TechCrunch, American global online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies, have selected Omnisient, the South African data analytics fintech that is accelerating financial inclusion, as one of 200 early-stage tech start-ups that are most likely to have a positive impact on the world.
TechCrunch reviewed close to 3,000 nominated early-stage startups from around the world to choose the final 200 to participate in their Startup Battlefield 200 competition at the annual TechCrunch Disrupt event in San Fransisco, USA. The Startup Battlefield 200, is the world’s preeminent startup competition where 200 startups are trained and invited to pitch in front of investors and TechCrunch editors. This year’s Startup Battlefield participants span artificial intelligence (AI), software as a service (SaaS), fintech, security, sustainability, and space exploration.
“One of the cool advantages of being a first-party witness to the thousands of companies that come through our application pipeline every year is that we see emergent trends bubbling up far sooner than most do. It’s a huge privilege to be able to see the future this way and one of the most exciting parts of our job,” says Matthew Panzarino, Editor-in-Chief of TechCrunch.
Omnisient is the privacy-preserving Data Collaboration platform that provides cutting-edge cryptography, advanced analytics, and AI to enable Financial Services Institutions (FSIs) to leverage new consumer data sources in a secure and regulatory compliant manner. Omnisient’s platform has already enabled local banks to use retail shopper data to identify 3.2 million individuals as credit-worthy who would have previously been denied credit due to limited background information.
Speaking about the fintech category of the competition, Panzarino added, “Fintech is going deep over the next year building infrastructure in huge but un-addressed world economies rather than over-indexing on the western markets. Whatever holdover grip that foreign banking and social norms have on those systems is getting unraveled by startups that are creating new ways for populations in those markets to engage with finances.”
“We are in the midst of speaking to investors locally and overseas to raise Series A funding for international expansion and further development of our technology,” says Omnisient CEO, Jon Jacobson. “Being invited to join TechCrunch’s Start-up Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt is not only international recognition of the disruptive nature of our platform and the impact we are having in growing financial inclusion, but also a fantastic opportunity for us to fine-tune our pitch and share our story with an audience of US investors.”
TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 will be held from Tuesday, September 19 – Thursday, September 21 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.