New Digital Assets and Cryptocurrency Startups Join Mastercard Start Path Program to Jump Start New Opportunities and Solve Real-World Problems
December 09 2021 - 7:00AM
Business Wire
From NFT-based rewards programs to innovative
banking platforms and services, five new global cryptocurrency and
digital assets startups join Mastercard’s award-winning program
As interest in cryptocurrency and digital assets continues to
rise, a new cohort will join the Mastercard Start Path Crypto
startup engagement program dedicated to exploring and solving real
world problems for people and businesses around the world using
blockchain technology. Mastercard announced today the five new
startups joining the program are Ava Labs, Envel, Kash,
LVL, and NiftyKey.
Through this program and across the entire Mastercard Developers
portfolio, the company provides an express lane for fintech
companies of all sizes to build, launch and grow. Mastercard is
continuously opening up more services and offering new state-of-the
art tools so builders and dreamers from anywhere in the world can
engage with Mastercard, rapidly innovate, and take new solutions to
market at pace.
Through this unique program, these companies will connect with
Mastercard’s ecosystem of partners across the globe to expand and
accelerate blockchain technology innovation. They will explore new
value-added services and blockchain protocol development
opportunities to make it safer and easier for people, businesses,
and developers to innovate and grow.
The new participants selected for the program are:
- Ava Labs – Ava Labs makes it simple to launch
decentralized applications on Avalanche, the fastest smart
contracts platform in the blockchain industry by time to finality.
The Avalanche blockchain provides a fast, low cost and eco-friendly
platform to develop solutions for decentralized finance, enterprise
use cases, digital collectibles, and more.
- Envel – Envel® is an artificial intelligence-powered
mobile banking app that thinks for you by automating budgeting,
payments, savings and investments in real-time. Envel is seeking to
integrate USDC stablecoin and blockchain technology into its
platform.
- Kash - Kash provides a peer-to-peer platform designed to
make it easy and cheaper for people to save, invest and spend
through the power of decentralized technology. Kash is exploring
opportunities to solve for financial freedom to save, invest and
protect against inflation, and build wealth with high-interest
savings using stablecoins.
- LVL – LVL is an all-in-one Bitcoin banking app where
people can buy and sell Bitcoin for free, get paid through its
banking platform, pay for goods and services using the LVL-issued
Mastercard, and learn how to easily invest in Bitcoin.
- NiftyKey – NiftyKey is a crypto rewards platform
connected by Boson Protocol. It enables financial institutions to
offer loyalty products and services to their customers using
non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NiftyKey’s NFT-based loyalty rewards
program bridges the metaverse and the physical world using Boson
Protocol's redemption infrastructure, which empowers companies to
reward physical and digital products in the metaverse as NFTs.
Jess Turner, executive vice president of New Digital
Infrastructure & Fintech at Mastercard says, “The past year has
seen incredible momentum in the world of crypto assets, from the
explosion of NFTs to the piloting of central bank digital
currencies in countries across the world. As we look to what’s
next, it’s all about finding new use cases and problems blockchain
technology can solve for now and in the future. Whether it’s
enhancing financial freedom or a new value-added service using
stablecoins, we believe our new cohorts of Start Path crypto and
digital assets companies combined with Mastercard’s expertise in
the space will accelerate access to new ways to pay and prioritize
choice for consumers and businesses.”
The new cohort is a key part of Mastercard's strategy in the
digital assets space. The program will focus on ideating and
solving real world problems using blockchain technology to provide
access to value-added services and innovative offerings.
Blockchain, digital asset or crypto companies looking to join
the Start Path portfolio are encouraged to apply to the
program.
About Mastercard (NYSE:MA):
Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments
industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital
economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions
safe, simple, smart and accessible. Using secure data and networks,
partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help
individuals, financial institutions, governments and businesses
realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ,
drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our
company. With connections across more than 210 countries and
territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks
priceless possibilities for all.
www.mastercard.com
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211209005339/en/
Media: Katie Priebe, Global Communications, Mastercard +1
(914) 707-9822 | Katie.Priebe@mastercard.com
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