Biowatch wins VISA IoT challenge at Mobile World Congress 2017
08.03.2017
The Internet of Things (IoT) continues to present entrepreneurs with some of the biggest challenges and brightest opportunities since the dawn of the digital era. This year, Visa’s third annual Everywhere Initiative—an innovation platform and competition designed to harness new thinking from within the startup community and encourage the development of the “next big thing” in payments—heads to Europe for the first time.
 Matthias Vanoni, Biowatch CEO
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To introduce the larger Everywhere Initiative to European audiences, five contenders, Biowatch, Evopark, Kwik, Maintool and Wia participated in a live competition in Barcelona during Mobile World Congress in front of about 130 Visa clients and business partners. Their challenge? Address how startups can better integrate payment solutions with IoT devices to create a more seamless commerce experience.
Switzerland-based startup Biowatch was selected as the winner on the strength of their payments pitch using its vein pattern technology, which allows NFC payment and authentication via a Bluetooth-enabled watch. Visa awarded Biowatch a €25,000 cash prize for winning the competition. Biowatch’s win also enabled them to enter in the larger European competition, where they will compete for €50,000 to run a pilot program with Visa or in partnership with Visa’s clients while also potentially getting mentorship and access to Visa APIs.
About Biowatch
Biowatch is a venture leader Technology 2015 and the public's choice of the Swisscom Startup Challenge 2016. The Martigny and IDIAP Institute based startup is also a Venture Kick Alumni.