How to Apply

Journey of a Fintech Startup
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Submit your application

About the Program:

FinTech Sandbox is a nonprofit. We enable financial technology entrepreneurs like yourself to build robust products by providing access to critical data, development tools and a curated network of customers, entirely for free.

Give Back:

We do not take any equity or request any fees. Instead, we ask each program participant to be engaged members of the FinTech Sandbox community in return. You can contribute in a variety of ways by being an active participant in our events, mentoring and sharing advice with other startups in our program, and contributing to a piece of thought-leadership to our content hub. Together we can make an enduring contribution to financial services innovation.

Data Access:

We partner with 40 industry-leading providers to offer participants a broad selection of data. Refer to a description of every product offered for free through FinTech Sandbox’s program. We are not data aggregators. Once you’ve been accepted to the Sandbox program, you will be connected with our lead at a specific provider to initiate a 6-month contract.

Eligibility and Selection Criteria:

FinTech Sandbox is open to all startups innovating in financial services that can use financial data products we offer for product development and testing. The spirit of the program is to offer data to start-ups that could not otherwise afford it.

Start-ups in an accelerator: We are happy to help you with data and infrastructure even if you are in an accelerator. We have partnered with many accelerators to pre-qualify startups, though you still need to complete our application. See our current list.

Ask yourself nine important questions! Here’s what we look for in a winning application:

  1. Are you incorporated?
  2. What is the makeup of your team? Do you have a leadership team dedicated to the effort full time?
  3. Do you have a CTO and developers who can hit the ground running once you get access to the data? 6 months go by quickly.
  4. Do you have any funding or revenue today? This is not deal breaker for us but it is nice to see if you have convinced someone else of your product.
  5. Do you have a built-out alpha product ready to demo?
  6. What is your use case for FinTech Sandbox data? We look for a well-defined use case.
  7. Are you interested in specific products our partners provide?
  8. Are you aware that during the program, you can not use data from our partners to make money in a production setting? Data from our partners is used solely for testing and product development.

Selection Process:

  1. Application We accept startups on a rolling basis. Once you’ve submitted an application below, we will review qualifications and data use case, and provide a response within 3 - 5 business days.
  2. First round interview If we are interested in moving forward, we will contact you via email to arrange a first-round interview. This initial interview provides an opportunity for us to get to know you, your product and your team.
  3. Second round interview We will notify you regarding participation in a second-round interview. The second-round interview requires that you present a 15-minute live product demo to members of our board.
  4. Review We will review your application at the culmination of this process, and notify you of acceptance into the program.

When You’re Here:

Our program is virtual. Daily activity and data partner interactions occur via our Slack, GitHub and email platforms. We produce many in-person events across the US throughout the year, including annual Demo Days which provide 7-8 selected program participants an opportunity to showcase their financial solutions to our curated FinTech community.

 

Submit your application here.

Please contact us at info@fintechsandbox.org with any questions. Thank you!