Elecctro was part of the second edition of SIBS Payforward, the first fintech accelerator in Portugal. Created in 2014, the portuguese startup is disrupting the vending machine market, by integrating software and electronics, to allow vending machines to communicate with the world around them.
Even though they were not an immediate fit for the open banking challenge, they took on SIBS challenge and showed them how much value they could bring to the fintech area, making it to the pilot development stage of the program.
ReThink spoke with Ricardo Jacinto, co-founder and Head of Finance at Elecctro, about the startups participation in the open-innovation program.
ReThink: What attracted Elecctro to SIBS Payforward?
Ricardo Jacinto: For Elecctro, when we applied to SIBS Pay Forward, we believed it would be a great opportunity to increase our knowledge and expertise on the payments’ value chain, particularly by working with a corporation like SIBS, which is one of the main players in the industry in Portugal. At the time, we are already discussing new ways of cooperation with SIBS, but we applied to find an approach to fit the Open Banking API to our needs of developing a global and scalable payment solution.
RT: How did the program helped you grow? What were your main learnings during the program?
RJ: Although the requirements of Open Banking API were not suited to the vending industry, the program went very well because SIBS saw on Elecctro an opportunity to tackle a huge market where banks, processors and acquirers are getting zero. We were able to get SIBS’ attention to the vending industry and it was done on SIBS Pay Forward.
RT: How did your partnership with SIBS helped your business?
RJ: The opportunity to meet with almost all the managers and directors of the different departments of SIBS allowed us to establish connections and speed up the process of certification for the first payment terminal for vending in Portugal. Still today we keep several contacts that help on different perspectives: technical, commercial, etc.
RT: What advice do you give to startups currently in the program?
RJ: They should understand how exactly they can be interesting to SIBS and how they can help SIBS grow its business and strengthen its position in the market. If SIBS acknowledges the potential in a project and sees how it can benefit from a partnership, I believe they definitely will help that project to succeed.
Free Electrons, the first global energy startup accelerator program, that connects the world’s most promising energy startups with leading utility companies had its first Module last week, from 21st – 24th of May, in Columbus, Ohio, the home of one of the utilities that backs the program (American Electric Power).
After a Bootcamp where the partners and startups got to know each other – utilities getting to know in detail the potential of having these innovative disruptive solutions applied to their businesses and Startups collecting valuable feedback about their products, features and roadmaps – Module 1 was all about creating the first pilots.
The right number of pilots
After one-on-one meetings and sharing of pilot tools by the Beta-i team, the startups and utilities collaborated on co-designing their pilot project, kicking off the project on the very next day.
The fit between the startups and utilities was so great that they ended up doing more than one pilot per startup, racking a total of 27 pilots among them.
The pilots tackle different issues from green-energy certification to asset management powered by AI to optimization of renewables forecasting, and address both final consumers, SMEs and other entities involved (insurance, for example).
The Next Stop
The next stop in the Free Electrons program will be Hong Kong, from 25th to 28th of June. With some collaborating experience under their belt, the teams will deep dive into the details of each others’ solutions.
The progress and findings of the pilots kicked-off in the first modules will be presented – as sharing knowledge and findings as always been key in Free Electrons program.
Startups and utilities will now have the chance to tailor their projects a little better to the utilities’ needs and kick-off more pilots.
We also expect to see a better definition of the scope of potential pilot projects, and a strong connection with the local ecosystem as the module offers an immersion in the world’s leading cleantech innovation ecosystem, connecting startups to the epicenter of the technology world.
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.
The third edition of SIBS Payforward is on! The Bootcamp phase will occur from 13th to 16th of May in both Beta-i and SIBS headquarters.
Paying it forward
35 years ago SIBS started the startup way to turn into one of the World’s top Fintech innovators – SIBS has been providing new payment solutions and investing to perform in a constantly changing society, for the last 30 years.
Now it’s time to pay it forward by working with startups to test and grow in a global changing environment. That’s why SIBS is committing, for the third year, with a piloting program focusing on Fintech trends and payment solutions.
SIBS wants to embrace the possibilities of innovating together with other Fintech entrepreneurs, transforming the way businesses and consumers access and use financial products.
The Program
This open-innovation program aims to gather the best fintech startups to work in collaborating pilot with SIBS. For startups, this is an opportunity to join the most secure, modern, and reliable payment solutions player, who has a network of more than 300 million users.
For this edition, the program was looking for startups in technologies like Big Data, Machine Learning, APIs, IoT, AI and Cyber Security, that work in one of these for areas:
Security and Authentication
Client Behaviour and analytics
Payment Processes
Payment and future stores
The Bootcamp
The Bootcamp will happen between 13th and the 16th of May. To further improve collaboration between startups and SIBS, two days will happen at Beta-i, and the other two will happen at SIBS headquarters. Startups will get to know SIBS by being welcomed into their space.
The four days include workshops by the Beta-i team, on piloting and creating business case models, mentorship, talks by alumni of previous editions and several hours of co-work between the startups and SIBS.
The Bootcamp is an amazing opportunity for startups to get insights, mentorship and a potential partner. Like Denis Kiselev, CEO @SnapSwap, described:
We met amazing people. We learned a lot from them about the technology, about the market and about the product. So now we have a great user experience. It was mind-opening.
We can’t wait to meet all startups joining the program on this edition!
One of the characteristics that make Free Electrons a huge opportunity for startups is that it is truly global: the startups joining the program will get a chance to work with 10 global utilities, with experience and big markets under their belt.
Let’s get to know two of the utilities that are part of the Free Electrons utility alliance.
CLP
CLP was founded in Hong Kong in 1901, which makes it a centenary company. They provide the electricity supply to 80% of Hong Kong’s population and invest in the energy sector in mainland China, India, Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Australia. Their business includes power generation, transmission and distribution, and electricity and gas retail activities.
We spoke with Austin Bryan, Senior Director of Innovation & Ventures at CLP, who spoke about the exciting experience the last edition of Free Electrons was. Both from the incredible feature of getting 10 global utilities working together and all of them working with 15 world-class startups in a truly collaborative environment.
I think the key thing is we did work with them, we collaborated. We didn’t treat them as suppliers, they didn’t treat us as customers. We came together to figure out what exactly it is that needs to be solved and how we do that.
Startups and utilities are very different in their make-up – startups come in with aspirations to ask questions and solve a problem, and the utilities come in with deep industry knowledge. This combination, and the bringing of these capabilities together to work on a viable product that can grow, thrive and actually solve a problem, is some of the most inspirational work they have done, according to Bryan.
Watch the full interview below:
DEWA – Dubai Electricity and Water Authority
DEWA is the solo electricity and water provider for the city of Dubai, doing everything from generation, distribution and transmission for the residents. They are committed to promoting Dubai’s vision through the delivery of sustainable electricity and water services at a world-class level of reliability, efficiency and safety.
We spoke with Shaima Alawadhi, Senior Manager of Global Partnerships at DEWA who explained that DEWA still has 4 pilot projects running that came out the last edition of Free Electrons. It’s a peculiar situation – as one of the pilots is integration in their highly secure technology that allows the other 3 pilots to run.
Because we are part of the government, we have to ensure that security is at its highest level.
The new branch of DEWA, called Digital DEWA, is focused on creating new revenue streams for the company, so looking forward in Free Electrons, they are looking for technologies (like A.I.) to leverage the assets the company already has – like data – to support new services they can provide to their customers.
See the whole interview here:
The first module of Free Electrons is almost here – it will happen on the 21st – 24th of May in Columbus, Ohio, home of AEP. The objective of this first module will be to match solutions with concrete challenges and define a collaborative roadmap for the first pilot among startups and utilities.
