ImpactAlpha, August 7 – The India-focused lab is being modeled on the four-year-old U.S.-based Financial Solutions Lab, which JPMorgan runs in partnership with the Center for Financial Services Innovation.
JPMorgan’s partner in India is an entrepreneurship incubator that supports tech-based startups serving the poorest 200 million households in India, known as the “Bharat Segment.” Together the partners are committing $9.5 million to the Lab to seed new fintech ideas with both financial support and an accelerator program.
“Our initiative aims to identify and nurture fintech start-ups to generate innovative ideas which will help make financial products and services more accessible to this critical mass of Indians,” said JP Morgan’s Kalpana Morparia.
The Dell and Gates Foundations are also supporting the initiative. Financial inclusion consulting firm MicroSave is joining as a research and advisory partner.
Over the past four years, the Financial Inclusion Lab’s New York-based sister program has vetted more than 1,000 of fintech startup ideas and supported 24 companies, which have collectively reached more than 2.5 million Americans.
