How this fintech startup’s pitch snagged a partnership opportunity with Visa

Pitching a startup idea takes a lot of work. There are several steps to take before a novel solution can be presented to potential investors or partners. And often, the preparation process could take a few months before the pitch is ready.

Photo credit: startups.co.uk

Finaxar co-founder Vihang Patel only had less than a week to commit to participating in a pitch event when an acquaintance told him about the Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI) in January 2019. Launched in 2015, the global innovation program has worked with over 2,100 fledgling businesses across 40 countries, offering promising startups a potential partnership with the payments giant.

“We were already working with some select Visa partners, so it made a lot of sense for us to be there,” says Patel, who established Finaxar with Sian Tan in 2016. The fintech startup aims to solve capital challenges faced by small and medium-sized enterprises with innovative credit and payment solutions.

However, the real challenge came when Finaxar was selected as a finalist for VEI Singapore 2019 two months after its founders applied for the program.

“Now, we actually had to prepare something. I think we had two weeks,” Patel recalls. “So that’s where we really stretched ourselves.”

Pitch preparations

The first thing he had to do was present Finaxar’s solution to the VEI team. That’s when Patel realized that he had his work cut out for him.

“When we showed them how we could potentially work with Visa and other partners, it was a 38-page deck with tons of diagrams about how our system works,” he shares. “They thought our idea was great, but told us to distill it into a four-minute pitch that a broad audience – who may have no knowledge of the space we’re working in – could understand.”

What followed were late nights and even a couple of weekends spent refining the pitch. Finaxar co-founder Tan adds that it “required maximum effort” to prevent affecting the company’s daily operations.

“We didn’t let that happen. We couldn’t afford to let it happen,” he points out.

Inspiration at the eleventh hour

Come pitch day, Patel says the presentation was “probably 90% done.” At this point, he already had three sessions with the VEI team polishing the pitch. However, inspiration hit and drove him to make major changes to the sequence mere hours before the event proper.

“I cut some slides and shoved in a video,” he says. “I was going to add audio, but I decided to just talk while the video played, so I also came up with a whole new script.”

Armed with a fresh script, PowerPoint slides, and pitch sequence, Patel took the stage at Visa University in Singapore, surprising even Tan, who also attended the event.

“He worked on the slides with me, but he had never seen that flow before,” laughs Patel.

(First two from left) Kunal Chatterjee, Visa country head for Singapore and Brunei, presents Finaxar co-founder Vihang Patel with the prize for winning VEI Singapore 2019. Also present were industry executives who served as judges at the event (from center): Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Jo Yeo, Angela Toy from Golden Gate Ventures, Google’s Weisheng Lee, and Adeline Kim from Visa. / Photo credit: Visa

The last-minute changes paid off. At the event’s close, Finaxar was announced as the winner of VEI Singapore 2019 by Kunal Chatterjee, Visa’s country manager for Singapore and Brunei. Patel claims he wasn’t surprised.

“Everyone was great, to be honest, but I believe our proposition is very unique,” he says. “Because of that, I felt we had a fair chance of winning.”

Women’s edition

Prior to the announcement, audience members were encouraged to vote for their favorite pitches online. And insurtech startup PolicyPal bagged the Audience Favorite Award for receiving the most number of votes.

“I was overjoyed!” exclaims PolicyPal CEO and founder Val Yap. “This recognition means a lot to me as it reflects the relevance of our product and how it adds value to people’s lives.”

Chatterjee (left) and Adeline Kim (right), Visa’s head of products in Southeast Asia present PolicyPal CEO Val Yap (center) with the Audience Favorite Award. / Photo credit: Visa

Chatterjee also announced the inaugural women’s edition of VEI at the event. He called on female entrepreneurs “who are driving change in the community or launching their own startups” to participate in the program, which will culminate with a final pitch activity that will take place during the kick-off of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France.

Yap, who was the only female participant out of 10 finalists, is optimistic about the program’s impact on female founders.

“Women entrepreneurs are still a relatively new idea,” she says. “Such initiatives will encourage more women to step up and pursue their goals, knowing that they have a support system and community that believes in their work.”

Just the beginning

For both Finaxar and PolicyPal, being hailed as victors at VEI Singapore 2019 meant more than just walking away with prize money worth US$25,000 and US$5,000, respectively. Along with several high-potential startups, the winners secured a direct working relationship with Visa, which could expedite their go-to-market strategies.

“What would’ve probably taken us four to five months to even just establish contact with Visa has been shortened,” says Patel.

“Moving forward, the relationships we’ve built and the exposure we’ve gained will help PolicyPal build credibility, making it easier to expand our business to the Southeast Asian region,” adds Yap.

The Visa Everywhere Initiative is a global innovation program that tasks startups with solving payment and commerce challenges of tomorrow, further enhancing their own product propositions and providing visionary solutions for Visa’s vast network of partners.

Visit Visa’s website to find out more.