PayPal is now announcing the launch of the fourth round of its Start Tank Incubation Challenge. Applications are now open for early-stage financial technology (FinTech) startups across the country to bid for a spot in PayPal’s Start Tank incubator.
PayPal’s Start Tank incubator was launched in 2013 in partnership with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). The incubator provides an obligation-free environment for early-stage startups to evolve at its exclusive facility in PayPal’s technology center in Chennai. PayPal offers incubated startups with technology and business mentorship, infrastructure support and networking opportunities with both investors and customers.
Anupam Pahuja, General Manager, Technology – PayPal APAC, said in a statement,
I am thrilled to announce the next round of PayPal’s Start Tank Incubation Challenge. Start Tank is PayPal’s flagship startup programme and is testament to our commitment to enabling the startup ecosystem in India
Pahuja further adds,
As one of the world’s largest startups and the leader in online payments, PayPal understands the challenges faced by entrepreneurs today. India ranks third among global startup ecosystems in the world, and we are excited to be able to share our technology expertise and provide a space for these startups to scale even greater heights. I look forward to welcoming some of India’s most promising startups into our incubator.
Focus on Financial Technology
PayPal’s Start Tank will be aligning its focus around startups in the FinTech space this year, pretty much in sync with the company’s own vision of transforming money and becoming an everyday part of people’s financial lives.
This will include startups focused on core payment features such as wallets, gateways and remittances, as well as payments enablers and adjacencies like biometric authentication, security and financial inclusion.
Applications are open from today and will close onOctober 23, 2015. Successful applicants will be contacted to undergo two rounds of pitching before the final companies to be admitted into the incubator are selected by a jury panel at the annual TiECON Conference in Chennai on October 30, 2015. The panel will include senior leaders from PayPal as well as prominent venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in India.
To date, the Start Tank incubator has hosted six startups and provides access to global mentors, angel investors and venture capitalists. Three companies incubated at Start Tank – Kobster, Fantain and DoPartTime – successfully graduated in May 2015.
Kobster also secured an undisclosed amount of seed investment, while PiQube, another startup currently being incubated at Start Tank, recently raised $500,000 from The HR Fund. In 2014, PayPal’s ecosystem work was recently recognized with the ‘Ecosystem Enablement for Startups’ award from Zinnov, in July 2015.
