FinFirst Capital, the fintech company that provides transparent financial services through its secure mobile app marketplace FinFirst App, has been declared the Kuwait City winner of the global Seedstars competition which recognises breakthroughs impacting the lives of people in emerging markets through entrepreneurship and technology. The win followed a competitive bid against three selected organizations out of 40 Kuwait-based organisations applied for the copmetition.
As the local winner FinFirst Captial will now be admitted to the global start-up Seedstars Investment Readiness Program (IRP) with its C-suite gaining access to training and group mentoring sessions and to the organisation contesting the Middle East heats of the Online Seedstars World Competition 2020/2021 where it will take on other regional winners for investment opportunities. If successful in the regional heats, the company will then go on to contest the competition’s intercontinental finals vying for honours against four other regional winners.
“This is a great achievement which is a result of the work of the entire FinFirst Capital team and which gives us the opportunity to bring our brand, and Kuwait’s entrepreneurial sector into worldwide focus,” said Abbas Hijazi, CEO, FinFirst Capital.
“The Investment Readiness Program gives us access to tremendous peer learning, best practice exchange and networking which helps us more speedily scale our investment preparedness. Though we realise we will be up against some tough competition in the Seedstars World Competition, we are confident of our chances of success as FinFirst App represents a revolutionary breakthrough in the way financial services are marketed and sold for the benefit of the industry and the consumer.”
Seedstars is a Swiss-based private group of companies with a mission to impact people’s lives in emerging markets through technology and entrepreneurship. From June to November each year, the Seedstars team looks for the most promising early-stage start-ups from 90+ emerging markets that will receive intensive training on how to be investment-ready. Participating companies take part in local, regional, and global stage competitions, for one to be crowned as the Global Winner and receive a prize of up to USD 500,000 in equity investment.
Developed in Kuwait, FinFirst App facilitates banking, financial services, and loan processing from anywhere, at any time and instantly matches users with the best providers. This one-stop shop for financial needs makes physical interaction, paper transactions or bureaucracy obsolete.
FinFirst App is providing transparent services across Business Banking, Consumer Banking, Auto Financing, and Insurance. The App is currently achieving 100% month-on-month transactions growth and now boasts over 4000 customers, mostly Kuwaitis of managerial level, and has processed more than 120 loan applications valued at more than KD 4 million (US 14 million).