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Citi’s Most Promising Israeli Fintech Startups for 2020 – CTech


Citi accelerator, together with collaborators Israeli Discount bank, Intuit, and Visa published a list of Israel’s most promising fintech startups

Elihay Vidal 17:0516.02.20

Over 700 startups dealing with different aspects of fintech are estimated to be working in Israel today. They include payments solutions, business loans and credit, cybersecurity for payments, trading, and more. Citi accelerator, together with its collaborators Israeli Discount bank, software company Intuit Inc., and Visa published a list of Israel’s most promising fintech startups. The list includes selected startups in a variety of categories related to the industry, such as trading and investing, lending and financing, commerce, and payments.

 

Thirty venture capital funds, including Viola, Pitango, Team8, Entree Capital, and Qumra Capital, were asked to select the most promising companies. The VCs were allowed to name only one of their portfolio companies for only one of the categories.

 

Citi. Photo: Getty Images Citi. Photo: Getty Images

 

 

Here are the startups ranked by the investors as the most promising in the various categories: Rapyd Financial Networks Ltd. ranked first in B2B payments category; Trigo Vision Ltd. ranked first in the commerce and payments category; Capitolis Inc. ranked first in the trading and investing category; Chargeafter in lending and financing; Lemonade Inc. in InsureTech; Silverfort Inc. in cybersecurity; BioCatch in anti-fraud; Guesty Inc. in PropTech; WalkMe Inc. in customer engagement; Unbound Tech in blockchain; and Explorium Ltd. as the most promising startup in the early stage category.

 

At a panel held last week as part of the ranking event that took place at Citi’s fintech innovation lab in Tel Aviv, Viola Ventures partner Omri Ben David said “Israel’s fintech market continued to set new records in 2019. We see the industry maturing with large-scale capital rounds in insurance, payments, loans, and risk. At the same time, new categories are emerging, such as AI and back-office integrations, fintech for specific verticals such as healthcare, and the creation of innovative commerce platforms.”

 

“The Israeli Fintech market continues to grow every year and we are proud to recognize the most promising companies in their fields. Citi has been instrumental in this space from the start and is looking to engage more closely and invest in Israeli companies,” Ornit Shinar, head of venture investing Israel at Citi, said.

 

“From huge banks to other financial institutions, they are finally all understanding things need to be done. Less startups are raising money in the seed stage. The next step is consolidation between fintech and banks. Banks will acquire startups to broaden their offerings.This is the year we will see big changes. Challenger banks were very hyped, but are now getting a lot of scrutiny, because only 2% of the population uses it as a main account and all they are doing is subsidizing signups. Banks will coop and consolidate Challenger and traditional banks,” Yodfat Harel Buchris, managing director at Blumberg Capital, said.

 

Roy Ben Daniel, Ventures Lead at Visa, said ”Visa’s open banking is a great fit for Israel as tech driven but there is a market and reg option—feels it’s a big miss. A good place to start but it’s already a market reality in the world why isn’t Israel a player”.





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