Digital receipts platform ReceiptHero will join Mastercard’s Lighthouse Development Program in September. The Helsinki, Finland-based company made its Finovate debut earlier this year at our Berlin conference, demonstrating how its digital receipts technology makes accounting easier for banks and PSPs while giving customers greater transparency into their spending.
ReceiptHero is one of 15 companies from the Nordic and Baltic countries to be included in the program’s fall cohort. Participating startups will work with program partners such as Swedbank, SEB, and OP Bank, and receive guidance on topics such as communications and marketing, as well as strategic development. The startups also will explore potential collaboration opportunities with program partners. In the final stage of the program, the companies will have the ability to make digital pitches to investors.
“By joining the latest Lighthouse batch, we hope to work closely with Mastercard and its partnering banks on making digital receipts the new normal,” ReceiptHero CEO Joel Ojala said.
Also participating in the fall program are five companies from Sweden: Gimi, Charge, Youcal, Ponture, and FossID; and five companies from Lithuania: Kevin, ConnectPay, Regvolution, Spell, and Savings Pands. In addition to ReceiptHero, there are another four companies from Finland: Voima Gold, XMLdation, Arctic Security, and InvestSuit.
“In every edition of the Lighthouse Program, we can see that the Nordics and Baltics are genuinely leading in payments innovation,” Head of Digital Development and Fintech Engagement for Mastercard in the Nordics and Baltics Mats Taraldsson said. “This proves the importance of strengthening the ecosystem through open innovation platforms such as Lighthouse.”
Founded in 2018, ReceiptHero teamed up with Verifone last fall, enabling digital receipts to be linked to customers’ payment cards. Verifone has a major presence in the Nordic region, and the partnership allowed ReceiptHero to access not only a larger part of the Finland market, but also to expand to other Baltic countries where Verifone “already has a large footprint,” Ojala said. Later that same month, ReceiptHero announced a collaboration with Nordea, which added the company’s digital receipts to its Nordea Wallet app.
ReceiptHero began 2020 with a pledge to plant one million trees by 2025 by donating $1 to conservation charity One Tree Planted for every new merchant that joins its digital receipt platform.