Visa launches startup challenge

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Visa announced the launch of the second iteration of its “Everywhere Initiative,” which poses three business challenges to startups and asks them to develop potential solutions.

The challenge, which debuted in 2015, is expanding to multiple countries and a larger pool of entrants in 2016.

Startup entrants will be asked to solve one of three questions for Visa. Two of the questions revolve around marketing challenges for the firm related to Visa-sponsored events and cardless payments. But the newest question asks startups to use Visa Developer, the firm’s new API platform, to improve the commerce experience for customers either within an existing app or through a new one.

Visa hopes the challenge will better engage the startup community and drive tech firms toward using its API offerings, Visa's SVP of digital and marketing transformation Shiv Singh told BI Intelligence.  

• Visa Developer is a new service. The product, which gives developers access to 155 Visa APIs and a sandbox in which to test and use them, launched in February. The number of firms using the service is growing, but it’s primarily attracted legacy financial firms. Visa is hoping that the Everywhere Initiative will help it broaden that interest.
• The Everywhere Initiative could incentivize startups to test Visa’s services. Each Everywhere winner — one is chosen for each question — receives $50,000 and a year of support from Visa to help execute on their idea. Singh noted that last year’s winners have also received a combined $20 million in venture capital funding. Visa's support and the potential resume boost could push more startups to enter the competition and test Developer.
• And that in turn could help Visa bolster its payments tech offerings. Singh believes that by “aggressively engaging the startup community” and broadening Developer’s base of users, Visa will be able to build relationships and invest in innovative startups that could drive its own business forward. And that could help Visa gain an early edge as a critical service provider in the burgeoning app-based and connected device payments sector.

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