SPENN was announced the overall winner of the Lighthouse MASSIV 2021 spring program, a twelve-week workshop series where companies received tailor-made support from advisors at Swedbank, Danske Bank, UNDP, Nordic Impact Funds, Synch, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. According to program advisors, SPENN–a Norwegian mobile banking company that allows people in developing countries to deposit, spend, and save money cost-free–was selected as the winner on account of its readiness to scale, its ground-breaking technology and its progress during the program. In a little over three-months, SPENN welcomed over 80.000 new customers on their platform globally. Through the MASSIV advisory board, SPENN pitched to Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and got the opportunity to launch “SPENN: Health” – a digital vaccine credential delivered in-app. The latter credential allows users to share test results and vaccine credentials within the SPENN app. In addition, SPENN partnered with other MASSIV participant DDFinance, and is currently in partnership dialogue with Mastercard. With more than 350 votes, SPENN also received the People’s Choice Award. DDFinance was selected the winner of the Impact Potential award. The Norwegian company offers affordable health insurance to people living in the global south through its digital insurance market system. By digitizing trust within groups and automating insurance workflows, DDFinance has the potential to help 34 million uninsured people to be covered by formal insurance. According to company founders, DDFinance is “changing people’s life for a dollar” by offering innovative, cost-effective insurance solutions to those would have nowhere else to turn in the event of an emergency. In addition to enabling partnerships between participants and large corporations, Lighthouse MASSIV also seeks to foster partnerships between participating startups. DDFinance excelled on this front, entering partnership dialogues with MASSIV participants SPENN, Addressya and Farmforce. Also during the program, DDFinance partnered with MASSIV alumni Jamii.one with the aim to support 5000 savings groups and 70.000 households in Africa. “To win the Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV Program is both humbling and exciting. It has not been an easy year for fintech startups, but fortunately SPENN has stayed true to our core value of bringing financial services to those that need it most. We’re grateful for programs like Lighthouse that really delivers on their promise of “partnerships” and we’re thrilled to continue on the journey to see where it takes us. We look forward to extending our frictionless payment solution to Mastercard’s partners, customers and network.” “We are very happy to have won the MASSIV Impact Potential Award. The program has been great from start to finish and we are truly grateful to have been given the opportunity to be part of it. The program has provided us with great insights and knowledge which we will make sure to capitalize on going forward. Winning the Impact Potential Award empowers our long-lasting belief that DDFinance has both the capability and potential to impact the lives of millions in the years to come. We are ready to unleash our impact potential” “SPENN and DDFinance are very promising companies with solutions that are ground-breaking to global challenges. MASSIV’s vision of touching upon the lives of one billion people by 2025 by helping impact tech companies scale, gets closer to achievement every edition. We are excited to support great entrepreneurs and quality companies like SPENN and DDFinance” SPENN and DDFinance win Mastercard’s Lighthouse MASSIV impact tech partnership program
Lighthouse MASSIV, Mastercard’s partnership program dedicated to finding and scaling the next impact unicorn, is pleased to announce SPENN as the program winner. DDFinance was announced the winner of the Impact Potential award.
Jens Glasø
CEO SPENN
Jan Martin Hunderi
CEO DDFinance
Mats Taraldsson
Head of Innovation, Fintech and Impact-tech Engagement, Mastercard Nordics and Baltics