Plug and Play Celebrates Successful Completion of Second Inclusive Fintech Accelerator

SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 11, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Plug and Play, a global innovation platform that accelerates over 2,500 startups annually, has announced the successful conclusion of Cohort 2 of the Inclusive Fintech Accelerator, a program designed to support diverse founders building innovative financial technology solutions that promote an inclusive financial sector.

Cohort 2 began in January 2025 and accepted 13 startups from regions across the United States (California, Chicago, Florida, New York and Oklahoma) and Canada (Ontario). The program has engaged in curated mentorship from payments and fintech experts, hands-on workshops, and tailored business development support.

"We're proud to support this extraordinary group of founders who are tackling some of the most pressing challenges in financial access and inclusion," said Dominique Reese, Director of Social Impact at Plug and Play. "These startups are not only redefining fintech, but they're also reshaping the financial futures of the communities they serve."

The accelerator culminated in a high-impact in-person Expo during the Silicon Valley Summit on June 11, 2025. The session was attended by investors, corporations, and fintech leaders from across the ecosystem. The cohort represented a diverse cross-section of fintech focus areas, including money movement, consumer banking and lending, buy now, pay later, the CFO suite, embedded finance, and more.

Throughout the program, Plug and Play facilitated over 300 valuable introductions between startups and major financial institutions, corporations, and investors, laying the groundwork for future investments and commercial partnerships.

Congratulations to the 13 startups from Cohort 2 for completing the program:

• Arro – Arro is a credit card and AI-powered financial health platform that gamifies credit through goalsetting, financial literacy, and AI-coaching for members and institutions.
• Partnerspace – PartnerSpace is an AI-powered platform designed to help companies secure high-value partnerships 10x faster.
• Foode – Foode is a mobile-first platform that transforms every dining experience into an opportunity.
• Lifehub (Electus) – Lifehub is the first Learn-to-Earn Super App that fuses financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and career/work readiness education with income-earning opportunities and banking-style tools.
• Lipaworld – Lipaworld has created a solution that helps the global African diaspora to earn, spend, and send using a digital voucher marketplace and our P2P Stablecoin wallet.
• Luci – Luci is an AI-powered automated CFO solution that guides small business owners to success.
• Muse – Muse is a B2B API-based platform that leverages AI to offer tax and financial insights to payroll companies, banks, and credit agencies.
• OKY – OKY develops innovative technologies to help immigrants improve their lives by connecting families as they send value cross-border back home easily
• Plata – Plata is the financial platform modernizing payroll management and cross-border remittances for Latinos in the US and LATAM through employer partnerships.
• Squadtrip – Squadtrip is an all-in-one SaaS platform that simplifies group travel planning by allowing organizers to create trips, collect payments, and manage bookings seamlessly
• Uglycash – Uglycash is a banking and remittances platform for Latinx & their families across the Americas.
• Uplinq – Uplinq leverages 10,000+ unique data sources, and AI insights from over $1.4 Trillion lent, to deliver credit decision support for small business lenders worldwide.

Following the success of Cohort 1, which saw one startup secure a commercial deal within six months, six companies integrate enterprise financial literacy assets, and over $4 million in funding raised, Cohort 2 is already showing strong early traction and is on track to achieve similar impactful results.

To learn more about the program, visit https://pnptc.in/inclusivefintechaccelerator. 

About Plug and Play

Plug and Play is the leading innovation platform, connecting startups, corporations, venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we're present in 60+ locations across five continents. We offer corporate innovation programs and help our corporate partners in every stage of their innovation journey, from education to execution. We also organize startup acceleration programs and have built an in-house VC to drive innovation across multiple industries where we've invested in hundreds of successful companies including Dropbox, Guardant Health, Honey, Lending Club, N26, PayPal, and Rappi. For more information, visit https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/.  

Plug and Play Media Contact

Jacky Tsang

Senior Communications & PR Associate

press@pnptc.com 

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SOURCE Plug and Play