LendPilot Wins Fourth Annual Babson Fintech Startup Pitch Competition
Martin Mejia ’26 won the fourth annual Babson Fintech Startup Pitch Competition and received $2,000 in cash prizes for his fintech idea, LendPilot. Utilizing the power of artificial intelligence forecasting, LendPilot is a fintech platform seeking to help early-stage small businesses manage cash flow and build credit history.
Hosted by the Stephen D. Cutler Center for Investments and Finance, the pitch competition featured students from the undergraduate and graduate fintech courses taught by Linghang Zeng, associate professor of finance. As part of their class projects, students collaborated to develop a fintech startup idea and assess its potential for success using course concepts.
A total of 27 student groups presented their ideas. The top five groups, as voted by classmates, showcased their startup ideas to a panel of fintech professionals.
Placing second was the graduate duo of Rosemary Abowine MSF’25 and Rebecca Mintah MSF’25. They received $1,500 for their idea, UniFi, which aspires to digitize and modernize the informal group savings practices in Ghana.
Graduate exchange student Kavin Rathakirushnan placed third and won $1,000 for his idea, AdvisorMate, which strives to simplify workplace complexity by automating tasks from client outreach to meeting compliance.
The competition’s panel of fintech professionals included Sarah Biller, executive director at Vantage Ventures and cofounder at Fintech Sandbox; Peter Gordon MBA’96, head of cash and money movement at Fidelity Investments; Jerry Shu, cofounder at Daylit; and John Reed Stark P’26, president at John Reed Stark Consulting. For the second consecutive year, the cash prizes were doubled thanks to a generous donation from Stark and his wife, Stefanie P’26.
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