As we bask in the afterglow of Fintech Nexus USA 2023, it seems about the right time to reflect on Fintech Nexus’ esteemed PitchIt competition.
Over the year, hundreds of startups submitted applications for consideration. Whittled down to 14 semifinalists, founders took the Fintech Nexus USA 2023 stage to search for the final winner.
“PitchIt has always been my favorite part of the event. You learn so much from founders, and you get a sneak peek into what’s coming next,” said Todd Anderson, Chief Content Officer at Fintech Nexus and host of the PitchIt podcast.
The competition was tough, spanning a wide breadth of sectors, but a winner had to be crowned. This year’s contest reigning champion was Momnt, an embedded lending solution for businesses to provide low friction financing at consumers’ point of need.
“This was by far our best and toughest competition to date. There were more than 100 outstanding applicants, with Momnt rising above them all to be crowned champion,” said Anderson. “PitchIt proved once again that fintech has a bright future.”
So who is the startup that trumped them all?
Introducing Momnt
Momnt is laser-focused on reducing friction for merchants and their customers in the loan process.
“We’re a lending platform that is really capturing the value of the transition to embedded lending,” said Chris Bracken, CRO of Momnt, during their semifinal pitch.
“Where we are today is truly embedded living. That means that financial service is offered within the existing flows, within that current time so that the consumer can access the financial service or the financial product in that exact moment of need.”
The moment of need is pivotal to Momnt’s solution. Partnering with community banks, the company executes the descisioning process for the customer in a matter of minutes. Currently focusing on the “high intent” sectors of home improvement and elective medical treatment, they intend to streamline the loan process in one, all-encompassing embedded API.
“We have really three constituents that we serve today. Consumers, merchants, and lenders,” continued Bracken.
“For our consumers, we’re enabling access to high-quality loan offers to pay for the product or service they need when making a decision. We are really seeking out those consumers making high intent, high dollar purchases around their home or health care.”
“For merchants. We enable them to offer financial services to the consumer when they’re selling their product or service, and we see merchants greatly benefiting from the ability to provide financing.
“For our lending partners, we’re delivering high-quality consumer loans. And this is truly a new digital channel for relationships as well.”
Bracken explained that Momnt generally embeds directly into the merchant’s platform, so customers can apply and receive financing without exiting their website. He said this helps to create “stickiness” and improve their relationship with their customer base, helping them increase their average sale amount and frequency.
“From a credit perspective, our network relationships are extremely sticky, especially where they build on top of our platform. And then our data analytics and insights enable our partners to run their business better,” he added.
As a result of this approach, the startup saw skyrocketing growth through 2022, which they expect to continue.
“In 2022, we went from a million a month in lending to a million daily. And so far in 2023, we’ve more than doubled that,” said Bracken. “We expect to do well over a billion dollars in loan originations this year, all in high quality, high credit performance loan flow that benefits our lending partners across the platform.”
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