In early April, the AgeTech Collaborative™ (ATC) team joined hundreds of other participants for the annual New York FinTech Week, a leading industry conference featuring a host of keynote speakers, panel discussions, master classes, demos and networking opportunities, to discuss and showcase all things FinTech.
Over the three-day event, the ATC teamed up with Empire Startups — an ATC Business Service — to co-present events that explored the challenges and unique opportunities presented by solutions at the intersection of AgeTech and FinTech.
Financial Wellness Pitch Day
On Day 1 of the event, ATC and Empire Startups hosted Financial Wellness Pitch Day, a featured event giving six FinTech startups an opportunity to show off their AgeTech-friendly products and services to 400 investors and other attendees.
Sasha Spellman, ATC’s director of customer success, opened the event with remarks highlighting the Collaborative’s conviction that supporting FinTech solutions can help older adults better manage their finances and budgets in order to more effectively plan for the future — which is becoming ever more important as people live longer. She also noted that pitch events like this one are a primary way that the Collaborative identifies the best and brightest candidates to join the ATC ecosystem.
Six companies then made their pitches, each having five minutes to do so. Following each pitch, startups received live feedback and questions from the judges and the audience, which often sought clarity on areas such as the business’s pricing strategy and market share, how they can differentiate themselves from competitors, and their plans for distribution and gaining traction in the market.
After all six startups pitched, the judges conferred to choose a winner while the audience voted for their top choice. The audience choice went to Flourish FI, a digital platform that empowers people to develop better money habits.
Elise Downes of ATC
For the winner, the judges selected SpendCare, a spend management program designed exclusively for home care agencies to protect their clients, their caregivers, and the agency itself from financial misuse and misunderstandings. The company received a $10,000 cash prize, plus an opportunity to demo their product on stage later in the week. In addition, SpendCare may now be considered for participation in the AgeTech Collaborative Accelerator Program.
AgeTech Collaborative™ Roundtable
On Day 2, ATC again partnered with Empire Startups to host a series of roundtable discussions. More than 50 of the top FinTech and AgeTech innovators — including leading startups, investors, financial service providers and enterprises — discussed the latest trends in wealth management and personal finance, and how technology can improve financial wellness as people age.
Attendees broke out into five-person groups for the first of two 35-minute roundtable discussions. Each group was led by two ATC team members to facilitate the conversation. After voting on topics, participants had lively, rapid-fire discussions on issues ranging from emerging tech, investment trends and education to wealth transfer and go-to-market strategies. Discussions revolved around specific questions such as:
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Which traditional financial products need to evolve to secure a stronger retirement position for the aging population?
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How do we accelerate collaboration and partnerships among stakeholders in the AgeTech ecosystem, such as technology firms, financial institutions, healthcare providers, government bodies and nonprofits?
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How will an aging population leverage generative or conversational artificial intelligence (AI)?
Roundtable participants discuss FinTech and aging
At the end of both sessions, attendees provided their top insights from the discussions. Their takeaways pointed to a deep interest in leveraging AI technology to solve pressing issues for older adults such as social isolation, fraud prevention, and retirement education and planning. There was also a call for continued collaboration between startups, enterprises, testbeds, venture capital organizations and others in the broader AgeTech and FinTech ecosystems.
Demo Day
Day 3 of the event featured a broad range of on-stage programming, including notable sessions such as:
- Master Class: Building Trust in FinTech
- Debate: Who Will Win the AI Race, FinTechs or Incumbents?
- Fireside Chat: Catching the Wave: Exploring the Next Generation of Innovation in Payments
- Panel: The Only Guarantee Is Death, Taxes and FinTech
William Glass of Ostrich
The Collaborative also made a splash on the stage with demos featuring two ATC startup participants in the FinTech space: Ostrich, which provides a mobile app that enables people to achieve their financial goals based on their life milestones; and Manifest, which makes it easy to consolidate disparate retirement accounts. SpendCare, winner of the Financial Wellness Pitch Day earlier in the week, also participated. Each startup had seven minutes to demo their solutions, followed by five minutes of audience Q&A.
Meanwhile, at the AgeTech Collaborative™ exhibit booth, our team spent the day speaking with great companies doing interesting things with finance and AgeTech, and sharing how we as an ecosystem are connecting the leading minds at the forefront of the longevity economy. It was a terrific week of collaboration with Empire FinTech, ATC participants, and the broader FinTech community.
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