FinTech Frontier may be closing in on the marquee event of its inaugural year, but the head of Cintrifuse, the Cincinnati startup catalyst that's heading the effort to flush out the “best and boldest new ideas in financial technology,” is already looking ahead.
Pete Blackshaw, Cintrifuse CEO, said the recently implemented initiative, aimed at driving innovation in a rapidly changing fintech market, is just a precursor for bigger things to come. To date, FinTech Frontier, backed by Western & Southern and Fifth Third Bank, has included a series of virtual events in September and October and will culminate this month with a open invitation pitch competition.
“Fintech is a huge opportunity,” he told me. “I admire Fifth Third and Western & Southern for putting real startup funding behind this. But our vision is to get all the banks involved. Our hope is that within a year, we could build a more interesting platform, whether that’s a venture studio, or some hybrid incubator/accelerator. We need to build a platform for growth in fintech, and FinTech Frontier and this pitch competition is our first swing at the bat.”
FinTech Frontier continues to recruit talent for the pitch competition – as of Wednesday, 35 entrepreneurs from 15 different cities and seven different countries have applied. The deadline is Friday, and finalists will be announced Oct. 22. Applicants must be available to compete on Oct. 29, the formal contest day, which is slated as part of the StartupCincy Week lineup of events.
The pitch competition offers two themes for entrepreneurs, and organizers kept them purposely broad: "closing the gap,” or enabling financial security for consumers by expanding access and/or affordability of financial tools; and “powering business,” which is described as empowering business and consumer experiences from the back office to the front door.
At stake is a $60,000 prize pool, one of the biggest national prizes this year, Blackshaw said.
“[Fintech] is really broad. It’s a very, very big tent, and the amount of money that’s sloshing around is mind-boggling. It almost defies gravity,” he added. “Obviously, Cincinnati’s not going win in all areas. But I suspect there’s a few niches where we could really draw some external visibility. What we’re doing now is the tip of the iceberg.”
FinTech Frontier's goal is to highlight Cincinnati as a growing Midwest hub for financial technology. Cincinnati is one of only a few U.S. cities to house the headquarters or major operations of several large banks, insurance companies and payments processors, leaders said.
Fintech Frontier is well-positioned to rapidly accelerate that growth, with more formal future announcements in the works.
“There’s a lot of talent in this region, we just haven’t advertised it well, and that’s part of what we’re doing,” Blackshaw added. “We’re going to put a lot of attention on this. I’m really excited about the type of entrepreneurs we can bring to the table.”
