Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, announced the winner of its first Visa’s Everywhere Initiative competition in Thailand, awarding Sellsuki the grand prize of THB1 million in funding, in addition to mentorship, exposure to Visa partners and access to facilities and experts at Visa’s Innovation Center in Singapore.
The winner of the VEI goes to Sellsuki, a social-first omnichannel retail platform that helps merchants to manage their own sales channels with end-to-end integrations on a variety of logistics. In cooperation with Visa, Sellsuki will make use of Visa’s APIs via adopting the use of digital payment services onto their platform, in order to help foster the most well-rounded e-commerce ecosystem.
Visa’s Everywhere Initiative (VEI) is a global innovation program that challenges start-ups to build the next big thing in payments and accelerate the future of commerce, leveraging Visa’s world-class network. The 2018 global program kicks off with the Thailand competition.
Of more than 80 submissions, a total of nine finalists were selected for the three opportunity statements:
How can start-ups innovate to create relevant and rewarding digital payment experiences for international tourists visiting Thailand?
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- UTU
- Angel Life
- Instarem
How can start-ups leverage social media platforms to accelerate commerce & scale access to financial services?
- 2C2P
- Jumper
- Sellsuki
How can start-ups innovate to make digital payments easy to access and capable of adding value for merchants?
- Seekster
- Digio
- Silo
Silo won the People’s Choice Award and THB200,000 in prize money.
Suripong Tantiyanon, Country Manager, Visa Thailand said: “There is a strong momentum in Thailand’s fintech scene evident in the quality of the application we received. At Visa, we believe innovation hinges upon collaboration and co-creation, by bringing different parties together to jointly produce an outcome that brings value to all. Engaging with the start-up community through Visa’s Everywhere Initiative is therefore crucial in growing the payments ecosystem and enabling new ways of innovation. We look forward to working with these companies, helping them to harness Visa expertise and APIs, to scale their solutions to the next level.”
Visa’s Everywhere Initiative was created in 2015 to harness the creativity and talent within the startup community worldwide. To date, nearly 2,100 startups have participated, and have collectively raised over $2 billion in funding. The program has selected more than 131 finalists and 36 overall winners. More than 40 countries and regions that have hosted Visa’s Everywhere Initiative including the US, China, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.