- TechStars chose 12 startups from LatAm nations for its maiden tech startup accelerator program to provide innovative solutions to the region’s underserved market.
- The program’s total duration is 90 days, with founders from South America (especially Brazil, Argentina, and Chile), the US, Latin America, and Mexico participating.
In a recent blog post, Stellar-powered TechStars payments announced the 12 startups it chose for its inaugural accelerator program. According to the announcement, TechStars chose these startups based on the innovative payment solutions they provide for underserved or emerging markets in categories such as financial infrastructure, investing, personal financial management, lending, financial literacy, and payments.
This TechStars program is the first physical training for tech startups in Latin America. It is a hybrid program where the TechStars team will meet virtually and physically with these startups’ teams. They will hold these physical meetings in Miami, Mexico City, and Dallas, with meetings at each location lasting for one week.
The program’s total duration is 90 days, with founders from South America (especially Brazil, Argentina, and Chile), the US, Latin America, and Mexico participating.
A huge underserved market
Blockchain-based distributed ledger, Stellar Lumens and digital payments giant, MoneyGram, are the headline sponsors for this program. It is worth noting that Stellar Lumens and MoneyGram are also partners, and they have established a robust fintech ecosystem across emerging markets, including LatAm nations.
The TechStars payment accelerator program director, Tricia Martinez, opines that there are endless financial inclusion and fintech innovation opportunities in LatAm countries as it has a vastly underserved market. Martinez added that many businesses seek solutions to their operations’ problems, such as currency volatility and broken infrastructure.
Similarly, consumers want efficient systems and pay huge fees to conduct their financial transactions.
The Startups for the inaugural program
The 12 startups chosen by TechStars for its first accelerator program are:
- Banca.me plans to provide easier, cheaper, and faster access to loans for LatAm residents.
- Bundil aims to ease investments for the average resident. It plans to launch an automated system that deducts spare amounts from daily user purchases made with credit cards. Then, invest such spare amounts into various financial instruments such as stocks and crypto. A side benefit is that this method enables users to develop healthy investment habits.
- College Cash plans to help students earn cash rewards for the regular content they share daily on social platforms. It will partner with brands to make this happen, and it will be available to all students, including high school students, and they can use their rewards to offset their student loans.
- Lenme plans to offer short-term crypto-back loans to businesses, institutions, and individuals.
- Mica‘s focus is on tenants. Its innovative solution will help tenants rent their chosen apartment, automate their bill payments and reduce their moving costs, among other benefits.
- Oinc plans to help young adults automate their savings and investments. Users can automate set-up rules to save easily and achieve their financial goals.
The six other startups on the list are Moneo, Mox, Ola, Pactta, Uils, and Zumma. Meanwhile, Stellar Lumens’ native token XLM is reacting to the development positively. It is up by 3.2 percent in the last 24 hours and trades at $0.075 per our data.
Other positive developments in the Stellar Lumens ecosystem might push XLM’s price to the $0.10 mark in the short term.
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