From building digital banks for Black small business owners to creating investment clubs on your phone, seven startups join Mastercard Start Path program

JULY 14, 2022

Latest class includes three early-stage startups with underrepresented founders and four late-stage fintech innovators looking to scale their businesses

Mastercard is expanding its award-winning Start Path startup engagement program to include seven early and late-stage startups hailing from the United States, Canada and Latin America. Carbon Neutral Club, Guava, oneKIN, Palla, SUMA Wealth, Truora and Yunit are the newest Start Path companies that are embedding climate action into company culture, powering the future of retail for small businesses, simplifying the user experience on key digital channels and more.

Within the latest class, Guava, oneKIN and Yunit will join the Start Path In Solidarity pathway launched in 2021, which is exclusively dedicated to supporting early-stage startups led by traditionally underrepresented fintech founders. This programming is part of Mastercard’s commitment of $500 million in products, services, technology and financial support to help close the racial wealth and opportunity gap. All Start Path companies receive dedicated support and mentorship from Mastercard, access to customers and product teams to help build, deliver and scale solutions, and uncover unique opportunities to co-innovate.

“As we continue our eight-year legacy of successful collaboration with startups around the world through Start Path, we’re thrilled to welcome seven bright companies into the program whose beliefs and ambitions match our own,” said Blake Rosenthal, executive vice president, Fintech & Segment Solutions at Mastercard. “The companies we selected are on the pulse of what’s next and together we can create an ecosystem where everyone thrives by scaling technology and innovation with trust and security at the center.”

The following startups are joining the newest Start Path class:

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• Carbon Neutral Club: A workforce-focused sustainability platform that lets your employees calculate, offset and reduce their personal carbon footprints.
• Guava: A banking and networking platform for Black creators, entrepreneurs and small business owners.
• oneKIN: A mission-driven company focused on providing small businesses with creative and cost-effective technology solutions to help them compete in the digital landscape and grow sustainably.
• Palla: A platform that enables international peer-to-peer payments on cards from the United States to Latin America in seconds, instead of hours or days.
• SUMA Wealth: A fintech devoted to increasing prosperity and opportunity for young Latinos through culturally relevant financial tools, content and experiences that empower the community to build wealth and control their financial future.
• Truora: A technology company that simplifies user interactions from marketing to user acquisition and ensures constant communications with digital users.
• Yunit: An enterprise service management platform that allows users to participate in investment groups directly on their mobile phone. 

These startups will join the growing network of more than 300 companies that have graduated from Start Path since 2014, with notable alumni entering the public markets, reaching unicorn status, and pursuing extended commercial engagements with Mastercard and its customers.

Start Path is a key program within the Mastercard Developers portfolio, which provides a single point of entry for any fintech company to access the APIs, services and tools they need to iterate at each stage of their journey, transform bold ideas into reality, and achieve scale at a fast pace.

Interested later-stage startups can apply for future Start Path Global classes here. Early-stage startups can apply for the In Solidarity program here.