Village Capital, a leading venture development organization, has launched applications for its FinTech: India 2017 programme, that will find, train and invest in early-stage fintech companies across India. The programme is being supported by PayPal, a leading digital payments company, and FMO, the Dutch development bank.

Despite a surge in the use of mobile payments following demonetization last year, 80 per cent of transactions in India today are still carried out in cash. Approximately 70 million bank accounts across the country are inactive and 19 per cent of the Indian population is unbanked. A credit gap of $334 billion exists for small and medium sized enterprises across the country, as business owners struggle to find flexible, affordable financial products to help them to manage and grow their businesses.

To address these challenges, Village Capital, in collaboration with PayPal and FMO, is looking to support early-stage fintech ventures building India-specific solutions to the country’s unique challenges in financial inclusion. After an extensive application and selection process, Village Capital will select 12-15 companies to undergo a highly personalized, three-month non-residential programme focused on investment-readiness.

The selected companies will participate in three four-day workshops where they will work with Village Capital’s award-winning investment-readiness curriculum and engage with potential customers, strategic partners, investors, and sector experts. At the end of the programme, the top two companies in the cohort, as selected by their peers, will receive an investment offer of  $50,000 each.

Applications are now open at http://vilcap.com/program/fintech-india-2017/. Startups can apply till Oct. 6th, 2017!