Lighthouse MASSIV, Mastercard’s partnership program dedicated to finding and scaling the next impact unicorn, is pleased to announce Swedish company Eliq as the program winner of the 2022 spring edition among other finalists Wakandi and
TotalCtrl. Wakandi from Norway wins the impact potential award and people’s choice
award.

The program winner was announced during the Lighthouse Grand Finale at Latitude59 in Tallinn, Estonia, where people gathered to listen to their pitches. During the Lighthouse MASSIV 2022 spring program, a 3-month workshop series, the six participating companies received tailor-made support from advisors at Swedbank, Danske Bank, UNDP, VNTRS, Nordic Impact Funds, and Synch.

According to program advisors, Eliq has developed a promising value proposition with their smart energy SaaS platform. The platform helps service providers build engaging digital products to help consumers better manage their energy usage and inspire them to join the transition to clean energy. The Swedish company serves over 20 utilities and other service providers across Europe, reaching millions of end-users. Eliq showed an impressive partnership readiness with various organizations and towards the partner banks in the program. Next to that, the team proved a strong accountability towards the MASSIV Advisory Board members.

“Winning the Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV program means a lot to us at Eliq. The program has helped us to better understand the scale of the opportunity we have in the retail banking sector, and has enabled us make valuable connections and form partnerships within the industry.”

– Håkan Ludvigson, CEO Eliq

Eliq entered the Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV program with the goal to strengthen their value proposition towards retail banks, as they saw the European banking sector fast- tracking its transition to the green economy. According to Eliq, financial institutions are playing a key role in unlocking the energy transition for consumers. In the MASSIV program the company worked together with Mastercard, Swedbank and Danske Bank on the smart energy opportunity.

Over the course of the program Eliq was introduced to 8 banks and started dialogues for seven potential new partnerships. Next to that, Eliq was matched with four investors during the Mastercard Lighthouse Investor Demo Days that showed interest in their next round, and the company was exposed to more than five new investors with contacts ongoing.

In the program all companies worked with UNDP on refining their impact measurement. According to Eliq’s own evaluation, their solution can help households reduce electricity consumption by 6.8%. This translates into savings of approximately 145k tonnes CO2 per year, with a potential of saving up to 2.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2025. The Mastercard Lighthouse team is excited to support their growth journey further to make and scale sustainable and social impact.

“In order for all of us to play a role in the green transition, we each need to find the way we can best contribute — and the companies participating in Lighthouse MASSIV have certainly found their path. It is inspiring to witness the way in which these companies help us reduce our individual carbon footprint, enable fair economic growth, and socially just development. They are much needed lighthouses, outlining the necessary trajectory towards the green transition. It is important that we support and celebrate these impact scaleups to inspire other companies to join the movement of impact tech innovation in order to reach the SDGs and Paris Agreement.”

– Stine Kirstein Junge, Global Head of SDG Accelerator and Private Sector Advisor at UNDP

After working with UNDP, both representative Stine Kirstein Junge and the other seven MASSIV Advisory Board members decided with Mastercard on the winner for the Impact Potential Award. Wakandi was selected as winner for their high impact potential and won the People’s Choice Award with more than 300 votes from the audience. The Norwegian fintech company offers a distributed ledger technology-based financial system. The system digitizes savings and loans management for informal financial groups in Africa. Wakandi focuses on bringing innovation to the informal sector by digitalization and increasing access to financial services. With their mission and potential to impact 10 million people they entered the Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV program. In the program, they started six partnership dialogues with amongst others MASSIV former winner Investure, and they signed an NDA with Mastercard.

“A huge thanks to Mastercard and all the advisers for a fantastic program and great support! We are humble and honoured to win both “People’s Choice” and “Impact potential” awards. We look forward to working with all the partners we have met through the program!”

 – Espen Kvelland, CEO Wakandi

Wakandi offers digitalization solutions to an underserved market (informal financial groups), where their solution can help expand access to credit to millions of small businesses by 2025. This will allow the small businesses to contribute even more to economic growth and job creation, with the potential to impact the lives of many millions of people.

“Both Eliq and Wakandi have highly impactful solutions. Eliq provides a smart energy technology focused on sustainability and Wakandi is tackling a global challenge in social impact and financial inclusion. We are proud to have worked on the scaling journey of six sustainability and social impact focused startups this program’s edition. With Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV we have the vision of helping one billion people live more prosperous and secure lives by 2025. It is important to support startups impacting both people and planet and contribute to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals”

– Mats Taraldsson, Head of Innovation, Fintech and Impact-tech Engagement, Mastercard Nordics and Baltics

“It is rewarding to run the 5th Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV program this spring with the most competitive class ever. The class consisted of six startups with solutions in smart energy, circularity, financial inclusion, food traceability and online social harassment, all very important solutions for local and global challenges. Often in the program startups find synergies with alumni companies, which was the case for Wakandi and Baia. We look forward to follow the startup journeys ahead”.

– Eleonore Hinlopen, Program Manager Lighthouse MASSIV, Mastercard Nordics and Baltics

Over the years, Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV has featured companies like Desert Control, whose agritech nanoclay technology is one of the promising technologies turning deserts into fertile land. Other program winners include PlasticFri, which offers a plant-based alternative to fossil-based plastics, Molecular Attraction, a company combatting vector-borne diseases like malaria, Investure, a co-investing platform for developing markets, and SPENN, a company allowing people in developing countries to lend, spend and save money cost-free. Read about the partnership news and growth of Lighthouse MASSIV alumni companies in the recently published Mastercard Lighthouse report.

Lighthouse MASSIV is free and focused primarily on helping impact tech companies scale globally through partnerships. To date, more than 80 partnerships have been signed through the program by 27 participating startups and organizations. Do you know a Nordic or Baltic impact tech company interested to join our 2022 fall program?