The winner of the Mastercard Lighthouse FINITIV spring 2024 partnership program have been announced, during the Lighthouse award ceremony at Latitude59 in Tallinn.

Avallone, a 360° KYC Solution, combining best-in-class Software that collects KYC, which responds to Bank KYC, manages legal entity data, and more, with offerings for Managed Services and Advisory Services, was selected as the regional Danish class winner and as the overall winner of the Mastercard Lighthouse FINITIV Program 2024 spring edition.

As winner, Avallone will now receive ongoing support from Mastercard and will pitch for Start Path, Mastercard’s global start-up engagement program.

Mastercard Lighthouse FINITIV
In the words of this spring’s selection committee, Avallone was selected as the overall FINITIV Program winner “due to their professionalism and partnership readiness that they demonstrated towards all program partners. Their product and their approach to fight financial crime gained huge interest from partner banks. The team behind this solution truly has great potential to achieve success in the upcoming years.”

“It’s a huge honor and pleasure to be awarded as the Mastercard Lighthouse FINITIV winner. The program has been extremely valuable for Avallone in terms of conversations with large tier-1 banks as partners and it has emphasized the importance of finding more innovative solutions to increase transparency between enterprises – especially related to Know Your Customer data from funds, corporates, and NGOs towards financial institutions. Being a start-up is a mix of pain, uncertainty, and constant work, so awards and recognitions like the Mastercard Lighthouse FINITIV is a very welcome energy booster to the entire team”, says Anders Meinert Jorgensen, co-founder and CEO and Martin Albertsen, co-founder and CTO.

“Avallone has impressed us, both in terms of their product and their team. They address a genuine customer need by simplifying KYC reporting for companies. As a bank, we recognize the immense importance of this. The founders possess a robust background and deep understanding of the domain, effectively presenting a platform that benefits both companies and banks. Moreover, they maintain a humble and approachable demeanor, making discussions with them easy. Our interactions with Avallone have left a positive impression on both our KYC experts, and our partnership and innovation team at DNB”, says Erlend Nitter-Hauge, Head of Fintech partnerships, DNB.

The Mastercard Lighthouse FINITIV program runs over a three-month period and offers Nordic and Baltic fintech and fintech-enabler startups and early scaleups the opportunity to work with stakeholders such as Mastercard, tier one Nordic banks (e.g. SEB, Danske Bank, DNB, Swedbank and OP Financial Group), our Tech partners (e.g. AWS), Program Advisors (e.g. FinTech Mundi and Invenio Growth) and a circle of Investors. The purpose of the Program is to create a space and opportunity for identifying and pursuing partnership between the program participants and stakeholders, and even the participants themselves.

“The financial technology industry is undergoing a transformational shift, and the fintech companies selected for this program are at the forefront of this revolution. I am excited to see the innovation and disruption that they are bringing – they are pushing the boundaries of traditional banking and payment methods, and their solutions are addressing the changing needs and expectations of consumers. We are very happy to see that Avallone was appointed as the overall winner of the spring FINITIV Program with its innovative solution for managing complex KYC processes in a more effective way,” says Mats Taraldsson, Head of Fintech and Impact Tech Engagement at Mastercard Nordics and Baltics.

The Investor Award was given to Januar, the company that showed most traction with Mastercard Lighthouse’s Investor Circle. JoolPay, a FinTech-driven mobile platform that leverages QR-based invoicing technology, empowering customer-facing users to seamlessly receive payments, tips, and donations through an efficient QR-code system, won the popular vote and received the People’s Choice award. Receipts has been declared the winner of the Norwegian class of Mastercard Lighthouse FINITIV, Spring 2024. They are a B2B Software company delivering true digital receipt data and universal payment keys with a transaction-based revenue and licensing model. Vespia has been declared the winner of the Baltic class of Mastercard Lighthouse FINITIV, Spring 2024. The solution is an AI-driven business verification (KYB) and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance platform. It helps financial institutions stay compliant with regulations and onboard customers 90% faster.