TC Disrupt Startup Battlefield 2022: FinTech Startup Participants
This year, over 200 talented startups were showcased at Startup Battlefield during TechCrunch Disrupt. Within the FinTech space, 26 startups showcased solutions spanning several categories and use cases. Of note, Web3 and Blockchain companies, from backend infrastructures and API projects to crypto wallets, were well represented. For example, Hit Hard Wallet has developed a slim, wireless cold crypto wallet for the next generation of users, and Wert has built an embedded fiat-to-crypto payment model for mobile games. Many other startups have solutions targeting financial access and technology use. Sigo Seguros, providing affordable car insurance to the nonprime user, Uils, building loan products to gig-economy workers, and Utoppia, providing US bank accounts to non-residents, are all examples of solutions presented at TC Disrupt this year further that demonstrate the ability of FinTech to democratize financial services. Financial literacy continues to be an important priority for solutions in the FinTech space, with many startups providing solutions that sought to educate users on personal financial management, encourage investing, manage debt, etc. Within this space, there are two types of solutions: startups that build education platforms and/or product marketplace or aggregators and thus promote financial literacy directly, or startups that promote financial literacy more indirectly, through supplementary financial educational content. Notable startups include Suma Wealth, a platform aiming to teach the Latinx community how to build and sustain long-term wealth, and Scout, which provides a platform that makes investing in alignment with interests easier than ever. Finally, this year saw a broad theme of climate-focused startups. While none of the companies included in this report were pure climate tech companies, there were several solutions that were climate-sensitive and climate-supporting. Favorites include 412 Technology, which empowers users to have an impact on climate change in a fun way, and Gaia AI, which has built a solution leveraging perception AI and advanced sensor technologies to preserve forests.
