A Cambridge MBA team consisting of Oliver Tromp, Dhananjay Dixit, Michael Rees and Vaibhav Nasery were declared winners of the 2021 edition of the McKinsey Venture Academy.
This prestigious social venture competition saw over 70 teams across the UK compete with their socially focused ventures for the chance to receive up to £10,000 in seed funding and ongoing consulting support from McKinsey.
The Cambridge MBA team presented their venture idea, ‘Givin’.
Givin is a dynamic new FinTech platform that enables US millennials to use their spare change to provide microloans to small businesses in developing countries. With Givin, user transactions are rounded up to the nearest dollar, and pooled to provide microloans for Indian small business owners. By linking these two groups, Givin provides Indian small business owners access to much-needed funding, while also removing key barriers that are keeping US millennials from engaging in charitable or sustainable causes.
The team has been working on the venture since the beginning of their MBA in September 2020. An early version of the Givin concept even previously made it to the finals of the INSEAD Product Games in December 2020. The team was very excited to enter the McKinsey Venture Academy, as it provided a chance to develop a product that makes a tangible positive impact on the world while receiving world-class mentorship from the Mckinsey team. The McKinsey Venture Academy provided an excellent space to hone the business model, development road map, and financial viability of the venture. Furthermore, it provided a great arena to practically apply the entrepreneurship and product management experience gained over the course of the Cambridge MBA.
The team is passionate about making a positive difference and believes in the potential of technology-enabled businesses in generating social impact. Over the course of the next few months, the team is poised to leverage the seed funding and mentorship from the McKinsey Venture Academy (MVA) to complete their MVP and begin a beta launch of the platform.
Stay tuned!
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