Kathmandu, October 13, 2017: A promising Nepali fintech company Khalti has won Google Business Group’s (GBG) 2017 ‘Story Search’ contest.
Khalti along with three other startups viz. Cafe Yagam from Philippines, Riliv from Indonesia and Virtualahan from Philippines were announced winner of the annual global competition for the year 2017. This year’s winners were selected from a total of nine global finalists. Along with Khalti, Eco Cell Industries, and Khaalisisi from Nepal had made it to the top 9 of the global competition organized by Google Business Group.
Along with winning GBG stories search, Khalti has also been declared the People’s Choice Winner.
Khalti is a digital wallet which allows instant, secure and quick online payments in Nepal. It is working to empower people in Nepal financially by driving the country towards a cashless economy. It envisions to ensure digital financial inclusion for every citizen in Nepal — connecting people across the Himalayan mountains to technology which allows them to digitally receive and make payments for services.
Every year, as a part of its effort to spotlight entrepreneurs who’ve taken their businesses online, GBG invites thousands of its global members to participate in a storytelling competition and share how the Internet and technology empower them to do extraordinary things.
Announcing the result for this year, Google in a blog said,
These four businesses had stood out among submissions received from GBG members and independent entrepreneurs across 17 countries. All four will have the opportunity to travel to Google headquarters in Mountain View, California for Google I/O in 2018 where they’ll get to meet tech thinkers, innovators, and business leaders. They’ll also be spotlighted in videos that document their stories, so stay tuned for those in an upcoming blog post.
Elated after winning the competition, Khalti co-founder Manish Modi said,
We are honored to have won the global competition alongside the three amazing startups who are contributing immensely to bring market disruptions in their respective countries. It’s good to be recognized for what we are doing for the development of digital payment system in Nepal. It shows Nepali startups are globally competent and help set an example in Nepal for other youths to pursue entrepreneurship, develop the system, and bring a boom. We are excited about the fact that the entire world and will be able to see our story, that will further help the growth of Nepali entrepreneurial scenario.
“As the winner, we have got to get associated with Google, which is a really a big feat. We are getting an opportunity to directly interact with the fintech leaders at Google, and get feedbacks from them for further development. It will surely help us a lot,” Manish added.
Earlier in 2014, Yellow Nepal, another Nepali startup company had also won the GBG Story Search contest.
 2017 ‘Story Search’ contest.){kind=link}