It was during SIBS Payforward Bootcamp, the fintech accelerator powered by SIBS and Beta-i, that ReThink met with Maria Antónia Saldanha, SIBS PAYFORWARD’s Program Director and Head of Brand & Communication at SIBS, to speak about the fintech ecosystem and what are the challenges it wants to tackle.
SIBS is now a major player in the market, with 300 million clients and present in Iberia, Africa and Eastern Europe, but how did it all start? SIBS was created 30 years ago, with the help and collaboration of different companies from different industries. The goal was to serve the digital economy, which didn’t even exist yet.
“SIBS grew up as a fintech in a time where the word fintech didn’t even exist.”
According to Maria Antónia, a collaborative and cooperative model is the only way to “do things”, so SIBS has created an ecosystem of a lot of companies, all the banks, and different industries from different countries. Because of this, the payment services provider still moves with the same spirit as a startup: “SIBS grew up as a Fintech in a time where the word Fintech didn’t even exist. We were brought up as a Fintech, we work as a startup – we’re very agile, dynamic and innovative, launching every month a new service or product.”
It was their own history and this understanding that it takes collaboration to innovate, that made SIBS decide to keep the circle going, by fostering innovation inside and outside their walls: “Well, SIBS was created with the help and collaboration of different companies from different industries, so it’s time to pay it forward. It’s our chance to do for others what they did for us. To help, to share knowledge, to share expertise. It’s a way for us to help other companies to grow and to accelerate in order to become as big as SIBS”, said the program director.
The program looks for scalable, innovative solutions that can complement SIBS offer or grow exponentially from it, by taking advantage of SIBS large user market: “When we launched the accelerator for Fintechs it was the first national accelerator focused on payment solutions. The main goal was to attract fintech startups that have solutions for payments, or financial services, or complementary services around financial services so we can boost them in order to provide services either in Portugal or in other geographies where SIBS is, mainly in Africa for instance or Eastern Europe.”
The challenges that the accelerator proposes to solve in collaboration with the startups are, according to Maria Antónia, “the challenges that society faces every day. We’re focusing on Client behavior and Analytics, Security and Authentication, Payment Processes and Payments and Future Stores.”
The accelerator is committed to solve these challenges by working in complete collaboration with the startups – for the four days of the Bootcamp, the startups worked in groups with SIBS mentors – collaborators that could give them insight into the processes that go into SIBS services and technical experts who can help the startups incorporate their technologies in practical terms – and ultimately help them propose more viable, interesting and profitable pilot projects. All this is done within SIBS environment, to allow for better sharing of knowledge and understanding of the business: “We’ve acknowledged that they want to get to know us where we are every day, where we are working on innovation every day – where we have our terminals, our ATMs, our POSs, and all of our teams. So this is something that we’ve managed this year, to bring startups inside SIBS, so they’ve been working during these days in our premises, alongside us, where we work every day.”
When questioned about the future of fintech, SIBS concedes they cannot guess it, but they can be a part of it by keeping innovating inside their business and fostering innovation in the financial market: “We don’t know how the future is going to be, we don’t know how fast the future can grow, but we know that if we work together – startups, corporates, associations like Beta-i, we can move faster, we can grow faster, and we’ll probably have more products, more solutions that make us brighter and our lives more efficient.”
On its third edition, SIBS Payforward is the fintech accelerator powered by SIBS and Beta-i. You can follow the news and the projects being developed by following SIBS Payforward on Facebook and subscribe to Beta-i’s newsletter.
Lisbon Challenge by Beta-i, our flagship accelerator program, will be kicking off its 11th edition – the Spring Edition of 2019 – next Monday, April 8th.
Having a startup is probably the toughest business there is. Lisbon Challenge was built to help founders grow 1 year in just 3 months. The program’s methodologies are focused not only on growing the business but also in preparing founders to transform difficulties into learnings and to see problems as opportunities.
The founders joining the program will be challenged in their assumptions and challenged to gain a better understanding of the problem they’re solving, their clients and the solution they’re building, to bring them closer to a product market fit.
It’s going to be an intense 3 months! So, without further ado, we present you the 8 startups joining the Spring Edition of Lisbon Challenge by Beta-i (click the names to learn about each startup):
ARANMI
Africa’s foremost SME friendly on-demand supply chain marketplace.
Country: Nigeria Founders: Michael Iyanro and Gideon Olanrewaju Website: http://www.aranmi.com
git//scale
Breakthrough platform for open source projects serving enterprise clients.
Country: Portugal Founders: Diogo Lemos Pereira e Nuno Barrocas Website: http://www.gitscale.io
Hirefreehands Inc.
Freelancer hiring marketplace for entrepreneurs, startups & SMEs.
Country: Nigeria Founders: Sunkanmi Ola, Abel Agoi, Jime Akpusugh and Gabriel Esu Website: http://www.hirefreehands.tech
OutboundSales.io
SaaS B2B Sales Platform for Enterprise Sales Teams.
The ports and shipping industry is ready to step into the future. Bluetech accelerator has arrived, looking to build the ports of the future: autonomous systems for ports and smart shipping, with seamless processes between sea and land, digital data that will make decisions easy and informed, and new techs that will allow for environmental sustainability. Ready to be a part of it?
Bluetech Accelerator
Born out of the partnership of the Portuguese Ministry of the Sea and FLAD – Luso-American Development Foundation, and powered by DGPM and Beta-i, Bluetech accelerator aims to connect the most innovative tech and ocean startups with leading players in the industry to create a new blue economy – one that is modern, data-based, technologically advanced and environmentally friendly.
To achieve it, the programme will have 3 editions – Ports and shipping, aquaculture and fishing, and energy and sustainability.
Ports and Shipping
The first edition of the programme will focus on Ports and Shipping 4.0. Innovation is arriving in the industry, and as a strategically positioned country, Portugal has a sea of opportunities: startups joining the programme will work directly with Portugal’s biggest ports, relevant players in the shipping industry and leaders in the mobile satellite communications and digital economy – get to know the Bluetech Pioneers here.
The goal is to work towards the ports of the future: a seamless process of shipping, connection and cargo transport to land and accessible information across the supply-chain.
Bluetech Accelerator is looking for startups technologies ranging from smart shipping and sea surveillance to big data and analytics. Get to know all the technologies Bluetech is looking for here.
A whole new generation of ocean startups
The challenges presented by the program, are relevant all around the world and can be industry changing. Today is more important than ever to work on changing vital industries to be more efficient, more connected and more sustainable, to better serve our economy and our planet.
Bluetech aims to build a new generation of ocean startups that will be the catalyst of this change and the builders of a modern ocean economy.
Present since its early stage in the USA and Europe, Attila’s co-founders traveled to Lisbon to join the fall edition 2018 of Lisbon Challenge. With a product directed at commercial banks, they made their way through Lisbon Challenge and are trying to conquer the Portuguese market.
What is your product?
Attila is an AI-based Virtual Financial Advisor able to engage retail banks’ customers in meaningful and automated financial conversations with a deep focus on customer understanding.
What made you apply to Lisbon Challenge?
The Portugal banking industry is a favorable market for Attila due to the strategic orientation of the Portuguese banks. Today they are focused, more than ever before, on improving their customer experience and customer journey’s to ensure their survival in the digital era. Lisbon Challenge represented a perfect soft landing opportunity for us in this unique and growing market.
Why is Portugal an attractive market for Attila?
Right now, is a good moment for us because the Portuguese banks are willing to do a leapfrog in their digital processes and that’s what Attila stands for: enabling banks to quickly catch up tech companies in terms of UX thanks to Machine Learning. There’s also a growing and dynamic tech ecosystem we can learn from and build partnerships with.
What are Attila’s goals for the Portuguese market?
Our main objective is to build successful case studies by finetuning our product to the needs of south European market. This represents a gateway and solid reference for the European market as a whole and the markets across the Atlantic.
What was the biggest win for Attila in the programme?
Having the opportunity to meet customers allowed us to reach a higher level of validation, adjust our value proposition and generate a pipeline of leads including top Portuguese and international Banks.
In which way Lisbon Challenge’s team helped you the best?
Lisbon Challenge’s team gave us honest and straightforward feedback that helped us challenge our ideas and plans.
What have been your biggest accomplishments since Lisbon Challenge?
Unlocking a project with one of the largest banks in Portugal – we’re very excited about it!
What is your advice for startups trying to make it in Lisbon?
Don’t hesitate to directly knock on the relevant doors, whether it be customers, partners, or investors, you will absolutely find people willing to listen and open to new ideas. Do not wait for some miracle to happen.
Free Electrons is a truly global accelerator backed up by an alliance of energy utilities, committed to supporting energy entrepreneurs and startups to transform the energy market with next-generation ideas.
Energias de Portugal (EDP)
EDP is an energy producer, distributor and retailer with around 12 million customers in Portugal, Spain and Brazil. EDP has 25GW of power production capacity of which 5GW is hydro and 10GW is wind. This makes EDP the 4th largest wind power producer in the world. The renewable power business is present in 14 countries including the US, Brazil, Spain and the UK.
What are they looking for?
Renewable power and distributed energy resources;
Electric cars;
Data management and AI;
Digitization processes.
Opening up the utility world to the startups, providing them with a global customer base, accelerating deal execution with the utilities, that’s what Free Electrons is all about. I can’t think of a better opportunity for a startup operating in this space.
Luis Manuel
Executive Board Member,
EDP Innovation
innogy New Ventures LLC
innogy SE is a European energy company, offering sustainable and innovative energy solutions. With its three business areas of renewables, grid & infrastructure as well as retail, it addresses the requirements of a modern, decarbonized, decentralized and digital energy world.
What are they looking for?
Solutions active in the data space.
We started Free Electrons because there is a deep need in our industry to access and source innovation. Free Electrons, therefore, has a very transaction-oriented approach – generating deals between startups and corporates is the prime objective of Free Electrons. We assembled a unique consortium of innovative utilities that spend billions every year in running and transforming energy systems globally.
Florian Kolb
Managing Director,
Innogy New Ventures LLC
Origin Energy
Origin is an Australian integrated energy solutions provider with leading positions across energy retailing, power generation and natural gas production. Origin has a rapidly growing renewable energy portfolio and was the world’s first energy company to adopt all seven ‘We Mean Business Coalition’ initiatives, joining a worldwide group of non-government organizations, signatory companies and institutional investors committed to leadership on climate change. Origin is also scaling up its capabilities in digital metering and data and analytics to create more innovative and differentiated energy solutions for its millions of customers.
What are they looking for?
Renewable energy;
Data-based technology.
Origin sees the enormous potential of combining the best ideas with those companies capable of delivering them at significant scale. By leveraging all the expertise of the many partners involved we are confident extraordinary outcomes will be reached.
Anthony Lucas
Executive General Manager, Future Energy and Business Development,
Origin Energy
SP Group
SP Group is a leading energy utility group in the Asia Pacific. It owns and operates electricity and gas transmission and distribution businesses in Singapore and Australia, and district cooling businesses in Singapore and China. SP Group is committed to providing customers with reliable and efficient energy utility services. More than 1.4 million industrial, commercial and residential customers in Singapore benefit from SP Group’s world-class transmission, distribution and market support services. These networks are amongst the most reliable and cost-effective worldwide. For more information, please visit spgroup.com.sg follow us on Facebook
What are they looking for?
New areas of energy transformation and transition;
New technologies and new business models for their customers, that allow them to reduce costs.
SP Group is committed to providing high quality, sustainable lifestyle for customers. We are excited to partner respected international utilities and experienced accelerators, who have extensive innovation and R&D experience, to support promising start-ups around the world. Together we can develop transformational energy solutions to provide customers with more choices, and help them to save energy and costs.
May Liew
Vice President, Strategic Development,
SP Group
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO)
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. (TSE: 9501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is the largest utility in Japan serving millions of homes and businesses. Worldwide the company has more than 43 subsidiaries and 19 affiliates in 4 countries and employs approximately 41,525 people. Consolidated revenue for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2018, totaled 5.8 trillion Japanese yen. The company was established in 1951 and is listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
What are they looking for?
New technologies;
New business models;
Transmission and distribution;
Renewable energies.
TEPCO is excited to work with all of the global utilities and startups participating in the Free Electrons program. We value the opportunity to learn from their innovative business models and technologies, and hope to leverage these learnings for the benefit of our customers.
