Throughout the three years of dedicated ongoing research in the FinTech space, the LTP team has explored, defined and shaped the global FinTech startup ecosystem unlike anyone else. Eventually, LTP established the foundation to build MEDICI – the ultimate FinTech platform for collaborative innovation with almost 5000 startups profiled (and the number is growing). We have written about and covered a wide spectrum of startups in our articles on LTP, and our global team has extensive experience interacting with startups and exchanging ideas on a daily basis.

MEDICI is the only FinTech engagement platform that provides domain-specific insights and research along with contextual engagement. It is a powerful tool to accelerate a company’s growth strategy through quick identification of target companies for a commercial relationship, partnership, investment or acquisition.

Having built such an extensive network and developed an expertise in FinTech across segments, at the end of May, we announced the MEDICI Top 21 – Blockchain Awards in order to identify and showcase the most innovative startups who are applying distributed ledger technology to take innovation across industries to the next level.

The MEDICI Top 21 – Blockchain Awards were launched to recognize the best blockchain startups in the world selected from around 50+ applications from around the world. Now, after rigorous screening and evaluation by industry professionals and our in-house experts, the LTP team is delighted to announce the winners – top 21 blockchain startups across three regions (EMEA, APAC and Americas).

Evaluation criteria

In recent years, the international startup community has grown rapidly. It has brought some of the most talented people together to reboot the global financial system and built solutions that will have a tremendous impact across other industries. It certainly made the task of extracting the A players more difficult, but the results were worth the effort as the LTP team was able to structure the global blockchain ecosystem and find companies building the future of financial services.

The evaluation was based on a multitude of points, including the stage of development of the products/services companies provide, position in the market and relevant network (partnerships, commercial use, etc.), how impactful the solution is in the financial services industry (disruptiveness/ uniqueness/usability of blockchain). The bigger list that we started with included companies that applied through MEDICI (30+ rocket profiles) and those preselected by the MEDICI evaluation team. Companies that applied via MEDICI and filled rocket profiles got some extra points from the evaluators as decided earlier.

Moreover, internal and external professionals evaluated business models on the indication of the evidence of product/market fit as well as examined the significance of business and technical risks. Teams behind the evaluated startups were screened for the right experience and advisors they were able to secure along with the investors and the infrastructures of projects. Financials and awards were also among the factors taken into consideration in the evaluation process.

Unveiling the international leaders applying blockchain technology to build the next-gen solutions

The Top 7 Blockchain Startups in the Americas:

Digital Asset Holdings is a technology company that provides tools that use distributed ledgers to track and settle both digital and mainstream financial assets in a cryptographically secure environment, where counterparty risk is minimized and settlement times are drastically reduced.

Ripple provides infrastructure and transaction protocols that enable banks to provide financial settlements at lower costs. This is done by enabling banks to transact directly, instantly and with the certainty of settlement.

Stellar is a technology that enables money to move directly between people, companies and financial institutions, for free, instantly, in any currency.

Loyyal is a universal loyalty and rewards platform that has been built with blockchain and smart contract technology.

Bitwage is an international wage payment service that leverages the bitcoin blockchain for faster, cheaper international wage payments to contractors and freelancers without requiring the sender to sign up.

Factom uses blockchain-based identity ledgers in database management and data analytics to support various applications.

Uphold, formerly known as Bitreserve, is a cloud-based money platform. It connects banks, credit and debit cards and bitcoin to digital wallets for free financial services and transactions. Businesses and consumers can fund their Uphold accounts via bank transfer or by linking a credit/debit card in addition to bitcoin.

The Top 7 Blockchain Startups in EMEA:

Ethereum is a public blockchain platform with programmable transaction functionality. It provides a decentralized virtual machine that can execute peer-to-peer contracts using a crypto asset called Ether. Ethereum can be used to codify, decentralize, secure and trade just about anything: voting, domain names, financial exchanges, crowdfunding, company governance, contracts and agreements, intellectual property, and even smart property.

Everledger provides an immutable ledger for diamond identification and transaction verification for various stakeholders, from insurance companies to claimants and law enforcement agencies.

Monetas has developed a platform which allows 1) Central banks to issue digital legal tender, 2) Financial service providers to offer digital wallets to customers, and 3) Customers to make transactions by smartphone, instantly, affordably and securely. This new financial infrastructure utilizes cryptographic technologies so that everyone—from merchants and distributors, to consumers, enterprises and governments, banks and other financial service providers—can make transactions that are cheaper, more efficient and safer than ever.

Quasar is a digital cash solution by Quantoz that provides the infrastructure for instant payment and transaction settlement between enterprises, people and the Internet of Things, compliant with regulations.

Remitsy is a next-generation payment service provider for global commerce. They enable businesses to send and receive payments in local currency by using distributed database technology (blockchain) as a new settlement rail.

BitFury is a bitcoin infrastructure provider and blockchain transaction processing company. It designs and develops its own full custom ASIC silicon chips, printed circuit boards (PCB), servers and data centers and runs one of the largest operations in the world in data centers in Iceland and the Republic of Georgia.

Epiphyte develops enterprise software allowing banks and other financial institutions to integrate with the bitcoin and crypto-finance industry. Epiphyte provides a range of turn-key SaaS products in addition to consulting and regulatory services.

The Top 7 Blockchain Startups in APAC:

BitNexo helps cross-border SMB commerce companies pay for goods & services between Asia and Latin America quickly, securely, and with low fees by using blockchain technology.

CoinPip is a B2B blockchain-based payment service for businesses, helping them make cheaper and faster payments to vendors, suppliers and remote workers.

Algorythmix is a blockchain-based startup building financial, insurance, IOT, cybersecurity and collaboration applications. Currently, the company is in beta phase.

Coins.ph enables money transfers through the use of mobile devices and blockchain technology. The company provides mobile wallet to the consumers and small businesses.

Quoine is a bitcoin exchange platform facilitating bitcoin trading with multi-currency deposits such as JPY, USD, EUR, SGD, HKD, IDR, PHP, AUD. It also offers services such as an e-wallet, a virtual vault and a bitcoin payments platform for online and offline merchants.

Streami uses blockchain technology partnering with financial institutions for seamless transfer of funds/information.

BitOcean, which makes bitcoin automated teller machines (ATM), was started in 2013 in China and Japan. The company is working on setting up a new O2O bitcoin trading platform solution.

Benefits for the winners

The MEDICI Top 21 Winners will be presented to our 150+ partner financial institutions, FinTech investors and accelerators.

The MEDICI Top 21 Winners will be showcased to the LTP audience of 60K+ FinTech professionals worldwide.

The MEDICI Top 21 Winners will have exclusive access to our panel of LTP mentors to discuss growth strategies and opportunities.

Stay tuned for the upcoming InsurTech Top 21 Awards.