Datacultr, a leading Risk management & debt collections platform that allows consumer lending companies to significantly reduce risk on ‘New-to-credit-Customers’, has been selected for the Finance Forward MENA 2020 Accelerator Program. The program focuses on supporting entrepreneurs who are building solutions in three core thematic areas — Sustainability, Financial Health, and the Future of Work.
The accelerator is a collaboration between Village Capital, MetLife Foundation, and PayPal that has been launched for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Turkey-based startups that are using tech to help low-income individuals and families manage their day-to-day finances, build short- and long-term savings and wealth. The twelve selected companies are building high-growth, scalable solutions focused on challenges specific to the MENAT region such as Access to finance for MSMEs, Youth Unemployment, Gender inequality, Digital Identity, etc.
Datacultr, along with other startups including PAYMINT, HubPay, Distichain, etc. is participating in the three-months-extensive program starting from the month of August till October. The Finance Forward program will include Village Capital’s award winning curriculum, feedback from peers and one-on-one mentorship with potential customers, investors, industry experts and partners. With low-income groups and small companies heavily impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Finance Forward MENA 2020 program aims at helping startups that are developing products in response to the crisis.
Commenting on the selection, Neel Juriasingani, CEO & Co-founder, Datacultr, said, “We are thrilled to be a part of Finance Forward MENA 2020 Program. We are confident that with our unique capabilities, we’ll be able to address financial health related challenges that the Middle East and North Africa region faces. This is a great opportunity for us to showcase relevant solutions and get better industry insights for our learning and growth in the Financial space. We aim to be one of the top two companies towards the end of the program and be able to foster a stronger financial ecosystem in this region.”
About Datacultr
Datacultr is a PaaS that allows consumer lending companies to significantly reduce their risk on ‘New to Credit’ customers. Datacultr allows the lender to give out unsecured loans, at a lower risk, by allowing borrowers to present their newly purchased or existing Smartphone as a collateral.
For the Unbanked & Underserved user, such loans that ride on Datacultr’s technology begin their journey of building a robust credit score, enabling access to bigger loans in the future. Datacultr has combined technology with the basic financial service and created a simple and fair offering for those who need it the most.
Established by Neel Juriasingani and Sujoy Ghosh in 2016, Datacultr has a vision of empowering banks and other consumer lending companies, and thus bringing more people under the umbrella of financial inclusion.
Datacultr is a part of Microsoft for Startups & Google Cloud for Startups. It is the winner of Emerge 50, 2018 award, given by NASSCOM to India’s Most Innovative Top 50 Emerging Software Product Companies. Moreover, it was recognised by the Haryana Government for product excellence in 2019 and also won the prestigious Red Herring 2019 Top 100 Asia award.
The team consists of well-experienced members from the telecom and mobile OEM space, with a deep understanding of consumers in emerging markets and have vast expertise in building scalable technology platforms.
