TechQuartier’s Digital Finance Accelerator Kicks Off in Frankfurt with Game-Changing FinTech Startups

Pictured: 2025 Batch participants with Abraham Shodiya and Sven Haferkamp (left), coach and trainer.

TechQuartier has revealed the 15 startups selected for its 2025 TQ Accelerator: Digital Finance. This year’s cohort brings together innovative seed to series A companies from Germany, Ukraine, Sweden, France, Luxembourg, Israel, and the U.S., all working at the forefront of digital transformation in the financial sector.

With a strong focus on embedded finance, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and sustainability, the selected startups are ready to tackle the industry’s biggest digital challenges.

The accelerator, officially launched on May 20, 2025, is powered by a strong network of program partners, including Baker McKenzie, KPMG, Helaba, ING, VR Payment, GFT, Deka, Visa, and EY. These corporations will collaborate closely with the startups to co-develop solutions for challenges ranging from regulatory hurdles and data fragmentation to deploying cutting-edge technologies.

The curriculum was co-designed by startup founders, innovation leaders, and Entrepreneurs in Residence, including:

• Nicola Breyer (Open Finance & Data Expert),

• Marc Lampe (Founder & CEO Miss Moneypenny Technologies),

• Lars Markull (Embedded Finance Advisor),

• Ryan Mol (Head of Fintech Central Europe, Visa),

• Dr. Christian Reichmayr (Managing Director & CPO, fino.digital),

• Dirk Rudolf (Former Founder, Advisor & Investor),

• Philip Schwaab (Chief AI Officer, Helaba), and

• Miriam Wohlfarth (Founder & Co-CEO, Banxware).

The 15 Selected Startups:

1. AZZUR (Berlin & London) - Frontend to Fintech, Orchestration Layer, Embedded Finance
   Founders: Philipp Buschmann, Martin Damaske
   
   The last decade in FinTech was about innovation and tooling. Today, delivering solutions is about re-bundling from 26,000 FinTechs. This is complex. The next decade belongs to those who make innovation accessible, effortless and transformational.
   AZZUR is the easiest access for brands to seamlessly integrate financial products to increase customer value.

   
   

2. AQUATY (Münster, Germany) - Private Markets Digitization & Tokenization
   Founders: Sebastian Otutuama, Robert Jeggle, Alexander Grimm
   
   At AQUATY, we are transforming private markets with our fully digital securitization platform. We empower asset and wealth managers to seamlessly and efficiently securitize private assets, like venture capital, private equity, real estate, and debt, into bankable securities with ISIN numbers.
   Our cutting-edge technology reduces transaction costs and complexity, making private market transactions almost as efficient as public markets. Just as Nasdaq revolutionized stock trading, AQUATY is delivering a "Nasdaq moment" for private markets, unlocking new levels of accessibility and efficiency.
   Our core belief is simple: the best assets, founders, and projects deserve access to the best funding and financing. By bridging innovation, technology, and capital, AQUATY is paving the way for a more efficient and inclusive private market ecosystem."
   
   

3. Become.1 (Heidelberg, Germany) - Flexible Employee Benefits & HR Tech Automation
   Founders: David Wambsganss, Friedrich Villhauer
   
   become.1 makes employee benefits simple and stands for minimal effort for employers with maximum flexibility for employees!
   The HR department is relieved through integrations into existing systems such as HR software or payroll accounting. Employees can decide for themselves, through a modular cafeteria system—how the employer’s benefits budget should be used based on their individual needs. Minimal effort not only through APIs but also through automation and digitalization of benefits processes - plus the consolidation of all benefits in one place.
   
   

4. BRIDGEWISE (Israel & Worldwide) - AI-powered investment intelligence
   Founders: Gaby Diamant, Dor Eligula, Or Eligula, and Mor Hazan
   
   BridgeWise is a global leader in investment intelligence, with a mission to bridge the gaps in the capital markets by making investment opportunities accessible to everyone, everywhere. BridgeWise is transforming how investors and institutions access and interact with financial information through innovative AI-powered solutions, including equity and fund analysis, multilingual insights, and actionable investment tools.
   BridgeWise covers over 90% of global equities and funds, empowering investment decisions in 15 languages and supporting over 50 institutional clients serving more than 25 million users.
   With offices around the globe, including in Singapore, the UK, Japan, Dubai, Thailand, and Israel, Bridgewise partners with leading global financial organizations including Japan Exchange Group, B3, eToro, Market Rebellion, Nasdaq, London Stock Exchange Group, Rakuten, KBank, TASE, SIX, and Interactive Brokers.
   
   

5. Congrify (Munich & San Francisco) - Financial Data Aggregation
   Founders: Marco Conte, Alexander Durkov
   
   Congrify is a payment observability and intelligence solution for merchants and payment service providers. We offer no-code modules to allow professionals working with payments to unlock revenues, optimizing costs while ensuring correct financial reconciliation.
   
   

6. CrowdUkraine (Niedersachsen, Germany) - Crowdinvesting, Blockchain
   Founder: Alexander Tebbe
   
   CrowdUkraine is launching the first EU-regulated crowd-investing for the sustainable reconstruction of Ukraine. We are building 20 co-living and co-working residential hubs using modular wooden construction that meets modern environmental (ESG) standards. These hubs will serve as innovation centres, designed to strengthen Ukraine’s IT and startup ecosystems — helping to rebuild the country stronger, smarter, and more connected. Crowd Ukraine is also the first startup registered in the German federal government’s investment guarantee program for Ukraine, with €5 million in capital coverage against war-related risks, specifically allocated to reconstruction investments.
   
   

7. Dateio (Prague & Frankfurt) - API & Platforms, Customer Engagement
   Founders: Ondrej Knot, Ivan Dovica
   
   Dateio is a fast-growing Fintech empowering with data-driven customer interaction. It is the largest payment-data based platform in Europe, connecting 18 banks with 600+ merchants, engaging 8 mio. customers in its reward program.

   The Dateio Platform is shaping the future of banking and retail through innovative use of purchase data. Our ecosystem connects banks and merchants, transforming interactions and enhancing customer experiences. At the heart of our ecosystem is a seamlessly integrated rewards program for mobile banking apps, coupled with a sophisticated targeted marketing and customer lifecycle management tool for merchants. We provide real and relevant purchase data to unlock new opportunities, ensuring our partners stay ahead in a rapidly evolving market.

   Our mission is to make banking more engaging and rewarding by enabling banks to build stronger, more joyful relationships with their customers. Through our ecosystem, we drive customer satisfaction, loyalty, and revenue growth, creating a positive impact for both banks and merchants.
   
   

8. Econans AB (Sweden) - Sustainable Finance
   Founders: David Klamer, Tobias Lewandowski
   
   

   The platform for banks to accelerate the energy transition of buildings. Powered by reliable data for analysis and reporting.
   Through a white-label solution for banks, we support end customers in simulating their energy use and provide advice on concrete measures for their energy renovation. The bank can offer its green lending and increase its green asset ratio. Our solution also efficiently supports the bank in its ESG reporting.
   
   

9. Jared (France) – Smart financial assistant for personal finance education and equity.
   Founders: Alexi Perrino, Christophe Marle, Fabrice Croiseaux
   
   Jared supports individuals in defining and reaching their financial goals, while offering professionals a scalable and qualified client acquisition channel. By intervening upstream—at the stage of need identification and goal setting—Jared enhances financial accessibility and optimizes engagement. Through a combination of technology and behavioral insights, we position financial inclusion as a lever for sustainable growth.
   
   

10. JoS Quantum (Frankfurt, Germany) – Quantum OS for secure finance applications.
    Founders: Markus C. Braun, Niklas Hegemann
    
    JoS QUANTUM is a German quantum AI boutique developing software and algorithms for quantum technologies. Our flagship product, JQM, is an operating system specifically for quantum computers and networks. Alongside our IP creation in the field of quantum algorithms, we provide expert advisory services for governments, public and private companies, and financial institutions.
    
    

11. Lemonway (France & Germany) – Regulated payment solutions for marketplaces and platforms.
    Founders: Damien Guermonprez, Antoine Orsini, Sebastien Burlet
    
    Lemonway is a pan-European payment institution offering a secure, compliant, modular payment solution for marketplaces and crowdfunding platforms. With over 500 clients, it supports digital platforms in their growth by ensuring regulatory compliance and the smoothness of their financial transactions. Lemonway processed €10.5 million in processed volumes in 2024. Our goal is to be a leading player in the new economy through our world-class, regulated, unified payment solution for marketplaces and alternative finance platforms across Europe. Today, 150 experts based in Paris and Hamburg support our clients daily in building the future of payments together.
    
    

12. Ozank (Berlin, Germany) – Integrated financial platform for Europe’s expat community.
    Founders: Arnab Ghosh, Shivam Chaudhary
    We’re building an integrated financial hub tailored for Europe’s expat community — combining money management, a curated marketplace, and essential financial and lifestyle services, all in one seamless app designed for life abroad.
    
    

13. Quantilia (France) – B2B analytics platform for portfolio transparency and ESG reporting.
    Founders: Laurence Fauchon, Florian Garvier
    Quantilia is a B2B fintech platform that helps financial institutions gain deeper data granularity and ensure high data quality for analyzing and monitoring their investment portfolios. We provide tailored solutions to support advanced portfolio transparency, risk and performance analysis, and ESG reporting—empowering better decision-making across asset classes.
    
    

14. Research AI (Luxembourg) – AI-powered regulatory compliance integrated with Microsoft 365.
    Founders: Darren Douglas, Dattaraj Devane
    
    Regsearch AI is redefining compliance by turning complex regulatory text into living logic frameworks, mapping obligations to internal controls, identifying gaps, and generating audit-ready reports. The result: compliance that is explainable, scalable and always on.
    From AML/CFT and the EU AI Act to ISO/IEC 42001 and Operational Resilience, we help organizations stay aligned with evolving global standards while cutting manual effort by over 90%. Fully integrated with Microsoft 365 and secured in Azure, Regsearch AI is available exclusively via Microsoft AppSource.
    Built for compliance teams. Powered by AI. Ready for quantum.
    
    

15. Synapze (Landshut, Germany) – Privacy-first TinyAI automation for finance operations.
    Founders: Rohit Bhosale & Julian Hohenadel
    
    Synapze, the makers of TinyAI provide the financial services industry with an AI solution that can be deployed on-prem or in the private cloud, making it privacy compliant. Since TinyAI models are "Tiny" they do not require GPU's to infer, making them cost-effective while being 10x faster than most LLM's. We have proudly enabled use cases where we have helped financial services institutions save up to 75% of process cost by adopting TinyAI in their existing process automation tools. Some of the use cases enabled, that we are proud to be part of, are back office process automation, onboarding automation, lending process automation, amongst many others.
    
    

Innovation & Collaboration Focus

The 2025 TQ Accelerator: Digital Finance is about meeting the right people and the collaborations between visionary startups and established industry leaders. By fostering innovation in embedded finance, AI, and sustainable finance, TechQuartier is laying the groundwork for a more connected, efficient, and inclusive financial ecosystem in Frankfurt's Financial Center.