Introducing Plaid Accelerate's Second Cohort

Plaid’s mission is to unlock financial freedom for everyone. In order to do so, we believe it’s vital for those building the future of financial services to reflect the rich diversity of the consumers who can benefit from that innovation. That means supporting founders who are representative of a range of backgrounds and experiences that can contribute to more access and choice when it comes to consumers’ financial lives.

In 2021, we launched Plaid Accelerate, an incubator program designed to support early-stage founders who are Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC). Our goal is to provide tactical, hands-on assistance and create a supportive community for founders that can help impact the future of financial services. It was an enriching experience that inspired us to expand the Plaid Accelerate program to include two new cohorts for 2022. 

Introducing our first 2022 cohort

This year we’re excited to welcome founders from four early stage startups who are tackling critical problems with innovative technology. These promising companies span a range of use cases but all will no doubt contribute to a fairer, more equitable financial system that works harder for consumer outcomes. Companies include:

• Dollarito is a digital lending platform that helps the low-income Hispanic population with no credit history or low credit scores access fair credit

• Kaoshi develops APIs that enable cross-border financial services needed by immigrants in their home countries - remittance, health insurance, financing etc.

• Portabl is building an OS for universal financial identity 

• Pyroscope is open-source performance monitoring software which helps companies minimize cloud costs and debug performance issues

Each Plaid Accelerate program is specifically tailored to the needs of each cohort. The first cohort of this year begins the bootcamp tomorrow, with the program running until June. The programming will be geared towards helping very early stage fintech companies with products not yet generally available (GA), who are potentially preparing for a seed or Series A funding round. 

Reflecting on our inaugural cohort

We also want to thank our inaugural 2021 cohort, which was composed of five amazing founders from a range of industries. It was inspiring to work with these founders over the course of our first program as they navigated fundraising, built and released new apps and products, and defined new revenue models and sales strategies, among other accomplishments. 

What’s next:

The first Plaid Accelerate program this year will kick off tomorrow with a four-day bootcamp consisting of 15 workshops covering topics from navigating the policy and regulatory environment to defining a marketing and communications strategy. Following this immersive experience, founders will receive ongoing support from dedicated Plaid mentors and the broader Plaid team, external Legal and Policy partners, our investor partners, and a trusted network of fintech partners. 

Our second cohort will take place from July to December supporting startups that are slightly farther along in their growth with products released in GA, beta, or with meaningful traction and, if relevant, preparing for a Series A or B funding round. 

Thanks to our partners

None of this would be possible without the support of our Plaid Accelerate partners, who have dedicated countless hours helping founders optimize for success. These partners include venture firms, law firms, technology companies, and more. A full list can be found below. 

We hope that you’ll join us in celebrating the founders building a support network and community through the Plaid Accelerate program. Getting started is often the hardest part of building a company, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to serve as an accelerant for a more inclusive, varied and representative fintech ecosystem.