Washington’s largest community credit union continues commitment to grow the regional fintech community
Read this blog post about the 2023 BECU FinTech Incubator competition.
Now in its fourth year, the BECU FinTech Incubator competition officially launches today to continue growing the regional fintech ecosystem.
BECU, the largest not-for-profit credit union in Washington, is looking for fintech startups in a variety of verticals that are at the pre-seed or seed stage of development. The application deadline is Friday, April 15, 2022 and the next cohort begins Friday, July 1, 2022.
BECU took a leadership role in helping to establish Seattle as a fintech hub in fall 2018 when they created a partnership with CoMotion at the University of Washington (UW). The collaboration combines BECU’s expertise in financial services, data analysis, and member experiences with CoMotion’s strengths in incubation, partnership, innovation, company formation, and technology commercialization.
Located in CoMotion Labs technology incubator near UW’s campus, the BECU FinTech Incubator has hosted 11 fintech startups since its inception. The incubator opened with fintech startups Noonum, an AI-powered investor business intelligence research platform, and Routable, a secure invoice and bill payment platform. Since then, Routable has raised $46M with its recent Series B funding of $30M, while Noonum was accepted into the EvoNexus Silicon Valley FinTech Incubator earlier this year, a significant achievement as only 5% of applicants are accepted.
Winners of the 2019 competition were Attunely, which uses machine learning to increase yield of the accounts receivable collection process, and Finclusive, a hybrid financial/regulatory technology company. The three winning teams in 2020 included identity verification startup Cozera, credit score app flub, and mobile payment app QUUE.
The current BECU FinTech Incubator members include:
- Stack, which teaches teens how to responsibly invest in cryptocurrencies
- Pay Your Tuition Funds, which provides innovative solutions for families to finance higher education
- Joola, a savings and rewards app
- Bumper, an investment app aimed at Gen Z teenagers
With fintech technology and the financial industry evolving rapidly, BECU selects specific industry verticals to focus on each year as part of the recruiting process. This year, BECU is interested in engaging startups in verticals including AI/process automation, data analytics, machine learning, personalization platforms, payments and settlements, lending and crowdfunding platforms, digital lending, and more.
Some of the benefits that members of the BECU FinTech Incubator receive include:
- A one-year membership to CoMotion Labs co-working space and programs
- Access to UW mentor databases
- Access to BECU mentors and 1:1s with team members
- Opportunity to explore partnering with BECU on conducting user research
- PitchBook access
- Connections to UW faculty and hiring of UW student interns or graduates
“As an early-stage startup with a mission to make financial products more accessible for everyone, we need all the help we can get to succeed. The BECU FinTech Incubator has given us an invaluable opportunity to be mentored by industry experts, provided access to investors, and offered other resources for growth. We’re lucky to be a part of this program that’s helping us grow!”
- Henny Damian, Co-Founder & CEO, Joola
“I really look forward to our periodic check-ins with BECU. The team is always willing to grab resources from within the organization to give us a perspective on something; it’s like having the breadth of a >2K employee company as a startup!”
- Will Rush, Founder & CEO, Stack
BECU and CoMotion look forward to receiving application submissions from qualified fintech startups and helping the winning companies advance to the next level of development as they take advantage of the BECU FinTech Incubator membership benefits.
For a complete list of member benefits and qualifying verticals, as well as to apply, visit the BECU FinTech Incubator competition page.
