DFS Lab FinTech Bootcamp December 2017

A one-week design sprint with DFS Lab with chance to join our accelerator

The Opportunity

DFS Lab invites early-stage fintech entrepreneurs to join us from December 3-9, 2017 to work on the next generation of innovative digital financial products for Africa and South Asia. (Location TBD)

Our bootcamp is an exciting week-long Design Sprint, a process of structured ideation and prototyping to answer critical business questions. Entrepreneurs will go through a workshop to design and test new fintech ideas where rapid prototyping and UI/UX mockup support will be available on site. Participating teams will create quick prototypes for representative customers and get actual feedback to see if there’s real potential for their solutions.

This high-intensity program provides participants with the very best hands-on support and guidance from world class mentors to help bring ideas to life. The best ideas will receive funding of up to USD $50K and six months of additional support from DFS Lab as a member of our accelerator, including weekly advisory calls, connections to our extensive network of fintech experts, and further fundraising support. The bootcamp runs for 5 days and includes flights, healthy meals, and accommodations.

What We’re Looking For

DFS Lab is looking for any team with a breakthrough financial technology that can help bring financial services to the billions globally who lack them. In this call for entrepreneurs, we see conversational interfaces, technologies that work on feature phone (non-smartphones), and technologies that help close the financial services gender gap as key priorities.

The number of people on messenger apps globally has recently surpassed the number on social media. New natural language technologies and chatbots have emerged that allow for rich, conversational interactions on these platforms between clients and their financial services. This opportunity is especially salient in developing countries where the simple interfaces, low data usage, and the possibility to work on feature phones resonate with many users.

We are particularly interested in working with teams who are creating solutions rooted in conversational interfaces and/or those that function on feature phones (non-smartphones). Examples may include but are not limited to innovative:

Chat and messaging-based finance innovations
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
Audio-based payment or data transfer products
Other products that work over feature-phones

We are also especially interested in new approaches that help solve the gender divide and bringing financial services innovations to greater numbers of women. However, we are not limited to these areas and would like to hear from any team with a breakthrough technology.

Who We’re Looking For

We are seeking small and nimble teams of world class entrepreneurs, engineers, product managers, or other brilliant people who want to build digital services for millions of users. You have deep expertise in fintech, payments, or retail finance and a strong desire to work in developing countries. You dream of creating financial products that serve the needs of billions of low income consumers in developing countries.

We are looking for two-person teams who wish to launch a company or very early stage startups with less than USD $100K investment to date who want to send two co-founders to our bootcamp. Please have a founder or co-founder fill out the application.

If you are passionate about changing the landscape of mass market fintech and believe you have what it takes, apply now!