FinovateEurope 2022 is less than a month away, and innovative fintechs from all around the world are gearing up to demonstrate their latest technologies live on the Finovate stage. Find out more about our annual European fintech conference, including how to register and save your spot as Finovate returns to live events in Europe for the first time since 2020 next month on March 22 and 23.

One of the goals of every company demoing their solutions at Finovate is to win a coveted Best of Show award. This honor is granted exclusively by our Finovate attendees who evaluate every company on stage and select only those innovators whose technology is most impressive and, potentially, impactful. To give you a sense of the kind of companies to win this award, here’s a look at the FinovateEurope Best of Show winners from the previous two years – as well as an update on what they’ve accomplished since winning their award.

2021

Dbilia earned a Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2021 for its platform that enables creatives and influencers to sell digital memorabilia. The New York-based company was featured in the July edition of MarTech in a look at the rising NFT trend.

Property investment platform Proptee, also a Best of Show winner in its Finovate debut last year at FinovateEurope, raised more than $57,000 in seed funding in December from Lebenheim Capital and Steep VC.

Continuous product design innovator Quantum Metric was among the Finovate newcomers to earn a Best of Show award at FinovateEurope 2021 last March. Since then, the Colorado Springs, Colorado-based company has announced the availability of its solution on Salesforce AppExchange, and forged partnerships with Korea Air, iGaming operator BetVictor, luxury fashion brand La Perla, experience management software company Qualtrics, and video-based human insight innovator UserTesting.

2020

If 2021 was the year Finovate audiences showed their appreciation for conference newcomers, 2020 marked the year when veteran Finovate alums earned their place in the spotlight. Four of the companies that won Best of Show at FinovateEurope in that pre-pandemic year – Dorsum, Glia, iProov, and W.UP – picked up their second awards in a row (or more) having taken home Best of Show honors at the previous year’s conference in 2019.

Investment software provider Dorsum followed up its second, FinovateEurope Best of Show award in 2020 with the formation of a new business consulting unit a few months later. In the fall of 2020, the company introduced a new Chief Business Development Officer Bálint Fischer, and launched a new subsidiary in Poland in July of the next year. This month, Dorsum announced that it had joined Fintech Belgium, a community of financial services and fintech professionals as part of what the company called its “next step (toward) venturing into Western Europe.”

Digital customer service innovator Glia has been one of Finovate’s most popular demoing companies in recent years, with multiple Best of Show wins in Europe and in the U.S. Earlier this month, the company announced a partnership with insurtech leader Sureify, integrating its capabilities into Sureify’s Lifetime platform. In 2021, Glia reeled in $78 million in funding, and earned recognition from Deloitte with a spot on the firm’s Technology Fast 500 for the second consecutive year. Among the company’s new partnerships forged in 2021 were collaborations with Kasisto, Posh, Apiture, Liberty Bank, fellow Finovate alum Clinc, and Zensar.

Horizn, which specializes in helping financial institutions and their employees maximize and accelerate their digital transformation efforts, earned the first of its Best of Show awards at FinovateEurope in Berlin in 2020. The company announced a partnership with Pacific Western Bank at the beginning of this month, powering the Los Angeles, California-based financial institution’s newly launched digital learning platform.

Biometric authentication company and FinovateEurope veteran iProov earned its third Best of Show award at our European fintech conference in 2020. The company secured $70 million in funding from Sumeru Equity Partners to start this year and, earlier this month, was granted a patent to extend its Genuine Presence technology to include driver’s license and government ID verification. Named to the Deloitte Fast 50 of the fastest growing technology firms in the U.K. last year, iProov reported a record 2021 in which the company achieved revenues that were 3x the previous year’s results.

Sonect demonstrated its global platform for cash transactions during its Finovate debut in Berlin in 2020, winning a Best of Show award. The company, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, enables users of its technology to withdraw cash via smartphone at any one of its 2,500 partnering retailers. Last summer, the company announced that its service would be available to customers in the U.K., following its participation in the U.K. Finance Community Access to Cash Pilots Initiative. In October, Sonect announced that it had raised more than $5 million (EUR 4.65 million) in funding from Italian Angels for Growth to bring its cash access solution to Italy.

Budapest, Hungary-based digital banking solution provider W.UP is another FinovateEurope favorite, having been awarded Best of Show in each of the last three FinovateEurope events. The company offers a personalization platform which leverages data to help institutions offer better banking services. In October of 2021, the company merged with BSC of Czechia to form a new company Finshape that is dedicated to driving digital transformation in banking in Europe.

Photo by Nicole Rathmayr from Pexels