During ‘Demo Day’ for Bangkok Bank’s InnoHub fintech accelerator, Covr Security from Sweden, one of only eight selected start-ups for the programme, attended to present their plans to Thai and international investors, particularly those in Asean.
These potential investors include Bangkok Bank and its subsidiary Bualuang Ventures, a venture capital firm focusing on small and medium-sized enterprises including start-ups. The day marked another step towards fundraising and partnership opportunities.
Peter Alexanderson, CEO and founder of Covr Security, “the most advanced cyber security platform in the world”, took to the stage, as the 12-week came to a close, and could disclose essential news: “Today we can announce that we have a successful proof of concept [POC] with Bangkok Bank so we really hope to continue to work with the bank. And we are seeking now investors for a Series A round.”
Currently, Covr is in a phase of meeting with companies from all over the world to present their solutions and entering new partnerships, hence the participation in Thailand.
Covr founder Peter Alexanderson developed Covr’s predecessor specifically for the Swedish banking system, BankID, where it is now the national standard for digital authentication.
“This has been the best programme I have ever been in and the cooperation between Bangkok Bank and Nest is unheard of. All credit to you!” said the Covr Security CEO on stage.
During the 12 weeks in Thailand Covr also exhibited with InnoHub at both Startup Thailand and Techsauce start-up conferences/exhibitions in Bangkok, meeting with VCs and business angels both from Thailand as well as from the region; primarily Hong Kong and Singapore.
Bangkok Bank Public Company Limited (Bangkok Bank) launched InnoHub earlier this year and went out to canvass the world for the most promising FinTech (financial technology) start-ups to join Thailand’s first ever, international fintech accelerator programme.
At the launch of the programme Bangkok Bank President Chartsiri Sophonpanich had said that the initiative reflected the bank’s commitment to fostering the growth of the Fintech start-ups that will be key drivers of Thailand’s financial services sector and wider economy.
“The program also affirms the bank’s commitment to pursuing a digital business strategy that uses technology to create and develop products and services that address customer needs. The bank has also built a Fintech team of technology experts to meet the challenges of the new technologies and reinforce its position as an innovation leader.”
The Thailand bank’s InnoHub and its partner Nest, a global innovation platform supporting entrepreneurs, put together and ran the uniquely-designed accelerator programme
“Demo Day is a day of celebration. We are here to celebrate the phenomenal progress that the start-ups have made in commercialising and scaling their fintech busineses across Thailand,” Mr. Lawrence Morgan, CEO of Nest said in his address.
Lawrence Morgan emphasized how impressed he personally was at the scale of resources that had been deployed by Bangkok Bank, from building a dedicated, innovative workspace for the start-ups to the enthusiastic participation of a vast number of mentors and senior management leaders who have provided valuable insights and support.
“At Nest our mission is to help entrepreneurs achieve the extraordinary. Our role covers how we source the world’s best-in-class technologies through to programme operation via a tailor-made curriculum and actively using the broader community, such as conferences, speaker sessions and events. However the most important factor for Nest is in its role facilitating POC specialists between start-ups and Bangkok Bank with a singularity of purpose: to develop commercial partnerships. The result of these collaborative efforts, between Nest and Bangkok Bank is an integration-focused programme where each of the start-up businesses has made very impressive traction.”
“Aside from the start-up achievements the true success story from this programme has been how it as brought a global spotlight to Thailand’s growing and innovative tech landscape. Experience has shown that the Silicon Valley model is not the optimal model for Asia. Launching a business organically and refusing to working with the established players is not the smartest way to scaling in Asia, where incumbents have vital access to customers, resources and industry knowledge – all in all everything needed to scale their businesses. As a result Nest does long believe the best path for scaling in Asia is to helping the start-ups have transformative, immersive interactions with leading corporates through collaborative programmes such as this one. Because only through focus on commercial outcomes can this emerging innovation industry be sustainable.”
He also said that Nest shares a vision for Thailand to become the leading fintech hub for Asia. “Nest’s contribution to the developing of many early-stage start-up hubs suggests that Thailand is focusing on the right places such as upgrading skills through knowledge transfer and through becoming more collaborative, along side the very mould of corporate innovation it is vital we foster grassroots talent and leverage the momentum of our ambitious government initiatives such as Thailand 4.0 to build upon a historic industry strength. We are making tremendous progress in establishing Thailand’s reputation as a top destination for global best-in-class technologies and talent.”
