serving 100 million customers and generating 100 billion USD revenue by 2025.
- Halal Money Transfer (HMT): As Afghanistan’s first online banking and remittance app, HMT seems to build on Afghans’ strong social solidarity exhibited by introducing innovative remittance solutions that connect local communities with international markets. It also provides a secure online system to help micro-loans, donations and investments to reach the underprivileged groups in a secure online system and is seeking to support Afghani businesses with Point-Of-Sale payments systems.
- MICROWD, a social fintech dedicated to accelerating community development by connecting female entrepreneurs to social investors. Operating in Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Costa Rica, MICROWD has impacted over 10,000 women. Through its MICROWDX incubator and join the MICROWD Community, it provides women access to ongoing networking, business advisory and professional design services.
- QuickLegal, an AI-driven debt collection software, developed by 3 female founders, helping SMEs to increase recover unpaid invoices. So far, it has helped customers to increase the recovery rate by 40 percent and decrease the collection costs by 30 percent.
CHALLENGE 3: Create a solution that helps develop mass market women’s investment capabilities.
Shortlisted Fintechs:
- Penny, an easy-to-use, straightforward, and interactive platform that teaches women about wise investment while allowing them to visualize, plan, and design their financial lives.
- Pilou, a by-women, for-women platform offering women in Latin America personalized financial education and investment tools alongside low-cost, diversified investment portfolios managed in a transparent manner. Investment services are offered within a supportive community focused on fostering women’s confidence and knowledge.
- Rusyve’s “Alba, Oportunidad del Presente” solution; a knowledge platform that facilitates access to educational, insurance and financial opportunities for youth and women in Latin America. Its mission is to empower girls, women and young people through educational resilience and be a pillar in the knowledge economy.
CHALLENGE 4: Design solutions for women entrepreneurs and consumers to take proactive climate action.
- DREX: A renewable energy financing platform dedicated to funding small to medium-sized renewable energy projects in emerging markets (0.5 to 30 MW or costing less than $50M) by streamlining the asset finance workflow and connecting investors with project developers and energy consumers. It proposes to link women-owned businesses in Ecuador in with women-owned solar farms that could cover 100% of their energy requirements.