Sometimes the greatest inspiration for your startup, or the thing that motivates you to keep trying that Instagram strategy, is stories of success from your fellow entrepreneurs. So, let us tell you about some of the rising tech and finance entrepreneurs right in your backyard.
Covr
The keys to the safety and access of your every transaction and appointment could one day be in the hands of Covr (pronounced “Cover”) Security. Based in banking and financial powerhouse country Sweden, Covr is a tech security company championing what might be the future of access and authentication.
You could call their product an “update” of some of Sweden’s secure banking software: their program goes beyond just banking, though. It allows you to safely and privately confirm or deny transactions in real time, securely log into banking systems, and even confirm appointments and itineraries. The program works by asking you to confirm or deny transactions and appointments the moment they are requested by the bank or retailer.
Podcasts like Startuprad.io have already taken note of Covr and they aren’t the only ones: the service works with VISA cards, and its founders are speaking to banks outside of Sweden about extending their program to Dubai, Germany and the US. The company has secured the financials of a hospital with a whopping 100,000 patients who are now using the Covr Security program to confirm appointments. The founders say they don’t plan to stop and aspire to grow internationally.
Bankify
Based in Helsinki, Finland and founded by two financial professionals, Bankify aims to improve the financial lives of millennials. Bankify endeavours to make financial education and building a fruitful financial lifestyle fun using behavioural psychology. The idea could be described as taking some of the addictive features from Facebook and Instagram and merging them with your finances.
One of Bankify’s co-founders Antti Tarakkamäki had started his first business at the age of 17, right before thinking that “education [is] the key to get forward” and going for his Masters at the Helsinki School of Economics. This experience, as well as the dissatisfaction he and his co-founder felt regarding the extreme difficulty of leading a secure and informed financial life, led them to start Bankify.
Bankify allows you to spend and save socially, through features which split the costs of bills, let you make posts about your spending and saving success stories, and even like the posts of your friends.
More finance-intensive aspects of the app are an AI scanner for financial documents, a personalized saving goal and planning function, personalized and automatic saving features, and more.
Clearly, the app is packed with awesome functions, but its founders are nowhere near satisfied with just having a product they believe in. They intend to go international with Bankify, find investors for an A-round, partner with more banks worldwide and change the financial life of millennials forever.
Now, we hope you’ve been inspired by these two fintech companies making big moves right under our nose. Time to get back to the startup hustle!
