Mastercard Start Path Seeds Innovation between Startups and Corporates

Continued exploration across borders and technologies is how Mastercard Start Path, part of Mastercard Labs, accelerates game-changing trends into solutions that shape the future of commerce.

Having evaluated 10,000 startups worldwide since its inception, the Start Path team sees first-hand how the FinTech landscape has matured yet continues to evolve in reaction to new technologies and levels of competition. For example, seed and angel deal share is declining for tech startups, while Series A, B and C deals are rising significantly.



A six-month virtual and in-person engagement program, the Start Path model supports later-stage FinTechs and startups scaling into new opportunities and markets. Participating firms benefit from access to subject matter experts across the organization and facilitated introductions to our global network of customers, which includes internationally recognized financial institutions and merchants. It is with these strategic connections, based on the startups’ and customers’ specialties and needs, where pilots begin and we break ground towards long-term value creation.

The newest Mastercard Start Path companies join nearly 200 startups located worldwide, which have raised a cumulative $1.4 billion in capital since joining the program. Today, these organizations are entering the public markets, reaching unicorn status and entering extended commercial engagements with us and our customers.

Here are the latest entrants to our network of innovators:

• Aider is an AI-powered conversational digital assistant giving small businesses an edge from better data-driven decisions and actionable insights.

• Ellevest is a company designed by women to get women investing in minutes.

• FraudNet helps companies mitigate and prevent fraud. It is the only “glass-box” fraud prevention platform, offering a transparent presentation of data, real-time decisioning and machine learning.

• Infinicept helps software companies monetize payments with Payment Facilitator in a Box™, a merchant underwriting and back office platform that can work with any bank, processor or gateway.

• Konsentus provides financial institutions (FIs) with identity and regulatory checking services of third-party providers (TPPs) to ensure FIs are PSD2 open banking compliant.

• Moneythor develops software providing more intelligent and contextual digital banking for customers and enhanced marketing and analytics for financial institutions.

• Nuclei is building a global omni-channel digital banking platform, which enables the banks to build an ecosystem and deliver seamless experiences to their customers.

• SURE Insurance provides a SaaS platform, CRM, and developer tools that power global insurance companies, consumer brands, and financial institutions to distribute and service any insurance program digitally.

• TruRating is a flexible, multi-channel solution for engaging with customers and the world’s first point-of-payment customer rating service.

• ZigZag is an end-to-end logistics SAAS platform helping merchants with customer returns, globally.

The Start Path equation: scale for startups; acceleration for banks and merchants; and powerful results together.