Cypriot fintech to take part in PwC startup programme

Cypriot fintech company WiRE, which mainly operates in the real estate market, announced on Wednesday that it has been accepted to participate in PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) UK’s Scale programme.

PwC’s Scale programmes, in their various guises, aim to help startups accelerate their growth by utilising PwC’s resources, including having access to their network, being introduced to a new customer base, individual support and coaching, as well as by being taught new ways to increase sales.

“Our FinTech programme acts as a platform to allow Financial Institutions and FinTech companies to work closer together and focus on progressive benefits for the industry,” PwC said about that particular guise of the Scale programme.

To qualify for the programme, participating companies must prove that they have a validated product, show that they are already generating revenue, and be approaching Series A and beyond, meaning that they are almost ready to enter their first round of venture capital financing.

The Cypriot company is only one of eight companies from around the world to have been accepted to the programme, qualifying after a comprehensive review of 700 organisations that had applied to participate.

WiRE CEO Pavlos Loizou stated that the company’s admission to the programme represents a success in two distinct ways.

“Firstly, because they embraced our vision of bringing a pioneering approach to real estate market data analysis at the European level, both for real estate investors, as well as for building insurance, conducting climate risk assessment, and the stratification of other data held by companies and organisations,” Loizou said.

“Secondly, because the trust shown to us by an organisation which has utilised and is making full use of technology to compete in multiple industries, constitutes a powerful driving force for us to implement our ambitious plans forward,” he added.

Regarding the company’s functions, these include supporting real estate investors, financiers, insurers, as well as those marketing products and services to households, by using data to help them make more informed decisions about their future actions.

These can influence decisions pertaining to mortgages, real estate, insurance, marketing, and government. Solutions include bulk file licenses, property data APIs, and real estate market trends, among others.

“WiRE stood out among hundreds, as its selection was based mainly on the innovative approach to multi-source property characteristics, environmental risk, natural hazard, economic, and neighbourhood data for residential and commercial properties, progressively covering the entirety of Europe,” the company said in a statement.

Alongside the Cypriot company, other participating startups include Sedicii, Resistant AI, Outseer, RiskSave Technologies, EvoluteIQ, Albany Group, Insig AI and Panthera Solutions.

Finally, some of the programme’s alumni include Heliocor, an award-winning Regtech company delivering solutions to the financial services industry; Abaka, an AI-recommendation engine that helps businesses predict the Next Best Action that will most likely activate a customer response, as well as business-to-business enterprise technology firm EyesClear.