Tech Nation has revealed the 23 scaleups accepted onto its 2019 FinTech growth programme, delivered as part of HM Treasury's Fintech Sector Strategy.

In its second year, the six-month programme aims to help some of the most promising UK FinTech companies accelerate their growth and scale at speed at home and abroad. Starting on 24 October, the bespoke programme is specifically designed to connect and create opportunities for the founders through a series of in-depth insight sessions, networking events with key stakeholders and a three-day international showcase trip to the US.

Following the call for applications in June, the successful companies were selected by a panel of expert judges from all over the UK, including Eileen Burbidge, partner at Passion Capital and chair of Tech Nation; Anne Boden, chief executive of Starling Bank; and Richard Theo, chief executive of Wealthify and FinTech envoy for Wales.

The judging process requires applying companies to be at a stage of development equivalent to seed or Series A, have a product in market used actively, and be headquartered in the UK. This year also saw business to consumer companies accepted on to the programme for the first time.

The new cohort features scaleups an average of £3.6 million in funding raised, representing a 277 per cent increase from last year’s cohort.

Of the 23 companies, 40 per cent are based outside of London - compared to 35 per cent last year - and 40 per cent have at least one female co-founder. The cohort covers eight cities and towns outside London, including Durham, Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool, Liskeard, Cardiff and Leeds.

The companies selected provide products and services across a range of sub-sectors, including most predominantly small business finance, payments, capital markets, as well as retail investing, consumer credit and lending.

Mike Jackson, entrepreneur success director at Tech Nation, commented: “The companies in this year’s cohort have demonstrated significant promise as future FinTech leaders, and with the global FinTech market expected to be worth nearly £250 billion by 2023, they will play a vital role in supporting the UK to remain at the head of the global pack.”

The cohort is as follows:

Tumelo - Bristol
A socially responsible investment firm, providing visibility so investors in funds and pensions can see exactly where their money is going, and help shareholders have influence to create lasting change.

Anna Money - Cardiff
A business account and debit card with invoicing and tax reminders. For freelancers and small businesses, it’s ideal for SMEs that use light commercial vehicles for their work.

Honcho Markets - Durham
A reverse-auction electronic marketplace for the distribution of financial services products, letting vendors compete in real-time, open and transparent auctions to win a consumer’s business.

Paid - Durham
The company has created simple workflows and business management that sits alongside the ability to get paid as soon as work is completed.

Incuto - Ilkley
A platform for credit unions, community banks and lenders, transforming them into community-focused challenger banks, making ethical lenders relevant, accessible, sustainable and efficient.

Duesday - Liskeard
A firm that helps utilities, leisure clubs and the housing sector with bill collections and loyalty offers via a core payments platform integrated with the UK payments networks.

tickr - Liverpool
A platform for people who want to invest, but want to have a positive impact on society and the environment at the same time, with as little as £5.

PrimaryBid - London
A deposit saving tool which helps users choose the best savings accounts and predicts the time it will take to save the required amount.

Nivaura - London
A digital investment banking solution aiming to defragment and vertically integrate capital markets by automating the issuance, administration and the entire life cycle of financial instruments.

Trade Ledger - London
A digital banking platform that gives banks the ability to assess business lending risk in real time using machine learning, open APIs and robotic process automation.

TradeCore - London
A platform-as-a-service provider that lets FinTechs build next-generation banking and investment products.

Fractal Labs - London
An API-based intelligence platform focused on small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) banking, providing a targeting engine for financial institutions to better service their clients.

Molo Finance - London
A fully-digital mortgage lender bringing together a real-time mortgage decisioning engine with an easy online application process designed by and for customers.

Heliocor - London
A regulatory compliance software business that uses artificial intelligence to help financial services companies to risk manage, tailor and automate onboarding clients and then monitor their transactional activity in real time.

9fin - London
Using artificial intelligence to extract key data and insights from financial documents, organising and understand fixed income financial data, making it easier for investment professionals to search, filter and analyse.

SteadyPay - London
A socially aware credit service providing financial wellness to those paid by the hour/gig, smoothing out workers’ income, giving them consistency across pay cycles.

HighCastle - London
A blockchain-based share registrar and investment marketplace, which provides the end-to-end infrastructure and legal framework for offering, issuance, distribution and trading of private securities.

Credit Kudos - London
A credit reference agency selling credit scores to UK lenders, using Open Banking data to increase accuracy, whilst widening the pool of borrowers to those previously excluded by traditional credit scoring methods.

GoodBox - Manchester
Serving the charity sector by providing a single point of entry to a full range of fundraising solutions, from contactless hardware, to a platform enabling charities to analyse their fundraising.

Kani Payments - Newcastle
A FinTech reporting and reconciliation platform, which consumes data from a client’s transactional processor, card scheme, bank account; transforming these complex streams into tangible outputs.

Smarterly - London
A firm that works with employers to allow people to save directly from their pay, often with a contribution boost as a more accessible complement to pensions.

Paybase - London
A flexible payments solution for marketplaces/gig economy platforms and FinTechs, combining payments, compliance and risk management, allowing businesses to reach market quickly.

Apexx Fintech - London
A payment platform that connects enterprise to multiple acquiring banks and payment providers to drive up payment acceptance and lower costs.

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