The Lang Cat ‘AdviceTech Catwalk’ competition opens for entries

The Lang Cat’s AdviceTech Catwalk competition, which is aimed at early-stage startups in the advice technology space, has opened for entries.

The Dragons’ Den-style competition entry deadline has been set as 13 April, after which five firms will be shortlisted to compete and showcase their offerings at an event in London.

This is the third year The Lang Cat will be running the AdviceTech Catwalk, with the winner to be decided by an adviser audience at the event.

The Lang Cat said those with the best chance of being shortlisted were startups and early-stage tech firms with technology built for advice professionals that is something new or different.

While artificial intelligence (AI) continues to dominate in the tech space, and the consultancy expected it to feature prominently in the competition, it said any form of tech that aims to improve financial advice was welcome.

Previous winners of the competition included Tikker and Zerokey.

“It has been great to watch Catwalk grow over the past three years and I think it’s a testament to the industry's commitment to innovation,” commented The Lang Cat CEO, Mark Polson.

“We like to treat this as an opportunity for promising start-ups who are not getting the attention they deserve to get in front of advisers and signal the direction in which advice could head.

“This is not a pay to play competition, we want to give attention to those incubating great ideas, but who are not yet able to access the traditional channels.

“For advisers, ultimately it is their vote that decides it, so Catwalk is an excellent an opportunity to witness where those with a stake in it believe the industry is going.

“AI dominates the conversation in AdviceTech and, in many ways, rightly so. But we also know there’ll be many early-stage fintechs with exciting ideas that also deserve an opportunity to have that five minutes to display their wares alongside AI.

“We would love to see technology of all shapes and sizes getting involved, all we ask is that you are new and consequential.”

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