BBVA Open Talent

BBVA launches the 8th edition of its BBVA Open Talent competition, which aims to find the brightest and best entrepreneurs who are changing financial services through digital innovation. In the last five years, more than 3,250 companies have entered, with winners raising over EUR116 million in investments. Early entrants will be considered for participation at WIRED Money 2016, which BBVA is sponsoring for the second year in a row.

BBVA Open Talent is open to early stage startups around the world — companies with less than EUR2.5 million in investment and EUR1.5 million annual revenue. The competition is designed to help identify groundbreaking ideas from across financial services. Last year’s winners included a blockchain registry for valuables (Everledger), a corporate bond origination platform (Origin Markets) and credit-scoring technology based on household bill payments (Destacame).

Shamir Karkal, BBVA’s Head of Open APIs, said, «BBVA Open Talent is BBVA’s contribution to a healthy fintech ecosystem — supporting the businesses that are going to improve customers’ financial lives through technology.»

Registration for this year’s BBVA Open Talent is open at this web  and closes on June 27. For a business to make the finals, judges will be looking for evidence of its capacity to transform the financial industry, with scalability, a good team and a good business model.