Mastercard invests in Poland, opening a “startup factory” together with The Heart
November 28–29th, 2018: During the Impact fintech’18 conference, Mastercard and The Heart announced the inception of The Heart Ventures. Together with the largest corporations, the new business unit will create new technology startups, including the ones that develop value-added services for banks.
“Poland is an important market for Mastercard and an increasingly important innovation center in Europe. We are glad that we will be able to develop and implement state-of-the-art technologies here,” says Bartosz Ciołkowski, Country Manager Poland, Mastercard. “Together with The Heart and partners, we will build new companies and open global markets for them,” he adds.
The first five companies, which are to be launched by The Heart Ventures, will start operating next year, in sectors such as insurtech, fintech and retailtech.
“Nowadays, innovations are created through cooperation. Strategic partnership with Mastercard gives The Heart Ventures access to unique know-how and the ability to develop solutions with global potential. By working together, we are able to comprehensively support corporations that are trying to transform their businesses and develop new projects in an agile way,” comments Tomasz Rudolf, CEO of The Heart.
Maciej Marszałek became the head of The Heart Ventures. Previously, he was Chief Digital & Data Officer at AXA Group in Madrid supervising the process of digital transformation on 29 markets in South America, Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
“Implementing new business models in a corporation is difficult, time-consuming and often associated with resistance within the organization itself. The Heart Ventures combines the agility of a startup with unique corporate resources. Such a combination makes it possible to bypass organizational barriers while maintaining the ability to rapidly scale a new business,” says Maciej Marszałek, Managing Partner of The Heart Ventures.
The Heart Ventures will work closely with Mastercard Labs using the state-of-the-art technologies developed in 10 Mastercard research facilities around the world.
