FinTech Pitch Competition: how to win £27,000 worth of prizes for a start-up
In June we, together with UK FinTech EValue, put together a FinTech pitch competition for ambitious fintech start-ups. There were prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place worth a significant £27,000 and hopefully bringing them much closer to their goals of success. The chosen finalists would be pitching to a panel of expert judges from across the industry receiving invaluable feedback and a video to take away of the pitch with a critique.
Now, as the winners were chosen and the work is underway delivering the competition prizes, we want to recall the event one more time to share our impressions and the specifics of the event you may not know yet. It may even contain some insight that could make you win in the next one!
To get it first-hand we asked a few questions to Evgeny Scherbak, who took part in the selection process, and to James Greenhalgh, who was one of the judges on finals. Have a look at what we discovered.
Selection
How did the companies selection process go?
First of all, we announced the upcoming event across social media and press (link1, link2, link3, link4, link5, link6). We received a large volume of applications and once the deadline to submit the pitch decks was reached we began to individually assess the start-ups. The process was thorough to ensure a fair and challenging selection of the businesses who would be invited to pitch as part of the finalists on pitch night.
Throughout a 13-hour meeting involving the 4xxi leadership team (CEO, CTO, CPO, Vice-President, VP of Management, VP of QA) every pitch deck was assessed and graded on a 5 point scale.
What exactly were the factors used during the selection process?
To maintain fair but strict judging criteria we assessed the following aspects of the decks:
- Team
- Problem (which is matched with time factor (past problems, present, future)
- Market size (domestic, country-size, global)
- Solution (solve the problem or not, fresh or obsolete)
- Advantages (in comparison with competitors)
- Product (product-market fit)
- Traction
- Business Model (how good it correlates with the market)
- Clarity of deck
As a result, we built an objective picture of each business and identified the shortlist of finalists who we thought should be invited to pitch to a panel of judges for the chance to win. We then exchanged notes with our competition partner EValue and announced the final shortlist!
This approach is quite different than common standard when founders must convince the audience only throughout their short pitch and have no right for a mistake per se. Why did you decide to change the approach?
This endeavor allowed us to prepare ourselves and to avoid the situation when founders of fantastic products fail because they are not experienced in public speaking and don’t deliver the best pitch.
So, we created two components / layers of judging which the eventual winners needed to get through. Pitching was one part of that but there was also shortlisting to the final. With the number of applications received and without any dialogue with the founders before we met on the pitch night, in order to keep the shortlisting process fair we needed to remove any emotion and focus on objectiveness. Each pitch was reviewed from every dimension by a versatile team (for instance, CEO has one layer of knowledge, CTO can evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of technology stack choice, CPO is able to estimate a product-market fit and so on).
Finals
How the main event was organized? What format of presenting the startups had been chosen and why?
The event was hosted at our central London HQ. We had a mixed judging panel of financial services and technology thought leaders, investors and press to whom the finalists would pitch their business. The order of play was decided by drawing names from a hat and each finalist was given 5 minutes to pitch and then 5 minutes Q&A with the judges. The judges followed structured judging criteria with a 10 point scale, on top of how well the start-up handled the questions, objections and their overall presentation skills. The start-up with the highest points at the end was named as the winner on the night.
All the pitches were filmed and a critique was given to each finalist to take away from the night — hugely valuable when so much of getting your start-up off the ground requires acing your pitch.
Who was on the judging panel?
We’d decided to form a judging panel with people experienced in different parts of the business, so the judgment itself would be more objective fairer and more precise. On the Finals, the judging panel was represented by:
- Oliver Smith, Editor of AltFi.com
- Jason Butler, Financial Well-being expert and investor
- Andrew Storey, Propositions Director at EValue
- Chris Hudson, Chief Technical Officer at EValue
- James Greenhalgh, Senior Commercial Manager at 4xxi
- Nigel Hopkinson, Head of EMEA Operations at 4xxi
Name 3 most fatal mistakes competitors did during their presentations. Why so?
- Lack of Practice, the timer was strict. It was clear who had stood in front of the mirror with a stopwatch and practiced their pitch.
- Poor Content — make sure the information contained within the pitch is clear and concise and demonstrates exactly what problem you are trying to solve and how you are going to do it.
- Poor communication and presentation skills — where are you standing, do you know your deck, are your hand/body movements distracting, whilst its a high-pressure thing to do can you portray a feeling of calm in your tone and pace of delivery.
It looks like the judging was really strict. So, who was enough skillful, impressive and lucky to win?
A unanimous winner. Pension Lab Founder Scott Phillips presented a fantastic pitch! A well-rehearsed pitch which stopped exactly on the 5-minute timer and explained exactly why he founded the business and how they were going to be successful. All the questions from the judges were handled well and he had clearly thought through how and why winning this competition was exactly what his business needed! Congratulations Scott!
Indeed, congratulations Scott!
One last question James, were you satisfied with the Event and its results? Are there any plans for a future event yet?
Firstly, a huge thanks to everyone who took time and effort to apply or get involved in some way shape or form. It was a great success. So fantastic to see such a range of exciting fintech start-ups apply to the competition. There were five excellent pitches on the night, but congratulations must go to the winners. We are delighted to be able to contribute our services to help young businesses move forward. The door is always open to any of the brilliant companies who entered if they would like some advice, support or guidance. I believe it would be fantastic to run another event like this.
Thanks to our partners EValue who contributed to the winning prizes, without their inputs the competition wouldn’t have existed.
Thank you, James, Evgeny. That was an interesting conversation.
So, this is it! If it’s not enough, have a look at the highlights of the event caught by the videographer:
More links to the press:
