Launched in May and backed by Polytech Ventures, FUSION, the Geneva-based fintech accelerator, has announced the selection of its first class. A 12 month program which is longer than the typical three to six month accelerators, FUSION aims to provide both an in-depth opportunity for the participating startups to develop their products and create relationships within the Swiss financial industry, and to advance the local fintech industry.
Selecting ten startups, the participants are from seven countries and represent numerous parts of the fintech industry. Included are AceBanker, BIOWATCH, DXMarkets, Edge Laboratories, eINS, Fundrs, KY3C, Investivity, Scanye and Wecan.Fund. Fields covered by the startups include compliance-tech solutions for banks and asset managers, machine learning solutions for algorithmic trading, secure wearable technology that can be used for authorizing Payments , bitcoin trading, accounting software and mobile payments.
In addition to Polytech Ventures, also involved with FUSION are a group of business members who will provide startups with both mentoring and corporate services such as legal, technology and research assistance. Included are Temenos, Notz Stucki, Capco, Kudelski Security, Arcanys and Interactive Data.
Guillaume Dubray, Partner at Polytech Ventures, commented about the selection of participants, “We are delighted with the positive response we have seen to Fusion. Given this is its first year, we were concerned that we might not get that many applications, but the level of interest has been amazing and, in the end, we were spoilt for choice. As a result, we have been able to select 10 really exciting start-ups from all over the world to bring to Geneva next month. And we have been able to choose start-ups in areas where Switzerland is a world leader, such as asset management, data privacy and Risk Management .”
