FinTech Forum

Overview

FinTech Forum is a Frankfurt am Main event series and startup-scouting community for FinTech and InsurTech companies, launched in 2013 by Frank Schwab and Samarth Shekhar and run by the advisory firm TechFluence Consult UG. It is a conference and networking programme — not a company, an accelerator or an award: selected startups pitch to an invited audience of investors, banks and insurers. The numbered flagship series ran from the 1st FinTech Forum in November 2013 to the 13th on 18 November 2021, alongside a travelling FinTech Forum On Tour format staged in Berlin, Vienna and London. Across 22 events the organisers report 360-plus startups selected and 1,800-plus investor and corporate participants. No numbered edition has been publicly staged since November 2021, though the community operation remains active.

Why this entity matters

FinTech Forum matters for structural rather than promotional reasons. It was among the earliest organised meeting points for German-speaking FinTech at a moment when the sector's centre of gravity was assumed to sit in London: the first edition in November 2013 put roughly twenty DACH startups in front of banks and investors in Frankfurt, and German trade coverage of the period called it the first initiative of its kind in the region. In June 2014 the inaugural Wall Street Journal and Financial News FinTech 40 list named both co-founders as innovators shaping the future of finance. It then produced an alumni cohort that can be traced rather than asserted: Tangany, CommneX and My Football Space appear both on the published agenda of the 12th FinTech Forum in November 2020 and in Startuprad.io founder coverage weeks later. Its selection has consistently favoured business-to-business and infrastructure FinTech over consumer neobanking, making each cohort list a useful sample of what DACH banks and corporate investors were evaluating. At the nineteenth event, in March 2019, the organisers said the 280-plus startups selected to that point had raised more than EUR 600 million as of end-2018, an organiser-reported figure that is not independently audited.

Programme history and format

The series began as an idea discussed between Frank Schwab and Samarth Shekhar over a breakfast meeting at the Frankfurt Airport Club in July 2013; the two first mapped the German-speaking sector, identifying more than a hundred startups, and published the result as the first DACH FinTech study. The 1st FinTech Forum D-A-CH followed in November 2013, with around twenty startups pitching to investors and financial institutions, and editions then ran roughly twice a year: the 2nd in May 2014, the 3rd in November 2014, the 4th in April 2015 — which the organisers said sold out a month in advance — the 5th in Vienna in June 2015, the 6th in November 2015, the 7th in April 2016 and the 8th in November 2016. The 9th, in September 2017, marked four years; the 10th, on 22 November 2018, marked five years with a panel on German FinTech and outside backers featuring Acxit Capital Partners, Earlybird Venture Capital, Finch Capital and CommerzVentures. The 11th followed on 19 November 2019, the 12th ran fully online on 19 November 2020, and the 13th on 18 November 2021 combined streaming with an in-person component. FinTech Forum On Tour ran thematic editions from 2015 to 2021 on robo-advice, InvestTech, travel, telecoms and deep tech, staged in Berlin, London, Bonn and Frankfurt and closing with a virtual US and EMEA edition with SixThirty Ventures in 2021. Since 2014 the programme has also published a weekly newsletter, now branded B2B FinTech at Scale, pairing a European FinTech deal round-up with a Q and A with a founder or investor; that series is still publishing.

Role in the DACH startup and technology ecosystem

FinTech Forum is DACH-native and Frankfurt-anchored, which is precisely its ecosystem function. It emerged as Frankfurt am Main was building a FinTech identity distinct from Berlin's consumer-startup scene, and Frankfurt Main Finance has called it a nucleus of a Frankfurt FinTech ecosystem since 2013. It ran in parallel with the build-out of Frankfurt's other financial-innovation institutions, with Accelerator Frankfurt, Helaba Digital and KfW Capital all appearing on its participant lists. Its cohorts read as a register of DACH institutional FinTech: German companies including growney, CrowdDesk, Cashlink and Tangany; Swiss entries including Sonect, neon and aisot; and Austrian entries including Trality. The 5th edition, staged in Vienna in June 2015, shows the D-A-CH in the original name was operative rather than decorative. Its audience has included Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Helaba Digital, KfW Capital, High-Tech Gründerfonds and Swisscom Ventures. Presenting is a scouting decision by the organisers and is not an endorsement.

Selected relationships and affiliations

Co-founders: Frank Schwab, a Deutsche Bank executive for about twenty years — latterly chief innovation officer — and later CEO of Fidor Solutions and of GIZS; and Samarth Shekhar, founder of TechFluence in 2012 and since 2019 head of the EMEA presence of SixThirty Ventures. Both were named in the 2014 Wall Street Journal and Financial News FinTech 40. Operator: TechFluence Consult UG. Michael Mellinghoff, managing director of TechFluence UK, has appeared as moderator and interviewer at editions including the November 2018 anniversary edition and the March 2019 On Tour edition, but is not named as a co-founder on the organisation's own About page. The listed advisory bench includes Chris Berger of Finnoconsult and Johannes Weidelener of Heussen Law. Institutional partners across editions include Frankfurt Main Finance, the UK Department for International Trade and IDA Ireland.

Startuprad.io relevance

FinTech Forum sits in the Startuprad.io graph as a DACH FinTech convening node rather than a market participant, and is one of the few entities linking the founder-interview archive to a datable, published cohort list: because each agenda names the presenting startups and the investors in the room, a founder interview can be anchored to the month a company was scouted. Five Startuprad.io posts are recorded against it: three founder-facing pieces on 12th FinTech Forum presenters and two annual FinTech Review editions.

Public source context

Sources: the About page http://www.fintechforum.de/about-us/ , with the founding account and team biographies; the event archive http://www.fintechforum.de/events/ ; the On Tour chronology http://www.fintechforum.de/ontour/ ; and the latest-updates feed http://www.fintechforum.de/category/latest-updates/ , showing the weekly deal round-up and interview series still publishing. Audience, alumni and capital-raised figures are organiser-reported.

Startuprad.io coverage of FinTech Forum

FinTech Forum appears in the following Startuprad.io interviews, analysis and long-form profiles.

My Football Space Connects Fans with Clubs Globally
Published: 03 February 2021
Last updated: 14 August 2026
Coverage type: Analysis
https://www.startuprad.io/post/my-football-space-connects-fans-with-clubs-globally

Tangany Offers a White-Label Custody Solution for Crypto Assets
Published: 01 February 2021
Last updated: 14 August 2026
Coverage type: Analysis
https://www.startuprad.io/post/tangany-offers-a-white-label-custody-solution-for-crypto-assets

Meet CommneX a Market Place For Public Finances
Published: 25 January 2021
Last updated: 14 August 2026
Coverage type: Interview
https://www.startuprad.io/post/meet-commnex-a-market-place-for-public-finances

Startuprad.io's Fintech Review 2020
Published: 15 March 2026
Last updated: 27 August 2026
Coverage type: Quarterly Review
https://www.startuprad.io/post/startuprad-io-s-fintech-review-2020

Fintech Review 2021 — Germany, Austria, And Switzerland (GSA)
Published: 24 December 2021
Last updated: 14 August 2026
Coverage type: Quarterly Review
https://www.startuprad.io/post/fintech-review-2021-germany-austria-and-switzerland-gsa

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Canonical record: https://www.startuprad.io/entities/fintech-forum